When implementing their career advice program, for example, AAC pre-registered a study to evaluate the effects of career advising calls on animals because of a lack of systematic evidence for this intervention (5). This study would not only help AAC evaluate their impact, but provide valuable data to other EA meta charities.
Yeah, this sounds useful. Currently my independent impression is that itās weird that EA orgs donāt do (lower-effort) versions that sort of thing more oftenāe.g., for a subset of applicants to receive advice or go through a program or whatever, randomise who gets it, then send out surveys afterwards to both groups. (I think this has been discussedāmaybe including by me? - in various places before, but I canāt remember where.)
But maybe there are good reasons Iām not aware of. And I know EA orgs do often at least do things like sending out surveys, just not necessarily hearing from people they didnāt end up giving the ātreatmentā to with (for comparison) nor randomising who gets the ātreatmentā.
Thanks, I found this post interesting.
Yeah, this sounds useful. Currently my independent impression is that itās weird that EA orgs donāt do (lower-effort) versions that sort of thing more oftenāe.g., for a subset of applicants to receive advice or go through a program or whatever, randomise who gets it, then send out surveys afterwards to both groups. (I think this has been discussedāmaybe including by me? - in various places before, but I canāt remember where.)
But maybe there are good reasons Iām not aware of. And I know EA orgs do often at least do things like sending out surveys, just not necessarily hearing from people they didnāt end up giving the ātreatmentā to with (for comparison) nor randomising who gets the ātreatmentā.