Helping Students to Succeed – The Long-Term Effects of Soft Commitments and Reminders

Raphael Brade, Oliver Himmler, Robert Jaeckle (jaeckle@ifo.de) and Philipp Weinschenk
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Robert Jäckle

No 11001, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: To study whether a soft commitment device can help students succeed, we conduct a randomized field experiment and follow a cohort of tertiary students over six years. Students can commit to following their recommended study program structure, and they receive reminders each semester. This easily implementable, low-cost intervention is highly effective: it increases the five-year graduation rate (+15 percentage points) and reduces time to graduation (-0.42 semesters), driven by reduced dropout and an increase in credits obtained per semester. The effects are stronger for suspected procrastinators. A treatment only reminding students to follow the program structure has limited effects.

Keywords: commitment device; reminders; higher education; randomized field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D90 D91 I21 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-exp, nep-nud and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11001

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