Understanding the Response to Financial and Non-Financial Incentives in Education: Field Experimental Evidence Using High-Stakes Assessments

Simon Burgess (), Robert Metcalfe () and Sally Sadoff ()
Additional contact information
Sally Sadoff: University of California, San Diego

No 10284, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We analyze the impact of incentivizing students' effort during the school year on performance on high-stakes assessments in a field experiment with 63 low-income high schools and over 10,000 students. We contribute to the literature on education incentives by incentivising inputs rather than output, by focusing on high stakes outcomes, and by comparing financial and non-financial rewards. We take advantage of our large sample and rich data to explore heterogeneity in the effects of incentives, and identify a "right tail" of underperforming students who experience a significant impact on high stakes assessments. Among students in the upper half of the distribution of incentive effectiveness, exam scores improve by 10% to 20% of a standard deviation, equal to about half the attainment gap between poor and non-poor students.

Keywords: test scores; pupil incentives; pupil behaviour (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 59 pages
Date: 2016-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-exp, nep-hrm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Understanding the response to financial and non-financial incentives in education: Field experimental evidence using high-stakes assessments (2021)
Working Paper: Understanding the Response to Financial and Non-Financial Incentives in Education: Field Experimental Evidence Using High-Stakes Assessments (2016)
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