Nudging Study Habits: A Field Experiment on Peer Tutoring in Higher Education

Nicholas Wilson and Todd Pugatch

No 10784, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: More than two of every five students who enrolled in college in 2007 failed to graduate by 2013. Peer tutoring services offer one approach toward improving learning outcomes in higher education. We conducted a randomized controlled experiment designed to increase take-up of university tutoring services. Brief, one-time messages increased tutoring take-up by 7 percentage points, or 23% of the control group mean. Attendance at multiple tutoring sessions increased by nearly the same amount, suggesting substantial changes in study habits in response to a simple and inexpensive intervention. We find little evidence of advertising-induced tutoring on learning outcomes.

Keywords: behavioral response to advertising; human capital investment; peer tutoring; nudges; higher education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2017-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-edu and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: Economics of Education Review, 2018, 62, 151 - 161

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp10784.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Nudging study habits: A field experiment on peer tutoring in higher education (2018)
Working Paper: Nudging Study Habits: A Field Experiment on Peer Tutoring in Higher Education (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10784

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().