Grades and Rank: Impacts of Non-Financial Incentives on Test Performance

Nina Jalava (), Juanna Joensen and Elin Pellas ()
Additional contact information
Nina Jalava: Stockholm School of Economics
Elin Pellas: Stockholm School of Economics

No 8412, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: How does effort respond to being graded and ranked? This paper examines the effects of non-financial incentives on test performance. We conduct a randomized field experiment on more than a thousand sixth graders in Swedish primary schools. Extrinsic non-financial incentives play an important role in motivating highly skilled students to exert more effort. We find significant differences in test scores between the intrinsically motivated control group and three of four extrinsically motivated treatment groups. The only treatment not increasing test performance is criterion-based grading on an A-F scale, which is the typical grading method. Test performance is significantly higher if employing rank-based grading or giving students a symbolic reward. The motivational strengths of the non- financial incentives differ across the test score distribution, across the skill distribution, with peer familiarity, and with respect to gender. Boys are only motivated by rank-based incentives, while girls are also motivated by receiving a symbolic reward. Rank-based grading and symbolic rewards tend to crowd out intrinsic motivation for students with low skills, while girls also respond less to rank-based incentives if tested with less familiar peers.

Keywords: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation; effort; performance incentives; test-taking; randomized experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D03 I20 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 69 pages
Date: 2014-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cta, 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 (4)

Forthcoming - published in: Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2015, 115, 161-196

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Journal Article: Grades and rank: Impacts of non-financial incentives on test performance (2015)
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