The Role of Noncognitive Skills in Explaining Cognitive Test Scores

Lex Borghans, Huub Meijers and Bas ter Weel

No 6, Research Memoranda from Maastricht : ROA, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market

Abstract: AbstractThis paper examines whether noncognitive skills — measures both by personality traits andeconomic preference parameters — influence cognitive tests performance. The basic idea isthat noncognitive skills might affect the effort people put into a test to obtain good results. We experimentally varied the rewards for questions in a cognitive test to measure to what extent people are sensitive to financial incentives. To distinguish increased mental effort from extra time investments we also varied the question’ time constraints. Subjects withfavorable personality traits such as high performance-motivation and an internal locus of control perform relatively well in the absence of rewards; consistent with a model in which trying as hard as you can is the best strategy. In contrast, favorable economic preference parameters (low discount rate, low risk aversion) are associated with increases in time investments when incentives are introduced, consistent with a rational economic model in which people only invest when there are monetary returns. The main conclusion is that individual behavior at cognitive tests depends on noncognitive skills.

Keywords: education, training and the labour market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
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Date: Written
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Related works:
Working Paper: The Role of Noncognitive Skills in Explaining Cognitive Test Scores (2006)
Working Paper: The Role of Noncognitive Skills in Explaining Cognitive Test Scores (2006)
Journal Article: THE ROLE OF NONCOGNITIVE SKILLS IN EXPLAINING COGNITIVE TEST SCORES (2008)
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