Career choice motivation using behavioral strategies

Nicolás Ajzenman, Gregory Elacqua (), Diana Hincapie, Analía Jaimovich, Florencia López Boo, Diana Paredes and Alonso Román

Economics of Education Review, 2021, vol. 84, issue C

Abstract: Qualified teachers are a fundamental input for any education system. This paper presents the results of a large-scale intervention to attract high performing high-school students into the teaching profession in Chile. The intervention was a three-arm email campaign which made salient three types of motivations: intrinsic/altruistic, extrinsic, and prestige-related. The “intrinsic” and “prestige” arms reduced applications to teaching majors among high performers, while the “extrinsic” arm increased applications among low performers. A plausible interpretation could be that the “intrinsic” and “prestige” messages made more salient an issue that could otherwise be overlooked by high performing students (typically from more advantaged households), negatively impacting their program choice: that the social value of the teaching still lags behind other professions that are valued more by their families and social circles. In turn, the “extrinsic” arm made salient the recent improvements in the economic conditions of the teaching profession in Chile, thus appealing to low performing students who in general come from disadvantaged families and for whom monetary incentives are potentially more relevant. These results show that making salient certain types of motivations to the wrong target group could lead to undesired results.

Keywords: Priming; Identity; Extrinsic motivations; Prosocial behavior; Teaching career (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:84:y:2021:i:c:s0272775721000911

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2021.102173

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