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

Economics of Education Review, 2021, vol. 85, issue C

Abstract: We analyze the impact on high-stakes assessments of incentivizing students’ effort in a field experiment with over 10,000 high school students. We contribute to the literature by using our rich data and machine learning techniques to explore treatment heterogeneity; by comparing financial and non-financial rewards in rewarding effort rather than grades; and by using high-stakes outcomes. We find little average impact of incentives in the overall population, but we identify a “right tail” of highly responsive students: in the upper half of the responsiveness distribution, test scores improve by 0.1-0.2 SD, about half the attainment gap between poor and non-poor students.

Keywords: Education; Effort; Incentives; High-stakes Assessments; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I20 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Understanding the Response to Financial and Non-Financial Incentives in Education: Field Experimental Evidence Using High-Stakes Assessments (2016)
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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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:85:y:2021:i:c:s0272775721001102

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2021.102195

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