The effect of goal-setting prompts in a blended learning environment—evidence from a field experiment
Erwin Amann and
Sylvi Rzepka
Economics of Education Review, 2023, vol. 92, issue C
Abstract:
Previous literature has shown that task-based goal-setting and distributed learning is beneficial to university-level course performance. We investigate the effects of making these insights salient to students by sending out goal-setting prompts in a blended learning environment with bi-weekly quizzes. The randomized field experiment in a large mandatory economics course shows promising results: the treated students outperform the control group. They are 18.8% (0.20 SD) more likely to pass the exam and earn 6.7% (0.19 SD) more points on the exam. While we cannot causally disentangle the effects of goal-setting from the prompt sent, we observe that treated students use the online learning platform earlier in the semester and attempt more online exercises compared to the control group. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that higher treatment effects are associated with low performance at the beginning of the course.
Keywords: Natural field experiment; Blended learning; Behavioral economics; Goalsetting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D91 I21 I23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775722001042
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
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:eee:ecoedu:v:92:y:2023:i:c:s0272775722001042
DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102331
Access Statistics for this article
Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn
More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().