 Obstacles as Building Blocks: Font Disfluency and Performance on Economics ExamsDiego Mendez-Carbajo and Franklin Mixon International Journal of Applied Behavioral Economics (IJABE), 2021, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-11 Abstract: Although individuals generally do not wish to be expected to do good work with bad tools, there are some activities for which there are advantages to having to face certain types of obstacles. One of these is mental processing, an important facet of cognitive psychology. This study extends the work of cognitive psychologists by introducing font disfluency, or the use of difficult-to-read font or typeface, to the exam-taking phase of economics principles courses. Difference-in-means tests indicate that students completing exams that were formatted in the difficult-to-read font scored as many as 9.6 points higher than their counterparts who completed exams formatted in the traditional font. On the other hand, regression analysis controlling for student demographics and human capital failed to produce a statistically significant result. The authors believe, however, that this result is likely due to the omission of student effort in the regression specification. As such, further research on the impact of font disfluency on exam performance is clearly warranted. Date: 2021 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:igg:jabe00:v:10:y:2021:i:4:p:1-11 Access Statistics for this article International Journal of Applied Behavioral Economics (IJABE) is currently edited by Yun Wan More articles in International Journal of Applied Behavioral Economics (IJABE) from IGI Global |
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