Productivity Versus Motivation in Adolescent Human Capital Production: Evidence from a Structurally-Motivated Field Experiment

Christopher Cotton, Brent Hickman, John List, Joseph Price and Sutanuka Roy

Framed Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website

Abstract: We conduct a field experiment across three diverse school districts to structurally identify student motivation and study productivity parameters in a model of adolescent human capital development. By observing study time, homework task completion, and test results, we can identify individual and demographic variations in motivation and study time effectiveness. Struggling students typically do not lack motivation but rather struggle to convert study time into completed assignments and proficiency improvements. The study also attending a higher-performing school is associated with both higher productivity and higher motivation relative to peers with similar observables in lower-performing schools. Counterfactual analyses estimates that school quality differences account for a substantial share of the racial differences in test scores, and considers the impact of alternative policies aimed at reducing racial performance gaps.

Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-exp and nep-gen
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00719.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Productivity Versus Motivation in Adolescent Human Capital Production: Evidence from a Structurally-Motivated Field Experiment (2020)
Working Paper: Productivity Versus Motivation in Adolescent Human Capital Production: Evidence from a Structurally-Motivated Field Experiment (2020)
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:feb:framed:00719

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Framed Field Experiments from The Field Experiments Website
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Francesca Pagnotta ().