When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead but Stops Short

Asad Islam, Sungoh Kwon, Eema Masood, Nishith Prakash, Shwetlena Sabarwal and Deepak Saraswat

No 9406, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper reports the results of an at-scale randomized controlled trial among 18,000 secondarystudents in Zanzibar (Tanzania) to examine the effects of personal best goal-setting on student outcomes. The paperalso tests the impact of combining goal setting with non-financial rewards conditional on students meeting thegoals they set. The results suggest that goal-setting has a significant, positive impact on students' time use,study effort, and self-discipline. However, there are no significant impacts on test scores. This is partiallybecause nearly two-thirds of the students do not set realistic goals. The paper finds that the effects on timeuse, study effort, and discipline are weaker when goal setting is combined with nonfinancial rewards. This suggeststhat tying goal setting to extrinsic incentives could weaken its impact. The results show stronger impacts for femalestudents and from students from weaker socioeconomic backgrounds. These results demonstrate that goal setting canhave positive impacts on student outcomes, especially for the relatively disadvantaged. However, for maximizing theimpacts, goal setting may need to be combined with guidance on setting realistic goals, and extrinsic rewards tied togoals may need to be avoided.

Keywords: Educational Sciences; Gender and Development; Educational Institutions & Facilities; Effective Schools and Teachers; Financial Sector Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead but Stops Short (2020)
Working Paper: When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead but Stops Short (2020)
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