Incentives and Student Learning: A Natural Experiment with Economics Problem Sets.

Part of a special issue presenting the papers and proceedings of the 118th annual meeting of the American Economic Association. A study was conducted using data from a natural experiment that occurred in 1998 in a principles of microeconomics course at Syracuse University in which 239 students were...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American Economic Review Vol. 96; no. 2; pp. 447 - 453
Main Authors: Grove, Wayne A., Wasserman, Tim
Format: Article
Published: American Economic Association May 2006
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:Part of a special issue presenting the papers and proceedings of the 118th annual meeting of the American Economic Association. A study was conducted using data from a natural experiment that occurred in 1998 in a principles of microeconomics course at Syracuse University in which 239 students were divided into two groups according to whether or not assignments counted toward their course grade. Findings reveal that the grade incentive boosted the exam performance of freshmen, in particular. Findings should be of interest to higher education stakeholders, particularly those who wish to reverse the high and rising college drop-out rates.