ERIC Number: EJ1029602
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-0485
EISSN: N/A
Incentive Matters!--The Benefit of Reminding Students about Their Academic Standing in Introductory Economics Courses
Chen, Qihui; Okediji, Tade O.
Journal of Economic Education, v45 n1 p11-24 2014
In this article, the authors illustrate how incentives can improve student performance in introductory economics courses. They implemented a policy experiment in a large introductory economics class in which they reminded students who scored below an announced cutoff score on the midterm exam about the risk of failing the course. The authors employed a regression-discontinuity method to estimate the causal impact of their policy on students' performance on the final exam. The results suggest that the policy had a significant impact on students' performance on the final exam. In fact, the gain in test scores was sufficient to boost a student's overall course grade by one letter grade.
Descriptors: Economics Education, Introductory Courses, Incentives, Academic Achievement, College Students, Achievement Gains, Classroom Techniques, Tests, Scores, Outcomes of Education, Regression (Statistics), Computation, At Risk Students, Academic Failure, Microeconomics
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Minnesota
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A