Arbeitspapier

Grades and Rank: Impacts of Non-Financial Incentives on Test Performance

How does effort respond to being graded and ranked? This paper examines the effects of non-financial incentives on test performance. We conduct a randomized field experiment on more than a thousand sixth graders in Swedish primary schools. Extrinsic non-financial incentives play an important role in motivating highly skilled students to exert more effort. We find significant differences in test scores between the intrinsically motivated control group and three of four extrinsically motivated treatment groups. The only treatment not increasing test performance is criterion-based grading on an A-F scale, which is the typical grading method. Test performance is significantly higher if employing rank-based grading or giving students a symbolic reward. The motivational strengths of the non- financial incentives differ across the test score distribution, across the skill distribution, with peer familiarity, and with respect to gender. Boys are only motivated by rank-based incentives, while girls are also motivated by receiving a symbolic reward. Rank-based grading and symbolic rewards tend to crowd out intrinsic motivation for students with low skills, while girls also respond less to rank-based incentives if tested with less familiar peers.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 8412

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Education and Research Institutions: General
Analysis of Education
Field Experiments
Thema
test-taking
performance incentives
effort
extrinsic and intrinsic motivation
randomized experiment

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Jalava, Nina
Schrøter Joensen, Juanna
Pellas, Elin
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
(wo)
Bonn
(wann)
2014

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Jalava, Nina
  • Schrøter Joensen, Juanna
  • Pellas, Elin
  • Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Entstanden

  • 2014

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