Arbeitspapier

What you don't know... can't hurt you? A field experiment on relative performance feedback in higher education

This paper studies the effect of providing feedback to college students on their position in the grade distribution by using a randomized control experiment. This information was updated every six months during a three-year period. In the absence of treatment, students' underestimate their position in the grade distribution. The treatment significantly improves the students' self-assessment. We find that treated students experience a significant decrease in their educational performance, as measured by their accumulated GPA and number of exams passed, and a significant improvement in their self-reported satisfaction, as measured by survey responses obtained after information is provided but before students take their exams. Those effects, however, are short lived, as students catch up in subsequent periods. Moreover, the negative effect on performance is driven by those students who underestimate their position in the absence of feedback. Those students who overestimate initially their position, if anything, respond positively.

Language
Englisch

Bibliographic citation
Series: Working Paper ; No. 788

Classification
Wirtschaft
Labor Discrimination
Professional Labor Markets; Occupational Licensing
Subject
Relative performance feedback
Ranking
Randomized field experiment
School performance

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Azmat, Ghazala
Bagues, Manuel F.
Cabrales, Antonio
Iriberri, Nagore
Event
Veröffentlichung
(who)
Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance
(where)
London
(when)
2016

Handle
Last update
10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET

Data provider

This object is provided by:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. If you have any questions about the object, please contact the data provider.

Object type

  • Arbeitspapier

Associated

  • Azmat, Ghazala
  • Bagues, Manuel F.
  • Cabrales, Antonio
  • Iriberri, Nagore
  • Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance

Time of origin

  • 2016

Other Objects (12)