The Effect of Financial Rewards on Students' Achievements: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

Hessel Oosterbeek, Bas van der Klaauw and Edwin Leuven

No 3921, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This Paper reports a randomized field experiment in which first year economics and business students at the University of Amsterdam could earn financial rewards for passing all first year requirements before the start of their second academic year. Participants were assigned to a high reward group, a low reward group or a no reward (control) group. Overall, the passing rate and the numbers of collected credit point are not significantly different across the three groups. The same is true for the reported amounts of study time. We find, however, some evidence of heterogenous treatment effects. In particular, students with high maths skills and students with higher educated fathers have higher passing rates and collect more credit points when assigned to (higher) reward groups. While reported study time for these groups is not affected by treatment status, these students claim that they have studied harder as a consequence of the rewards.

Keywords: Financial incentives; Student acheivement; Randomized social experiment; Heterogenous treatment effects; University education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I22 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-06
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Effect of Financial Rewards on Students' Achievement: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment (2010)
Working Paper: The effect of financial rewards on students' achievement: Evidence from a randomized experiment (2006)
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