The cover story of this week’s TIME magazine reports on recent attempts to use financial incentives to motivate students in public schools to achieve. Much of the article is based on the research of my good friend Roland Fryer, a professor at Harvard. My friend and colleague John List also contributes a choice quote. The results from using incentives are mixed. In some cases, incentives have been very cost effective: paying elementary school children in Dallas $2 for each book they read leads to substantial test score gains. On the other hand, a number of other programs aimed at older kids have been less effective. A lot of things change across the various experiments, but one hypothesis Roland puts forth in his academic paper is that better results will be obtained when focusing on inputs that the student can directly control (e.g. turning in homework, showing up for school, wearing a uniform), instead of outcomes (test scores, grades, etc.).
It is amusing to an economist to see how controversial it is to offer financial incentives to children in public schools. We offer financial incentives to just about everyone else in society in all sorts of settings, whether it is work, sports, encouraging people to recycle cans and bottles by paying a nickel each, etc. My parents used financial incentives with me as a kid, and I use them with my children. They worked on me, and they seem to be working as a parent. For instance, a few months back I told my four kids that if any of them could beat me in a ten-hole putting contest, I’d give them $100. I’m both proud and embarrassed to say that my nine-year-old?daughter Amanda is $100 richer today, having just beaten me for the first time.
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I just finished re-reading Richard Feynman’s monograph (actually a Caltech commencement speech) entitled “Cargo Cult Science” in which he lambastes to pseudoscience known as education.
There are a lot of theories on how to educate kids, but nobody has ever figured out what works and what doesn’t.
Now don’t you find that odd? That’s why I vote to bulldoze the whole game and start again.
I love it! She is going to REMEMBER that $100.
I think Chris Markl is right on the button – it may work (if designed properly) but it encourages the wrong type of development where the value of everything is only determined with reference to money. (or have i accidentally defined economics there…?)
My parents provided me with a financial incentive to do well in school. They did it two different ways…
1) Grades at the end of the semester would determine how much money I received.
2) Grades on tests during the semester would determine how much money I received.
The second option was more effective for me because there was an immediate reward for my studying, whereas in the first option, it is difficult to keep focused the entire semester on the financial reward. I can see that that would be the same for many other people.
What about other incentives that wouldn’t cost the school anything?
Allowing kids who read a certain amount of books to eat lunch outside or have longer recess would be free of cost. Providing these incentives on a random schedule may also increase the amount of kids reading. For example, have reading quizzes scattered throughout the semester and if students achieve a high score they are rewarded.
Some simple operant conditioning may have significant outcomes.
There are several potential problems with paying children per book read.
1) Children could learn to game the system. Just becuase they turn the pages in the book doesn’t necessarily mean they will comprehend it. That’s why paying for inputs is dangerous. Even if such a program poduces good results in a small scale, or short time period doesn’t mean that it will scale well as policy.
2) It’s possible that if you start paying kids to read books that you will take away whatever intrinsic desire they had to do so. In other words, if kids get used to being paid to read, then one they are no longer paid to do so, maybe they then read less than they otherwise would. The goal shouldn’t be to boost some test scores at an early age. The goal should be more along the lines of producing intelligent, responsible, and productive adults.
Alfie Kohn explores this in “Punished by Rewards.”
The accepted use of incentives may achieve a short term goal, however in study after study the longer term effects are either escalating incentives to achieve similar results or de-motivation once the incentives have been withdrawn.
There is also the confusion of a social transaction with a monetary one – Going to school to earn not learn.
You’d better study how the kids change their reading habits (or other habits) after the reward is removed. A fundamental result from social psychology is that providing external motivation (incentives) can, over time, reduce intrinsic motivation. If you pay me to do something I would do anyway, I will do less of it once you stop paying me. Strong incentives might increase reading/turning in homework/etc, and generally make the kids smarter, but there could also be significant negative consequences.