Working Paper: NBER ID: w24004
Authors: Uri Gneezy; John A. List; Jeffrey A. Livingston; Sally Sadoff; Xiangdong Qin; Yang Xu
Abstract: Tests measuring and comparing educational achievement are an important policy tool. We experimentally show that offering students extrinsic incentives to put forth effort on such achievement tests has differential effects across cultures. Offering incentives to U.S. students, who generally perform poorly on assessments, improved performance substantially. In contrast, Shanghai students, who are top performers on assessments, were not affected by incentives. Our findings suggest that in the absence of extrinsic incentives, ranking countries based on low-stakes assessments is problematic because test scores reflect differences in intrinsic motivation to perform well on the test itself, and not just differences in ability.
Keywords: education; incentives; test performance; intrinsic motivation
JEL Codes: C93; I24
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| increased test performance among U.S. students (I24) | higher scores (C52) |
| low intrinsic motivation (D29) | extrinsic incentives (M52) |
| cultural differences in motivation (M14) | differential effects of incentives (M52) |
| intrinsic motivation (O31) | test scores (C52) |
| extrinsic incentives (M52) | increased test performance among U.S. students (I24) |