Improving College Instruction through Incentives

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brownback, Andy; Sadoff, Sally
• 署名单位: University of Arkansas System; University of Arkansas Fayetteville; University of California System; University of California San Diego
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/707025
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 2925-2972
• 关键词: leveraging behavioral economics; pay experimental-evidence; achievement evidence; performance pay; loss aversion; student-achievement; market experience; prospect-theory; education; returns

摘要

In a field experiment, we examine the impact of performance-based incentives for community college instructors. Instructor incentives improve student exam scores, course grades, and credit accumulation while reducing course dropout. Effects are largest among part-time adjunct instructors. During the program, instructor incentives have large positive spillovers, increasing completion rates and grades in students' courses outside our study. One year after the program, instructor incentives increase transfer rates to 4-year colleges with no impact on 2-year college degrees. We find no evidence of complementarities between instructor incentives and student incentives. Finally, while instructors initially prefer gain-framed contracts over our loss-framed ones, preferences for loss-framed contracts significantly increase after experience with them.