Much of that interest was driven by the higher demands for accountability that were ushered in by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2001 and since replaced by Congress.
With at least a decade of research now behind us, here’s what’s been learned about using incentives in education and how schools are deploying these ideas today.
What counts as an incentive?
Technically, anything that motivates a student to do something is an incentive. That could be as simple as putting a sticker on an aced quiz or rewarding perfect attendance with a new bike.
Researchers, however, typically focus on how financial incentives affect student behavior, and even that of teachers and parents.
What has the research on incentives in education found?
“This is something that every incentive paper starts with: the research is mixed,” said Lucrecia Santibañez, an associate professor at Claremont Graduate University’s School of Educational Studies.
That’s true both in the U.S. and internationally, she said. How well an incentive program works depends on its design.
One of the primary architects of this work is Roland Fryer, an economist at Harvard University. In a series of experiments through the mid-2000s, he paid out more than $6 million to more than 18,000 low-income students in Chicago, Dallas, New York City, and the District of Columbia to try to improve their test performance.
The major takeaway from Fryer’s research is that inducements are more likely to work if a program incentivizes things students feel they can control. In technical terms, that means rewarding inputs instead of outputs, said Jeffrey Livingston, an associate professor of economics at Bentley University.
Why are incentives controversial?
Incentives have backfired for some schools. In 2015, a New Jersey district came under fire from some parents when it announced plans to award gift cards to students for showing up to take the state’s new standardized tests. The aim was to increase participation rates in the PARCC exams, at a time when parents across the country were protesting the standardized tests by refusing to have their children participate.
“If your goal is to instill a love of learning, paying students to read books doesn’t really do that,” he said. “It doesn’t reflect a view of teaching and learning that most educators support. They don’t want it to be transactional.”
How are schools using incentives?
Incentives vary as much as the schools that use them-from modest to massive. The Union R-XI school district in central Missouri offered as much as $100 to students to entice perfect attendance at its summer school program. Tennessee’s Shelby County district has offered Memphis Grizzlies tickets to students with good attendance. Success Academy, a charter school network, has offered small prizes, including Nerf guns, to encourage good behavior. While the research may be mixed, some school officials say they are seeing success with their incentive programs.
Click Here to Read Full Article