Poster #57 - The Demotivating Effect (and Unintended Message) of Retrospective Awards

• In Event: 64.090 - MTCC Poster Session 15
  In Poster Session: 64.090-8 - Role of Teachers, Learning Environments, Parents, and Peers in Motivational Processes

Abstract

Schools frequently offer awards to motivate student behavior, yet few empirical studies evaluate their effectiveness in the field. We report a randomized field experiment (N = 15,329) that tests the impact of two types of symbolic awards on student attendance: pre-announced awards (prospective) and surprise awards (retrospective). Contrary to our pre-registered hypotheses, prospective awards had no impact while the retrospective awards decreased subsequent attendance. We provide evidence suggesting that receiving retrospective awards may demotivate attendance by inadvertently signaling (a) that recipients have attended school more than their peers; and (b) that recipients exceeded the school’s expectations for their attendance. A school leaders survey shows that awards for attendance are common, and that they are unaware of their potential demotivating impact.

Authors

• Carly Dolan Robinson, Harvard University

• Jana Gallus, University of California - Los Angeles

• Monica G Lee, Stanford University

• Todd Rogers, Harvard University