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Knowing what it takes: The effect of information about returns to studying on study effort and achievement

Author

Listed:
  • Rury, Derek
  • Carrell, Scott E.

Abstract

We study the effect of providing students with information on the returns to study effort in a large introductory microeconomics course. To do so, we use historical time-use data from the course’s online homework module to estimate the association between study time and course performance. We measure the impact of providing students this information on subsequent study effort, class attendance, homework scores, and exam performance using a randomized research design. Results show that the information contained in our intervention increased time spent studying by approximately 7% throughout the entire course, though this effect is imprecisely measured. However, when examining shorter-run outcomes (prior to the next exam) we find larger and more precisely estimated treatment effects on time spent on homeworks (12%) and homework scores (14% of a standard deviation). Treatment effects on longer run outcomes in the course are negligible. We additionally estimate large, but somewhat imprecise, average treatment effects on class attendance and small positive and insignificant average treatment effects on exam performance throughout the course.

Suggested Citation

  • Rury, Derek & Carrell, Scott E., 2023. "Knowing what it takes: The effect of information about returns to studying on study effort and achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:94:y:2023:i:c:s027277572300047x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2023.102400
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    Cited by:

    1. Akcay, Erol & Ohashi, Ryotaro, 2023. "The floating duck syndrome: biased social learning leads to effort-reward imbalances," SocArXiv qx7ku, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Beliefs; Study effort; Human capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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