IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/framed/00719.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Productivity Versus Motivation in Adolescent Human Capital Production: Evidence from a Structurally-Motivated Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Cotton
  • Brent Hickman
  • John List
  • Joseph Price
  • Sutanuka Roy

Abstract

We conduct a field experiment across three diverse school districts to structurally identify student motivation and study productivity parameters in a model of adolescent human capital development. By observing study time, homework task completion, and test results, we can identify individual and demographic variations in motivation and study time effectiveness. Struggling students typically do not lack motivation but rather struggle to convert study time into completed assignments and proficiency improvements. The study also attending a higher-performing school is associated with both higher productivity and higher motivation relative to peers with similar observables in lower-performing schools. Counterfactual analyses estimates that school quality differences account for a substantial share of the racial differences in test scores, and considers the impact of alternative policies aimed at reducing racial performance gaps.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Cotton & Brent Hickman & John List & Joseph Price & Sutanuka Roy, 2023. "Productivity Versus Motivation in Adolescent Human Capital Production: Evidence from a Structurally-Motivated Field Experiment," Framed Field Experiments 00719, The Field Experiments Website.
    • Handle: RePEc:feb:framed:00719
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00719.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John A. List & Fatemeh Momeni & Yves Zenou, 2020. "The Social Side of Early Human Capital Formation: Using a Field Experiment to Estimate the Causal Impact of Neighborhoods," Working Papers 2020-187, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    2. Chuan, Amanda & List, John & Samek, Anya, 2021. "Do financial incentives aimed at decreasing interhousehold inequality increase intrahousehold inequality?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    3. Burgess, Simon & Metcalfe, Robert & Sadoff, Sally, 2021. "Understanding the response to financial and non-financial incentives in education: Field experimental evidence using high-stakes assessments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    4. Lenka Fiala & John Eric Humphries & Juanna Schrøter Joensen & Uditi Karna & John A. List & Gregory F. Veramendi, 2022. "How Early Adolescent Skills and Preferences Shape Economics Education Choices," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 609-613, May.
    5. Marco Castillo & John A. List & Ragan Petrie & Anya Samek, 2020. "Detecting Drivers of Behavior at an Early Age: Evidence from a Longitudinal Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 28288, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. John A. List & Ian Muir & Gregory K. Sun, 2022. "Using Machine Learning for Efficient Flexible Regression Adjustment in Economic Experiments," NBER Working Papers 30756, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. John A. List & Fatemeh Momeni & Yves Zenou, 2020. "The Social Side of Early Human Capital Formation: Using a Field Experiment to Estimate the Causal Impact of Neighborhoods," Working Papers 2020-187, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:feb:framed:00719. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: David Franks (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.