IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v76y2018icp76-81.html

“Tell them it's easy”: Framing incentives in learning basic statistical problems

Author

Listed:
  • Bizon, Wojciech

Abstract

Learning quantitative subjects is perceived as a difficult process; congruently, students are often concerned about academic courses involving statistics. Simultaneously, there are a number of tools in psychology and behavioral economics, i.e. framing stimuli, which can increase the efficiency of knowledge transfer processes and level of solving new problems in a simple manner. During a basic statistics test on a group of 284 economics students, it was shown that the method of informing students that a specific problem was very simple, increased their efficiency to solve problems, compared to those who were informed that the problem was very difficult. Using 4 × 2 ANCOVA, with the level of prior knowledge in statistics as the covariant and including gender analysis into the homogeneity-of-slopes model, it was also revealed that the impact of individual framing stimuli is universal and does not depend on the level of prior knowledge of statistics.

Suggested Citation

  • Bizon, Wojciech, 2018. "“Tell them it's easy”: Framing incentives in learning basic statistical problems," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 76-81.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:76:y:2018:i:c:p:76-81
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2018.08.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804318303781
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2018.08.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mallik, Girijasankar & Shankar, Sriram, 2016. "Does prior knowledge of economics and higher level mathematics improve student learning in principles of economics?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 66-73.
    2. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Steven D. Levitt & John A. List & Susanne Neckermann & Sally Sadoff, 2016. "The Behavioralist Goes to School: Leveraging Behavioral Economics to Improve Educational Performance," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 183-219, November.
    4. Chang, Otto H. & Nichols, Donald R. & Schultz, Joseph J., 1987. "Taxpayer attitudes toward tax audit risk," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 299-309, September.
    5. Dekhtyar, S. & Weber, D. & Helgertz, J. & Herlitz, A., 2018. "Sex differences in academic strengths contribute to gender segregation in education and occupation: A longitudinal examination of 167,776 individuals," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 84-92.
    6. Elisa Rose Birch & Paul W. Miller, 2006. "Student Outcomes At University In Australia: A Quantile Regression Approach," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 1-17, March.
    7. Charles L. Ballard & Marianne F. Johnson, 2004. "Basic Math Skills and Performance in an Introductory Economics Class," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 3-23, January.
    8. Robert Jensen, 2010. "The (Perceived) Returns to Education and the Demand for Schooling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 515-548.
    9. Adam M. Lavecchia & Heidi Liu & Philip Oreopoulos, 2014. "Behavioral Economics of Education: Progress and Possibilities," NBER Working Papers 20609, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Damgaard, Mette Trier & Nielsen, Helena Skyt, 2018. "Nudging in education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 313-342.
    2. Cockx, B. & Declercq, Koen & Dejemeppe, Muriel, 2022. "Losing prospective entitlement to unemployment benefits. Impact on educational attainment," ROA Research Memorandum 003, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    3. Andor, Mark A. & Fels, Katja M. & Renz, Jan & Rzepka, Sylvi, 2018. "Do planning prompts increase educational success? Evidence from randomized controlled trials in MOOCs," Ruhr Economic Papers 790, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    4. Eric Edmonds & Ben Feigenberg & Jessica Leight, 2023. "Advancing the Agency of Adolescent Girls," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 852-866, July.
    5. Iain P. Embrey, 2020. "States of nature and states of mind: a generalized theory of decision-making," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 88(1), pages 5-35, February.
    6. Ouazad, Amine & Page, Lionel, 2013. "Students' perceptions of teacher biases: Experimental economics in schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 116-130.
    7. Wagner, Valentin, 2016. "Seeking risk or answering smart? Framing in elementary schools," DICE Discussion Papers 227, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    8. Pugatch, Todd & Wilson, Nicholas, 2018. "Nudging study habits: A field experiment on peer tutoring in higher education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 151-161.
    9. Alex Imas & Sally Sadoff & Anya Samek, 2017. "Do People Anticipate Loss Aversion?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(5), pages 1271-1284, May.
    10. List, John A. & Samek, Anya Savikhin, 2015. "The behavioralist as nutritionist: Leveraging behavioral economics to improve child food choice and consumption," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 135-146.
    11. Islam, Asad & Kwon, Sungoh & Masood, Eema & Prakash, Nishith & Sabarwal, Shwetlena & Saraswat, Deepak, 2020. "When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead but Stops Short," GLO Discussion Paper Series 526, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    12. Elbæk, Christian T. & Lystbæk, Martin Nørhede & Mitkidis, Panagiotis, 2022. "On the psychology of bonuses: The effects of loss aversion and Yerkes-Dodson law on performance in cognitively and mechanically demanding tasks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    13. Kuhberger, Anton, 1998. "The Influence of Framing on Risky Decisions: A Meta-analysis," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 23-55, July.
    14. Homonoff, Tatiana & Willage, Barton & Willén, Alexander, 2020. "Rebates as incentives: The effects of a gym membership reimbursement program," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    15. Us-Salam, Danish, 2025. "Mitigating Vulnerability: The Role of Risk Warnings, Information Order & Salience in Crypto Assets," Research Technical Papers 9/RT/25, Central Bank of Ireland.
    16. Olivier Armantier & Amadou Boly, 2015. "Framing Of Incentives And Effort Provision," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(3), pages 917-938, August.
    17. Brandts, Jordi & Busom, Isabel & Lopez-Mayan, Cristina & Panadés, Judith, 2022. "Dispelling misconceptions about economics," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    18. Patricio S. Dalton & Sayantan Ghosal & Anandi Mani, 2016. "Poverty and Aspirations Failure," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(590), pages 165-188, February.
    19. Damien de Walque & Christine Valente, 2023. "Incentivizing School Attendance in the Presence of Parent-Child Information Frictions," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 256-285, August.
    20. Bach, Maximilian & Fischer, Mira, 2020. "Understanding the response to high-stakes incentives in primary education," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-066, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:soceco:v:76:y:2018:i:c:p:76-81. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.