Active Learning with Monetary Incentives

Institutions of higher education are placing more emphasis on superior classroom teaching. Our objective here is to present and evaluate an active learning project incorporated into a commodities marketing course. In addition to grades received for active learning exercises, we used monetary incentives to enhance students' involvement in classroom learning projects. People involved in business have an obvious profit incentive to improve marketing skills; the monetary rewards we offered were designed to give students a tangible and, perhaps, a more real-world experience that paralleled potential careers using agribusiness skills. Students generally had a positive attitude toward the exercises and the dollar payoffs. Monetary rewards appeared to add to the learning environment. It is unclear, however, whether monetary rewards motivated students beyond the degree typically expected of self-motivated students.