The effect of goal-setting prompts in a blended learning environment
- Previous literature has shown that task-based goal-setting and distributed learning is beneficial to university-level course performance. We investigate the effects of making these insights salient to students by sending out goal-setting prompts in a blended learning environment with bi-weekly quizzes. The randomized field experiment in a large mandatory economics course shows promising results: the treated students outperform the control group. They are 18.8% (0.20 SD) more likely to pass the exam and earn 6.7% (0.19 SD) more points on the exam. While we cannot causally disentangle the effects of goal-setting from the prompt sent, we observe that treated students use the online learning platform earlier in the semester and attempt more online exercises compared to the control group. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that higher treatment effects are associated with low performance at the beginning of the course.
| Author details: | Erwin AmannORCiDGND, Sylvi RzepkaORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2022.102331 |
| ISSN: | 0272-7757 |
| Title of parent work (English): | Economics of education review |
| Subtitle (English): | evidence from a field experiment |
| Publisher: | Elsevier Science |
| Place of publishing: | Amsterdam |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of first publication: | 2022/12/09 |
| Publication year: | 2022 |
| Release date: | 2024/04/15 |
| Volume: | 92 |
| Article number: | 102331 |
| Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Fachgruppe Volkswirtschaftslehre |
| DDC classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 30 Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie / 300 Sozialwissenschaften |
| 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft | |
| 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 37 Bildung und Erziehung / 370 Bildung und Erziehung | |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
