Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/149142
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10283
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Will college students who set goals for themselves work harder and perform better? In theory, setting goals can help time-inconsistent students to mitigate their self-control problem. In practice, there is little credible evidence on the causal effects of goal setting for college students. We report the results of two field experiments that involved almost four thousand college students in total. One experiment asked treated students to set goals for performance in the course; the other asked treated students to set goals for a particular task (completing online practice exams). We find that performance-based goals had no discernible impact on course performance. In contrast, task-based goals had large and robust positive effects on the level of task completion, and task-based goals also increased course performance. Further empirical analysis indicates that the increase in task completion induced by setting task-based goals caused the increase in course performance. We also find that task-based goals were more effective for male students. We develop new theory that reinforces our empirical results by suggesting two key reasons why task-based goals might be more effective than performance-based goals: overconfidence and uncertainty about performance. Since task-based goal setting is low-cost, scaleable and logistically simple, we conclude that our findings have important implications for educational practice and future research.
Subjects: 
goal
goal setting
higher education
field experiment
self-control
present bias
time inconsistency
commitment device
loss aversion
reference point
task-based goal
performance-based goal
self-set goal
performance uncertainty
overconfidence
student effort
student performance
educational attainment
MOOC
JEL: 
I23
C93
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
483.66 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.