“Nudging” students to study more tomorrow

By Keith Van Norman on Feb. 3, 2024

OSU economists use incentives and nudges to influence study habits of students in newly published study

Todd Pugatch and <br/>Elizabeth Schroeder

By Colin Bowyer, Communications Manager - February 12, 2024

There’s one obstacle that nearly all students encounter during their college years: the tendency to procrastinate studying. But what if a financial incentive was offered to students to study more? Would students who accept the incentive upfront achieve higher grades in the end? These are questions OSU economists Todd Pugatch and Elizabeth Schroeder are attempting to answer in their new paper titled, “Study More Tomorrow,” published in Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

Pugatch and Schroeder, along with Nicholas Wilson, associate professor of economics at Reed College, tested a “commitment contract” on economics students. Pugatch, Schroeder, and Wilson attempted to capitalize on the enthusiasm at the beginning of the term by having students commit to studying throughout the entire course’s duration. Loosely based on the influential 2004 paper, “Save More Tomorrow,” by University of Chicago economist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler, “Study More Tomorrow” also tests the endowment effect theory of commitment devices, whereby people are more likely to take action when the incentive is provided upfront, as opposed to after the action.

At the beginning of winter term in 2020, students in Introduction to Microeconomics (ECON 201) and Introduction to Macroeconomics (ECON 202) were randomly offered a non-binding contract, which, by signing, committed the student to attend an economics tutoring lab if their midterm grade was below 80 percent. All students, whether they signed the contract or not, were entered into a lottery for a textbook scholarship the following year. However, if a student signed the contract, received less than an 80 percent on their midterm test, and did not go to the tutoring session, their lottery chances were taken away.

After the term ended, the data showed 10 percent of students from both classes signed the commitment contract, which did not robustly affect attendance or student course grades; nonetheless, the authors were surprised at how many chose to accept the contract. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to find that college students are willing to pay for study commitment devices.

“Even though only 10 percent of students in Econ 201 and 202 signed the contract,” Pugatch stated, “the takeup showed that some students are willing to commit to studying with financial incentives.”

This study relates to current and prior research on nudges in higher education by Pugatch with Schroeder and Wilson, including promoting socioeconomic and gender diversity in economics. Nudges, like commitment devices, are a way to frame or incentivize people’s choices to lead them to make specific decisions. In both studies examining ways to increase student diversity in economics, providing information in the form of a single email changes the composition of students choosing to major in economics.

“We saw a five percentage point increase in first generation students majoring in economics,” said Pugatch. “This increase was large enough to reverse the gap in economics majors for first gen students.”

Nudges and commitment devices can be powerful tools to influence decision making in higher education, in this case, the behaviors of current students and the enrollment of prospective students in economics itself. With more participation and refinement, gentle nudges can counteract misconceptions about the field and produce a more representative study body.