Economics Seminar（2015-07）

Topic: Goals and Reference Points in Academic Performance

Speaker:Jaimie W. Lien

Affiliation:Tsinghua University

Time: Tuesday, April 28 from 2:00-3:30pm

Location: Room 217, Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:

Recent evidence has shown that individuals have reference points for performance which shape their effort provision on various tasks (ex. Berger and Pope, 2011; Pope and Simonsohn, 2011). We analyze the academic performance of approximately 700 university students enrolled in a large core course, hypothesizing that students’ performance on a midterm exam relative to an announced class average may induce reference-dependent effort provision around this class average. We do not find strong evidence of the announced class average as a reference point, nor other plausible salient scores such as round number cutoffs (ie. 70, 80, 90). Instead, we find that effort behavior of students appears more consistent with a reference point near 100. That is, personal improvement tends to be relatively greater in the marginal gains frame than in the marginal loss frame, for almost any reference point candidate - except reference point candidates arbitrarily close to 100. Consideration of possible individual-based reference points, such as students’ previous grades in other courses, supports the general finding that students seem to become discouraged in the loss frame rather than being motivated to ‘catch up’. This closely resembles thediscouragement effectfound in Gill and Prowse’s (2012) experimental real effort tournaments. We discuss the role of grading scheme structure, reference point selection, and some implications for improving students’ motivation and performance.

Your participation is warmly welcomed!