More than Gift Cards

Here's the data behind our science-backed strategy to improve learning

Let's talk about learning incentives.

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What is a learning incentive?

A learning incentive is when a learner is offered a gift (whether monetary, a physical gift, an experience, even a discount) in exchange for successfully completing a learning activity. Note that this doesn't just mean signing up for and going through the material. The learner must pass the course to earn the incentive.

Incentives for Learning Really Work
"Positive, Large, Significant Effects"

A 2015 study from the Journal of Economic Education found "strong evidence that students who played the classroom game for real money earned higher test scores" than those who played without an incentive. A 2018 review found a "positive effect of financial incentives on students' time spent on educational activities, their quality of effort, and engagement with their studies." They found that "treatment effects were positive, large and significant".

Recovery-of-Cost Incentives Improve Learning

It's all about the investment made by the learner. When students pay for a course that comes with an incentive, they thrive. A June, 2022 study from Cornell showed that students who were given an incentive to recover a cost associated with an e-learning activity “were less likely to drop out, spent more time reading the learning materials, and were more likely to return to the learning activity during the post-experimental phase.” Interestingly, the learning benefits didn't hold up when students were offered a waiver for the cost of the course rather than a reward for the same amount.

Persistent Learning Habits

Interestingly, incentives to learn seem to activate motivation toward learning in other areas not connected to the incentivized activity. A 2021 randomized study from the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization concluded:
"Our results show that those given a monetary incentive are more likely to [complete assignments] and to gain higher grades. We further find that the effect persists even after we remove the monetary incentives and that it spills over into learning behavior in other courses in the same and subsequent semester. Overall, our findings suggest that monetary incentives counteract engagement decay and may help online users form persistent learning habits."

Learning Incentives Really Work.

Providing incentives improves test scores, engagement and subsequent interaction with learned material. Not just that, but they kickstart an excitement for learning that lasts beyond the incentivized activity. Now that's some powerful stuff.

To get started taking advantage of the magic of incentivized learning, click below.

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References:

Lee, Y. H., & Yeung, C. (2022). How free offers help or hinder motivation. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 39(2), 380–395.

Rousu, Matthew & Corrigan, Jay & Harris, David & Hayter, Jill & Houser, Scott & Lafrancois, Becky & Onafowora, Olu & Colson, Gregory & Hoffer, Adam. (2015). Do Monetary Incentives Matter in Classroom Experiments? Effects on Course Performance. The Journal of Economic Education. 46. 10.1080/00220485.2015.1071214.

Lisa Barrow, Cecilia Elena Rouse; Financial Incentives and Educational Investment: The Impact of Performance-based Scholarships on Student Time Use. Education Finance and Policy 2018; 13 (4): 419–448.

Jie Gong, Tracy Xiao Liu, Jie Tang. How monetary incentives improve outcomes in MOOCs: Evidence from a field experiment,
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Volume 190, 2021, Pages 905-921.

H. Schildberg-Hörisch, V. Wagner, Chapter 19 - Monetary and non-monetary incentives for educational attainment: design and effectiveness, Editor(s): Steve Bradley, Colin Green, The Economics of Education (Second Edition), Academic Press, 2020, Pages 249-268.