A project led by the University of Bristol’s Centre for Market and Public Organisation trialled the use of incentives to see if they raised students’ effort and engagement at school.
The study, funded by the Education Endowment Foundation, involved 10,000 year 11 pupils in 63 schools in the poorest parts of England.
The research team looked at the impact of two types of incentive – a cash incentive of up to £80 per half-term and a non-financial incentive such as a trip to a football stadium or a theme park. The incentives were offered for pupils’ effort and engagement rather than for their exam results.
Students earned incentives on the basis of their attendance, conduct, homework and classwork. They were required to have no unauthorised absences during the period in question and no more than one instance of poor conduct resulting in a sanction. They also had to complete their homework and classwork on time and at a level consistent with their target grade in GCSE maths, English and science.
When researchers analysed the impact of the incentives they discovered that they had a substantial effect on the GCSE performance in maths and science of around half of the pupils who took part.
Professor Simon Burgess, director of the Centre for Market and Public Organisation, said that the research offered “promising leads” for schools and policy-makers.
“The best way of gauging the impact of the intervention is that for this group it is more than half of the impact of poverty (eligibility for free school meals) on GCSE scores,” he added.
“A one-year intervention costing around £200 to £320 per-student eliminates half of the free school meals gap in maths and science GCSE scores in the poorest neighbourhoods. There are also pupils for whom this intervention has no effect – pupils who are already putting in a huge attainment at school.”
The research showed that the impact of the incentives was greatest among low-attainers.
Prof Burgess continued: “Our hope was that improved effort and engagement would raise GCSE scores, even though the scores themselves carried no rewards.
“Among pupils with low predicted GCSE scores, pupils in the intervention group scored substantially more than in the control group. For those pupils expected to do well, and already making a huge effort at school, the incentives made little difference.”
You can read the University of Bristol discussion paper – Understanding the Response to Financial and Non-financial Incentives in Education – via http://bit.ly/2ffJqJg