1,721,069 research outputs found
On the design of non-monetary incentives in schools
No full textWe analyze the impact of non-monetary incentives on performance in a mathematics test in secondary schools. While we apply predetermined incentives in two treatments, in a third treatment, pupils can choose one from four incentives – a medal, homework voucher, parent letter or surprise. Overall, we find no impact of non-monetary incentives on test scores. Our estimates are small and statistically not distinguishable from zero. However, due to a lack of power we cannot rule out the possibility of effect sizes that would have positive effects on test score if incentives are self-chosen and negative effects if incentives are predetermined. Nevertheless, we find that pupils who could choose their incentive significantly increased their self-reported learning effort
Motivation in a reciprocal task: interaction effects of task meaning, goal salience, and time Pressure
No full textWe investigate the effectiveness of task meaning, time pressure, and knowing the upper bound of performance (maximum performance goal) in a reciprocal information digitization task and their interactions. Participants search information about schools where the quantity dimension of information refers to the number of schools and the quality dimension to finding the correct name of the headmaster. We obtain measures of quality (correctly entered information) and quantity (number of digitized entities). Time pressure has a positive effect on quantity and a negative on quality. Moreover, we cannot replicate the positive effects of high task meaning found in previous research. This indicates that its effectiveness might depend on the work context. While time pressure significantly decreases quality, its interaction with task meaning and maximum performance goals increases quantity marginally without loss in quality
Non-monetary rewards in education
No full textThis paper presents evidence how pupils choose different types of non-monetary rewards for educational attainment. These rewards are external to the learning process, but unlike cash-for-grades rewards internal to the practice of schooling. We collected data from a non-incentivized survey and an incentivized survey, which was part of a larger field experiment. The non-incentivized survey was conducted prior to the field experiment to elicit pupils’ stated preferences over seventeen non-monetary rewards and to choose the rewards for the field experiment. In the incentivized survey, pupils then had the freedom to choose one out of four rewards: (i) a medal, (ii) a parent-letter, (iii) a no-homework voucher, or (iv) a surprise, allowing us to elicit pupils’ valuation for different non-monetary rewards. We found that the preferred non-monetary reward varied by pupils’ ability. Low-performing pupils were significantly more likely to choose the parent-letter than high-performing pupils. Moreover, we found little evidence for heterogeneous preferences by socioeconomic background.<br/
Gender differences in willingness to compete and answering multiple-choice questions—The role of age
No full textUsing a large and unique data set of a German wide voluntary mathematical school competition, we examine at which age gender differences in the willingness to compete arise. We use the data of more than 1, 3 million pupils, ages 8 to 18. We find that the share of girls participating in the competition starts to decrease in the early teenage years (12–13). Furthermore, girls answer fewer multiple-choice questions than boys at all age levels. This is interesting as previous findings have identified skipping in multiple-choice tests as one reason for men outperforming women inter alia in university entrance examinations.</p
Shying away from demanding tasks? Experimental evidence on gender differences in answering multiple-choice questions
No full textAccess to higher education is one important prerequisite for later employment possibilities. Often access is regulated inter alia by multiple-choice entrance exams. The application of this testing format is problematic if it favors the answering strategies of certain groups. We present the results of a field experiment in answering multiple-choice questions. Our sample consists of 2113 pupils from different school types. We find that girls skip more answers than boys only if the questions are difficult. This gender gap vanishes when extrinsic rewards are provided. This suggests that our findings are compatible with a stereotype threat explanation. Moreover, the gender gap is found only for pupils of school types preparing for the academic track. It is therefore important to consider all social strata in the design of testing formats.</p
A good, a bad, and an evil character: Who renders a novel most enjoyable?✰
Full text linkThe choice, or invention, of protagonists is an important part of the poetics and aesthetics of narratives and dramas. Aristotle stipulated that, for the purposes of engaging the readers or onlookers, protagonists should neither be excessively good nor excessively bad, leaving room for much variation in the middle-ground (Aristotle, 1961). A theoretical model of the enjoyment of negative emotions in art reception (Menninghaus et al., 2017) supports the conclusion that aesthetically preferred choices of characters may not be equally distributed between the poles of saints and villains, but show a bias towards the latter. We experimentally tested this assumption by presenting an identical excerpt from a novel by José Saramago to participants, while exclusively inserting a few words of background information which cast the protagonist's distant past either in a morally good, bad, or evil light. Compared to the good character version, the bad character version indeed had an enhancing effect on scales for “suspenseful,” “captivating,” and “entertaining,” and no adverse effect on any of the seven other aesthetically evaluative dimensions. Fully supporting Aristotle's thumb rule, none of these enhancing effects of character Badness on aesthetic perception/evaluation compared to the good character condition extended to the evil character version. Moreover, moral evilness of the protagonist had an adverse effect on sympathy, though not on empathy. In contrast, the good and the bad character versions were rated equally not only on empathy, but also on sympathy scales
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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