Experiment shows that the teaching method of 'paying for money when studying' is effective

by Carissa Rogers

Education that influences the future of the country is an issue that adults in the society should consider seriously, and many teachers and pedagogues devise various learning approaches and put them into practice every day in order to let children who do not like to play study. You are Professor Richard Holden of the University of New South Wales argues that "an incentive to reward money as a motivation for learning children is effective", based on experiments conducted in two cities in the United States.

Vertical versus Horizontal Incentives in Education: Evidence from Randomized Trials
(PDF file) http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/richardholden/assets/verticalvshorizontal_wtables_2016.pdf

Why we should (carefully) consider paying kids to learn
https://theconversation.com/why-we-should-carefully-consider-paying-kids-to-learn-111624

In Australia, the scores for OECD Achievement in Learning Achievements (PISA) have declined over the last 15 years, and in the 2015 survey mathematical literacy falls to 20th among 28 OECD countries and reading to 12th That is why radical education reform is being called out.

Therefore, Mr. Holden conducted an experiment in Houston and Washington DC to find out if it would be effective to pay monetary compensation to a child who has completed the tasks such as attendance, good deeds and quizzes.

First, Houston distributed software for math education according to the school curriculum to 1734 fifth graders who attended 50 randomly selected schools. And for half of them going to 25 schools and their parents, they gave AUD $ 2.80 (about 220 yen) for every question they asked. In addition, it is said that the teacher of the school was given the maximum bonus of 14,000 Australian dollars (approximately 1,100,000 yen). The other half of the schools were taught using the same educational software, but there were no financial incentives.

As a result of the experiment, in the group of children who were given financial incentives, it could be confirmed that the overall performance of mathematical literacy was improved, but the reading ability was also lowered at the same time. As a result of analyzing the results in more detail, the top 20% of the students who received the incentives did not have much decline in their reading comprehension scores even though their mathematical literacy grades were higher, while the lower 20% were Not only did the math literacy score go up, but the reading comprehension score also went down.

by DoDEA

Although the financial incentives did not work positively for all the students' results, from this result the reaction to the financial incentives of "trying to study mathematics which can be paid more than reading which is not paid" Holden claims that was clearly stated.

In Washington, DC, students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades were evaluated using various measures such as attendance rate and behavior, and financial incentives were provided for each. As a result, mathematical literacy grades have improved by more than 17%, and reading skills have also improved by 15%.

According to the experiment, 6875 children were paid as much as $ 7 million (approximately 550 million yen). However, "Financially, the approach of giving money to children produced a 32% return on investment annually," Holden argues.

by Casey Fleser

"Paying money to get children to study may seem radical or unethical," Holden said. However, it is likely that most parents do have incentives to motivate them even if they are not money, such as "Allow watching TV when homework is over" and "I'll give a snack if you take a good test" Mr. pointed out.

What is of concern here is that "Monetary incentives affect the underlying motivation and the joy of learning is simply transacting," Holden said. However, Mr. Holden showed that the intrinsic motivation for learning itself has been increased by financial incentives from his own research, saying, "It's a totally useless educational approach, saying that it is to raise grades and develop a love for learning. Is it really ethical to apply to children?