We are so excited to have Beth Tallman writing content for the blog. Her weekly column "Digging Deeper" will involve in-depth research that goes beyond the headlines resulting in a thought-provoking piece. Enjoy!

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I caught this headline in the Wall Street Journal (11/28/17) over breakfast and decided to read more about the research on CNBC and in Ben Leubsdorf’s blog. The research findings were pretty remarkable:

• Monetary rewards could have raised the PISA math result enough to move the US from 36th to 19th place
• The impact was more significant at the end of the test
• Students in Shanghai did NOT do better with the cash incentive

The conclusion? Test results may be more about motivation and effort than about aptitude.  The trick is figuring out how to motivate the students:

"We've been working on studies on motivation for a while," said Sally Sadoff of UCSD. "I think for a lot of kids, their parents are just instilling a habit [of good study practices]. But for some kids, I think there is a role for us. If the return to education is so high, why aren't kids trying?"  

This all got me thinking.  I am sure you have students who are intrinsically motivated to do well on tests, no matter what the stakes.  Were they born that way? Are their parents doing a better job than other parents? What impact do we, as educators, have?  Do cultural differences explain why financial incentives had no impact on the Chinese students?

Reflecting on my experience I remembered something I tried when I was teaching high school math (Algebra 2). I was always shocked at my students’ lack of mental math skills, so I had my students compete on daily (timed) drills on multiplication, and I had the classes compete against each other.  Students graded each other’s drills (yes, I did that too), and those who scored high enough were excused from further drills.  The first class to reach proficiency was “compensated” with a pizza party.  

It seemed to have worked! I’m not sure if the motivation came from the competition itself, or from the students’ love of pizza!  I set the class goal below 100% to ease the peer pressure on the students who might not succeed by week’s end.  They were never singled out, and still felt pride at watching their scores improve with practice, as did everyone else.   

As teachers you are well aware of how complex motivation can be.  What is it about our culture that makes some sort of extrinsic incentive necessary at times? What can parents and educators do about it? Compensating for test scores is not a pragmatic solution, but it sure makes for an interesting debate.

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