Certificates of recognition mailed to middle-schoolers’ homes were a greater motivation to participate in after-school tutoring programs—even more than the promise of money—new research shows.
The study focuses on Supplemental Education Services (SEdS), the free after-school programs implemented in the wake of No Child Left Behind to support low-income families in low-performing schools. While in some instances SEdS have proven effective, they are generally poorly attended.
Springer and his colleagues randomly selected 300 SEdS-eligible students in grades five through eight in a large Southern urban school district at the start of the school year. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups:
- A reward of $100 (distributed via an online platform) offered for consistent attendance;
- A certificate of recognition, signed by the school’s district superintendent, would be mailed to the student’s home for consistent attendance; or
- A control group, which was offered no experimental incentives for attendance.
To the researchers’ surprise, the certificate was a significantly better motivator than the money. The control group only attended about 17 percent of the allotted tutoring hours, with the monetary group attending just 8 percent more hours than the control group (this difference was not statistically significant).
