Posted by John Miller on December 06, 1996 at 09:42:42:
In Reply to: Incentives: Money, grade points, or sheer fun? posted by Greg Delemeester on December 02, 1996 at 19:28:43:
: I would like to know what, if any, incentives instructors have used to motivate student-subjects in courses which utilize several experiments over the course of a semester. Has anybody used money on a regular basis? How about grade points? If grade points, are they part of the regular course grade calculation or merely bonus points? In addition to these incentives, I've simply relied on the sheer fun from participation (and the general competitiveness of students) to generate salient behavior. The latter, however, has not always been successful. What have others tried?
I have been using points over the past few years
and this seems to work fine. Lab points are worth
10% of the final grade, and students understand
that the points are scaled in such a way that
they will only make a difference if someone is
on the borderline between two grades at the end of
the semester. This scheme seems sufficient to really
motivate the students. However, I should also note
that I use a few of the experiments in another class
that does not attach grades to outcomes, and even
here the students seem highly motivated.
By the way, if you do attach grades, you need to
think about how you are going to keep track of
each persons profits. Keeping track of all profits
from all experiments requires some time, so I just
end up sampling from a few of the experiments.
Ted has been using monetary payoffs, so perhaps he
can discuss how that works out.