By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

CHICAGO – Teachers who were given considerable bonuses upfront to improve student learning, and faced the possibility of returning the money if they didn’t succeed, produced significantly better results with students than those offered other incentive programs, a new study shows.

Chicago economist John List and several of his colleagues divided 150 teachers into three groups at a Chicago Heights school to measure the effectiveness of different teacher incentive programs in improving student performance, NPR reports.

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“One group got no incentive; they just went about their school year as usual. A second group was promised a bonus if their students did well in math,” the news site reports. “The third group is where the psychology came in: The teachers were given a bonus of $4,000 upfront – but it had a catch. If student math performance didn’t improve, teachers had to sign a contract promising to return some or all of the money.”

“What we tried to capitalize on in this particular study was a concept called loss aversion,” List told NPR. “Once we have something in our possession, we feel it would be really, really painful to have to give it up.”

The results were interesting. Students of teachers promised a bonus for improvement and those in the classes of teachers who were offered no incentive at all performed about the same. Students with teachers who were given the bonus upfront, however, improved significantly.

“List said he thinks that the incentive system motivated teachers to be extra vigilant with underperforming students. If Johnny didn’t get a concept, a teacher stuck with Johnny – and the concept – until the kid got it,” NPR reports.

We believe the experimental bonuses show the potential merit-based pay systems have for improving student performance. Money is a strong motivator for anyone, especially when it’s already in hand.

More studies are needed to tell if the student performance increases are long lasting and if the results can be replicated in other subjects besides math, List said.

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Future studies could also ask teachers to return the bonus money periodically if students don’t perform, rather than at the end of the school year, he said. That might improve the results further because other studies on risk aversion suggest the threat of “periodic and regular losses” is more effective, List told NPR.