Carrot Rewards - integrated rewards scheme for schools with a difference

Harvard Research Shows Rewards Can Improve Student Achievement

Rewards programs that use financial incentives to improve student achievement are increasingly common in schools in the US. One Harvard University researcher, Roland Fryer, studies financial incentive reward programs in over 250 urban schools across America. Preliminary findings from Dr. Fryer’s school-based experiments show different types of rewards programs have different impacts. Rewards increased student achievement in two cities where students received financial incentives for reading books (Dallas, TX) and for attendance, completing homework assignments, and other learning experience-related behaviours (Washington, DC). In cities using incentive programs that rewarded students for learning experiences such as book reading or high attendance rates, students receiving rewards outperform peers whose schools did not participate in rewards programs. However, in two other cities, schools using incentive programs had similar student achievement to schools not using incentives; in these cities, students received rewards for achievement test results, not for the processes which promote improved achievement.

Dr. Fryer wants to study student rewards systems over time to discover whether rewards systems can impact long-term student outcomes such as high school completion, but what can teachers learn from these preliminary findings about turning rewards into student success? Based on these findings, teachers can try linking rewards with tangible behaviours that they know improve student achievement.

Learn more about Dr. Fryer’s study: http://www.edlabs.harvard.edu/pdf/studentincentives.pdf