Fun in the education production function

We estimate the effect of offering students visual enhancements (i.e., accessories) in a game-like online economic simulation in a large university course. In the simulation, students made production and consumption decisions, with their individual grades determined by the level of utility the agents they controlled achieved by the end of the term. Nearly 3,000 students who take the course are randomly assigned to 5 groups, namely (i) Free accessories; (ii) Costly accessories; (iii) Costly 3-day-delay accessories, (iv) Costly 7-day-delay accessories, and (v) control. Students in the Free accessories group have accessories made available to them in an un-incentivized manner, by simply clicking on them to attach it to their game avatar. Compared to the Free group, students in the Costly accessories group can only unlock an accessory if they correctly completed online multiple-choice question (MCQ) quizzes; upon unlocking an accessory, students then click and place them in the virtual world. The same applies to groups (iii) and (iv), but students in those groups can also access the accessories ‘for free’ with a 3- and 7-day delay, respectively. Finally, students in the control group had no access to accessories. Term 1 2019 sample includes all five groups, while Term 3 2019 (for which we collect additional survey and study inputs data) includes groups (i), (ii) and (v).

The goal of this project is to explore whether accessories have an effect on educational attainment. We are additionally investigating the mechanism behind these effects.

2019-02-18

2019-12-15

1. Differences in academic performance between students with free access to accessories compared to those with no access to accessories.
2. Differences in effort and confidence between students with free access to accessories compared to those with no access to accessories.

1. Differences in academic performance between students with MCQ-costly access to accessories compared to those with no access to accessories.
2. Differences in effort and confidence between students with MCQ-costly access to accessories compared to those with no access to accessories.

Nothing to report before the experiment.

Important details:
• The online economic simulation was a term-long anonymous assessment that accounted for 20% of overall course grade.
• In all groups, including control, students receive the same type of information about their absolute and relative course performance in this assessment.
• The intervention varied the level of access to purely aesthetic visual enhancements (e.g., a hat, a virtual pet, or a terrain element like an erupting volcano) that students could use to personalize their simulated economies.
• Students could not view others’ economies so accessories were only visible to their owners.
• Students only interact within their group. Groups are not connected.

Randomization will be carried out by a computer.

Each student will be randomly assigned to a group (randomization unit = student).

No

NA

The analysis involving academic performance outcomes (1) is based on a sample of 763 Term 1 and 585 Term 3 students (primary outcomes) and 1,464 Term 1 and 581 Term 3 students (secondary outcomes). Depending on the effort and confidence outcomes (2), we have a sample of between 357 and 581 students (primary outcomes) and between 361 and 579 students (secondary outcomes).

We have 5 groups:
• Control group: 368 (298) students in Term 1 (Term 3)
• Free accessories group: 395 (287) students in Term 1 (Term 3)
• Costly accessories group: 361 (283) students in Term 1 (Term 3)
• Costly 3-day delay accessories group: 373 students in Term 1
• Costly 7-day delay accessories group: 362 students in Term 1