Improving student outcomes using advice-giving as a motivational nudge

How can we motivate individuals to optimise behaviours without needing to rely on external information, stimuli and incentives? Recent literature finds that advice-giving, by enabling individuals to give instead of receive, can be one such approach to increase motivation. We will conduct a field experiment to further investigate the relationship between advice giving and advisor outcomes, by exploring the effect of relaying feedback to advisors’ on advisors’ academic outcomes. In a randomised controlled trial, we will assign 628 undergraduate students to a control condition, or an advice-giving condition. Treatment participants will then be further assigned into a feedback or no feedback condition. We will first investigate whether students in the advice-giving condition will perform better in academic assessments following treatment. We will then evaluate whether students in the feedback condition will score higher than students with whom no feedback is shared. Finally, we will also assess the impact of the advice-giving intervention on levels of grit and confidence in students. Findings from our research could be used to implement advice giving as a zero-cost nudge to improve students’ grades, particularly in schools in developing countries that lack sufficient funds to carry out expensive interventions to see increases in their students’ academic performance.