Abstract
The 2020-21 school year is a challenging one for college students. Many students may be struggling to stay engaged and on top of their coursework in a mostly remote setting, especially those who have less experience navigating college. Even in more conventional academic settings, students often struggle with time management and fail to take advantage of course resources. Prior research has shown that nudge interventions delivered as text messages can improve student outcomes, particularly when they target concrete tasks, are time-sensitive, and are relevant for the particular student (Page, Lee, & Gelbach 2020). This project is a nudge intervention that will send strategic, tailored text messages to undergraduate students in a large introductory economics course. The intervention will take place in the context of fully remote/virtual course instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The messages will be customized to the structure of the course and to students' observed behavior such as attendance, performance, and engagement. We will use administrative data to examine whether the messages improve students' engagement with and performance in the course.