Paying second-grade students to read books increases reading comprehension by roughly 0.18–0.25 standard deviations in Dallas¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2010 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Effects on vocabulary were small and statistically insignificant; effects on language were marginally significant. → Roland G. Fryer 2010

Evidence¶

Roland G. Fryer 2010¶

Roland G. Fryer, Jr. (2010). Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials. NBER Working Paper No. 15898. http://www.nber.org/papers/w15898

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Same Dallas trial: vocabulary ITT .051 (.068) and TOT .071 (.093) SD; language ITT .136 (.080) and TOT .186 (.107) SD. The article concludes there is "a small, statistically insignifi cant effect on vocabulary."

"Hence, paying second grade students to read books has a relatively large effect on their reading comprehension, a more modest effect on their language scores, and a small, statistically insignifi cant effect on vocabulary."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Reading and Language — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Financial incentives for reading books produce negative achievement effects for Spanish-speaking students in Dallas, consistent with a crowd-out hypothesis — reports the opposite
• Paying middle-school students for attendance, behavior, uniforms, and homework yields marginally significant reading gains and non-significant math gains in Washington, DC — related
• Paying ninth graders for course grades increases GPA but not achievement test scores in Chicago — related
• Paying students for performance on standardized tests or for course grades does not increase achievement test scores in urban public schools — related
• Input-based incentives produce achievement gains at lower cost than major education reforms of recent decades — a broader claim this one bears on