The importance of relative performance feedback information: Evidence from a natural experiment using high school students

Ghazala Azmat and Nagore Iriberri

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: We study the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on performance, when individuals are rewarded according to their absolute performance. A natural experiment that took place in a high school offers an unusual opportunity to test this effect in a real-effort setting. For one year only, students received information that allowed them to know whether they were performing above (below) the class average as well as the distance from this average. We exploit a rich panel data set and find that the provision of this information led to an increase of 5% in students’ grades. Moreover, the effect was significant for the whole distribution. However, once the information was removed, the effect disappeared. To rule out the concern that the effect may be artificially driven by teachers within the school, we verify our results using national level exams (externally graded) for the same students, and the effect remains.

Keywords: School performance; relative performance; absolute performance; feedback; natural experiment; social comparison; self-perception; competitive preferences. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C30 I21 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-01, Revised 2010-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (324)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Importance of Relative Performance Feedback Information: Evidence from a Natural Experiment using High School Students (2015)
Journal Article: The importance of relative performance feedback information: Evidence from a natural experiment using high school students (2010)
Working Paper: The Importance of Relative Performance Feedback Information: Evidence from a Natural Experiment using High School Students (2009)
Working Paper: The importance of relative performance feedback information: evidence from a natural experiment using high school students (2009)
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