When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead But Stops Short

Islam, Asad; Kwon, Sungoh; Masood, Eema; Prakash, Nishith; Sabarwal, Shwetlena; Saraswat, Deepak

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When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead But Stops Short

IZA Discussion Paper No. 13188

65 Pages Posted: 4 May 2020 Last revised: 15 May 2025

See all articles by Asad Islam

Nishith Prakash

Northeastern University (USA); Institute for the Study of Labor

Deepak Saraswat

University of Connecticut - Department of Economics; Independent Researcher

Abstract

In this study, we use at scale randomized control trial among 18,000 secondary students in 181 schools in Tanzania (Zanzibar) to examine the effects of personal best goal-settings on students' academic performance. We also offer non-financial rewards to students to meet the goals they set. We find that goal-setting has a significant positive impact on student time use, study effort, and self-discipline. However, we do not find any significant impact of goalsetting on test scores. We find that, this could be partially because about 2/3rd of students do not set realistic goals. Third, we find weaker results on time use, study effort, and discipline when we combine goal-setting with non-financial rewards, suggesting that typing goal-setting to extrinsic incentives could weaken its impact. We also find that female students improved on outcomes much more than male students and that students coming from relatively weaker socio-economic backgrounds improved more than their counterparts.

Keywords: student performance, recognition rewards, goal-setting, Zanzibar

JEL Classification: D9, I20, I25, O15, O55

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Islam, Asadul and Kwon, Sungoh and Masood, Eema and Prakash, Nishith and Sabarwal, Shwetlena and Saraswat, Deepak, When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead But Stops Short. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13188, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3590886