When Studying and Nudging Don’t Go as Planned: Unsuccessful Attempts to Help Traditional and Online College Students

Previously circulated as "Lack of Study Time is the Problem, but What is the Solution? Unsuccessful Attempts to Help Traditional and Online College Students." At the University of Toronto, we are indebted to the first-year economics instructors for their willingness to incorporate an experiment into their courses for a fourth consecutive year. We especially thank James Lahey, our web developer, for his tireless commitment to designing and perfecting the experiment’s website, as well as for his help with organizing and extracting the experimental data. Spencer Dean, Chelsea Kowalski, Catherine Tessier, Chester Madrazo, Ophelia Au, and Erica Rzepecki showed great enthusiasm and professionalism in their role as coaches. At WGU, we thank Jason Levin, Chelsea Barnett, and Narendra Pandya for their help designing, programming, and executing this study. Thanks also to seminar participants at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, UC San Diego, Notre Dame University, the Institute of Behavior & Inequality, MDRC, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) 2017 annual research conference, the Society of Labor Economists’ 2018 annual meetings, and the College Board. All remaining errors are our own. The experiments in this paper were both registered with the AEA RCT Registry. The RCT IDs are AEARCTR-0000972 and AEARCTR-0000810. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• online appendices

• October 2, 2018