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ERIC Number: ED676514
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Sep
Pages: N/A
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Why Don't Struggling Students Do Their Homework? Disentangling Motivation and Study Productivity as Drivers of Human Capital Formation. Working Paper 34274
Christopher Cotton; Brent R. Hickman; John A. List; Joseph Price; Sutanuka Roy
National Bureau of Economic Research
Using field-experimental data (study-time tracking and randomized incentives), we identify a structural model of learning. Student effort is influenced by external costs/benefits and unobserved heterogeneity: motivation (willingness to study) and productivity (conversion rate of time into skill). We estimate academic labor-supply elasticities and skill technology. Productivity and motivation are uncorrelated. Low productivity, not low motivation, is the stronger predictor of academic struggles. School quality augments productivity and accelerates skill production. We find that dynamic skill complementarities arise mainly from children's aging and from a feedback loop between investment activity and productivity, rather than from carrying forward past skill stocks.
National Bureau of Economic Research. 1050 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-5398. Tel: 617-588-0343; Web site: http://www.nber.org
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A