A bonus for early work and a late penalty got coursework in sooner
Who it’s about: Students
- Helped
A bonus for early work and a late penalty got work in 4 days sooner than plain due dates.
- Rule: Bonus for early, small penalty for latetested
- Action: Split a big task into piecesused
- Rule: Give each piece its own deadlineused
Randomised trial of 189 student teachers in an online course · vs the same due dates as guidance only · behaviour was recorded · ⚠ student thesis, not checked by other scientists
The study
Who took part
189 student teachers at a large US university. They took a self-paced online course on how to build web pages. The timing results come from 136 students or study groups.
What they did
All groups had the same course with eight tasks over five weeks. One group got a bonus point for handing work in early. They lost a point for work up to a week late, and got nothing after that. Another group had the same due dates as guidance only. A third group got no credit for any late work.
What happened
The bonus-and-penalty group handed work in about 4 days after the due date on average. The group with due dates as guidance only handed it in about 8 days after. The group with no credit for late work was about as late. But the author says problems with that group make its results unclear. This is an unpublished thesis, and parts of the text are garbled.
Source
Effects of deadline contingencies in a web-based course on HTML (2001)
Tools in this study
Rule · how6
Bonus for early, small penalty for lateGraded consequences for timing, with a grace window.
