Education Commons^™

Drinking From The Fountain Of Knowledge: Student Incentive To Study And Learn-Externalities, Information Problems And Peer Pressure, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

Students face four decision margins: (a) How many years to spend in school, (b) What to study. (c) How much effort to devote to learning per year and (d) Whether to disrupt or assist the learning of classmates. This paper reviews an emerging economic literature on the effects of and determinants of student effort and cooperativeness (c and d above) and how putting student motivation and behavior at center of one’s theoretical framework changes one’s view of how schools operate and how they might be made more effective. In this new framework students have a dual role. They are both …