Randomised controlled trial of incentives to improve attendance at

adult literacy classes

Greg Brooks*, Maxine Burton*, Pam Cole*, Jeremy Miles**, Carole Torgerson*** and David Torgerson**

g.brooks@shef.ac.uk

*School of Education, University of Sheffield**York Trials Unit, Dept of Health Sciences, University of York

***Department of Educational Studies, University of York

Background

• Poor adult literacy widespread problem

• Regular attendance known to correlate with adult learners making better progress in reading.

• No evidence from randomised controlled trials on incentives to attend.

Methods

• Pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial

• Built on top of existing University of Sheffield Effective practice in reading study

Funding for main study Funding for trial

ESF University of Sheffield (separate fund)

DfES

LearnersSfLSUIoENRDCUniversity of Sheffield

• Ethical approval and informed consent obtained

• 29 adult literacy classes allocated by York Trials Unit to two groups using minimisation

• Classes mainly in East Midlands and North of England, with 3 outliers in South East

• Main outcome: number of sessions attended

• Secondary outcome: reading attainment (tests devised by NFER)

• Both groups received £20 to attend pre- and post-tests sessions in January and June 2005

• Intervention group also received £5 for each session attended between pre- and post-tests

• Payments to learners after end of study

Results

• One class did not meet inclusion criteria – excluded

• 14 classes in each group

• Tests marked by researcher at NFER

• Data analysed by statistician in York blind to status of groups

Effects of incentives on sessions attended and post-test scores

Variable Intervention(n = 82)

Control(n = 70)

Mean (SD) number of sessions attended (p = 0.019)

5.28(2.79)

6.69(2.71)

Mean (SD) post-test literacy scores (not significantly different from pre-test for either group)

19.01(8.68)

21.14(8.84)

Limitations

• Small study

• Small incentive

• Incentives in form of vouchers – cash better?

• Did not test policy of financial sanctions

Discussion Perverse result known variously as:• ‘Over-Justification Hypothesis’

• ‘Corruption Effect’

• ‘The Hidden Cost of Reward’

• ‘Cognitive Evaluation Theory’

• ‘Crowding-Out Effect’

External interventions crowd out intrinsic motivation if they are perceived as controlling. In that case, both self-determination and self-esteem suffer, and the individuals react by reducing their intrinsic motivation in the activity controlled.(Frey and Jegen, 2001, p.594)

• - with rider ‘for interesting tasks’ added on p.598

• Plausible explanation?