SL Goal setting and Feedback Flashcards
What is goal setting?
Setting a goal for a result to get or tasks to do. You can use either internal or external (or a combination) goal setting.
- Internal: you set goals for yourself.
- External: Others setting goals for you. The goal can motivate you to put in more effort.
What is feedback?
Feedback is information regarding how you are moving towards your goal. Often feedback is external. It can be a system or a person letting you know how you are doing.
Where do you find feedback and goal setting in the refine matrix
Encourage.
What biases is it addressing?
Present Bias: People tend to prioritize immediate rewards over long-term benefits, leading to procrastination and short-term decision-making.
Overconfidence Bias: People often overestimate their abilities and the ease with which they can achieve their goals
What is the mechanism through which the goal setting is working?
Goal Setting:
- Setting clear, immediate goals (especially short-term, actionable ones) helps individuals focus on the smaller steps needed to achieve long-term objectives, breaking down overwhelming tasks - loss aversion: you don’t want to fail your goal today → helps you to avoid failing your long term goal
- Setting specific and measurable goals helps ground overconfidence by creating clear metrics for success.
What is the mechanism through which the Feedback is working?
Feedback:
- Regular feedback provides reinforcement by showing how much progress has been made. This gives people a sense of accomplishment, making the long-term goal feel more achievable, which combats present bias by keeping focus on future outcomes.
- Real-time or regular feedback acts as a reality check, helping individuals reassess their progress and adjust expectations. It helps counter overconfidence by highlighting areas where more effort or adjustment is needed.
Are feedback and goal setting related in somehow?
While goal setting and feedback are separate nudges, feedback is usually a part of a successful goal setting. By having smaller goals that all point towards your larger goal, you ensure feedback that helps readjust your idea of how much you need to do to achieve your large goal. By setting a goal of having a 100 day streak of Duolingo in order to get ready for your holiday, you get consistent feedback on how fluent you are in the language and can intensify your language training as needed, setting new goals.
Using Goals To Motivate College Students By D. Clark, D. Gill, V. Prowse, and M.Rush
a) Summarize the research question and the experimental design of the main study in this paper.
b) Explain the results.
c) Why are performance based goals less effective?
Question a)
The paper aims to discover whether goal setting can motivate college students to work harder and achieve better outcomes.
The problem the paper seeks to solve is that students under-invest in effort due to low self-control. This compromises learning and creates a less effective workforce for the labor market.
Design
Two field experiments involving four thousand college students across two years:
- Performance based goal setting: Students set a goal to achieve a certain grade for the course.
- Task based goal setting: Students set a goal to complete a certain number of practice exams before the midterm and final exam.
The bias the intervention should target:
- Present bias and overconfidence.
- Bounded self-control: Students do not have the self control to put in effort for the course they take.
Question b)
What are the results of the paper?
- Task based goals are more effective than performance based goals.
- This resulted in a higher number of completed practice exams and overall better
grades.
- Less effect from overconfidence: If practice exams are a productive task, the
students will utilize their time better and thus increase effort.
- No effect from performance uncertainty: Final grades are uncertain, but the
number of completed tasks is observable and controllable.
Fun fact: Men benefited more from the task based goals compared to women - This is due to men (on average) having less self-control and is more present biased.
Question c)
Overconfidence - People underestimate how much effort it takes to obtain the grade they want.
Lack of feedback - Performance based goals do not provide any feedback until the final exam. People may not realize they are off track until it´s too late, resulting in missed opportunities for correction.
Aspirations and financial decisions: Experimental evidence from the
Philippines
by David Mckenzie, Aakash Mohpal and Dean Yang
a) Summarize the research question and the experimental design of the main study in this paper.
b) Explain the results given figure 12.
Question a)
Research question
The paper studies whether inducing financial aspirations (goals) will affect savings behavior of small-scale entrepreneurs in the Philippines.
The motivation behind the paper is the “Aspiration failure”: Poverty leads to lower aspirations, which in turn keep individuals in poverty.
Design:
What biases should the intervention design target
- Bounded self-control –> Present bias. Individuals would rather use their money today, and do not realize the benefits from saving for the future.
Intervention design
- Randomized experiment with 2.400 small-scale entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs are organized in borrowing groups that meet weekly.
- The intervention consists of; 1) Workshop during the weekly group borrowing meetings and/or 2) Knowledge treatment that provided financial education about savings, budgeting, and planning.
- The 2.400 entrepreneurs are divided into four groups:
T1: aspiration (goals, dreams) workshops
T2: knowledge treatment,
T3: aspiration workshops + knowledge treatment
T4: control.
Question b)
Mechanisms
- The workshops generate internal motivation.
- Loss aversion. The entrepreneurs wish to achieve their goals rather than failing.
Conclusion/Effect of intervention:
- The treatment lead individuals to set higher savings goals. However, there is no effect on actual savings.
- Observable effect on borrowing and business investment, the treatment had negative effect on these parameters.
- Additional observation, the treatment lead to reduction in respondents’ beliefs in that they are in control of their own life outcomes.
Why did the intervention not work?
- Downside: If aspirations are set too high, individuals may fail to reach their goal, and become frustrated and discouraged.
“Provision of social norm feedback to high prescribers of antibiotics in general practice: a pragmatic national randomised controlled trial” by Michael Hallsworth, Tim Chadborn, Anna Sallis, Michael Sanders, Daniel Berry, Felix Greaves, Lara Clements, Sally C Davies
a) Summarize the research question and the experimental design of the main study in this paper.
b) Explain the results given figure 13.
c) Why did the first trial work and the second didn’t?
Question a)
Research question:
This paper studies the effect of two types of feedback interventions focused on general practitioners and patients, respectively. The two interventions were performed in randomized 2 x 2 factorial trials.
The goal of the paper was to study if the interventions helped to reduce unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions - a goal which reduces the risks associated with antibiotic resistance.
Design:
Which biases should the intervention design target?
- Overconfidence. The targeted general practitioners are in the top 20% of antibiotic prescribers, but are unaware of their suboptimal behavior, and believe that their performance is normal.
Intervention design
A 2 x 2 factorial trial with two intervention designs
● 1. step Eligible GP’ers (doctors) are categorized and identified as the top 20% of antibiotic prescribers in their area
● 2. step Eligible practices were randomly assigned into two groups with participants being blinded to group assignment and the first trial ran
● 3. step After the first trial was concluded, the practices were re-randomized into two new groups for the second trial
1st trial: GP-focused letter
● information given to GP’s that they prescribed more than 80% of other GP’ers in their area
● Letter was from England’s Chief Medical Officer
2nd trial: patient-focused pamphlet
● content that promotes reducing antibiotic usage
● made available to patients at the practices
Question b)
● The GP-focused intervention resulted in a statistically significant 3.3% reduction in prescribed antibiotic items for the feedback intervention group.
● The patient-focused intervention had no statistically significant effect on prescription rates for the feedback intervention group.
● The first trial reduced unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions; the second trial did not.
Question c)
Why did the first trial work:
● Strong empirical social proof
○ GP’s are more likely to want to follow social norms of other GP’s
○ Social proof was empirical
● Messenger effect
○ GP’s received information from an authority figure
● A conclusion on bias and mechanism
○ Social norm feedback from a high-profile messenger reduced the overconfidence among the targeted group, because i) the empirical social proof gave the decision maker more information on their performance relative to others and ii) they correct it because they wish to follow social norms
and the second didn’t?:
● Messenger effect
○ patients might regard the information on the pamphlet with less authority than
their GP - or perhaps deem it irrelevant altogether.
● Discussion on second trial
○ The patients are not the primary ‘decision maker’
○ The intervention was close to ‘just information’ - not a nudge
Tips for implementation of feedback and goal setting
Tips for implementation of goal setting and feedback
Mixing internal and external goal setting
● Finding productive tasks might be easier in dialog with experts (teachers and professors).
● Gaining a good saving behavior might also be easier with a financial advisor.
Make sure you get feedback - And use it!
● Feedback can help you stick to your goals
● Usable feedback can help you get back on track if you get stuck or discouraged
How difficult is it to implement goal setting and feedback compared to other nudges?
● Relatively easy (and cheap) to implement goals as they can be set by yourself
● Feedback depending on type is more or less difficult as it requires participation of someone else
(e.g. study buddy) or an objective party (e.g. an app or tests)
