Reading for dollars: Incentive Programs and Standardized Test Scores

August 1st, 2008 By: Diane Trim in Articles, School Turnaround, Teachers' Corner

Would your students read better if you gave them an MP3 player as a reward? Concert tickets? Cash or scholarships?

A May 2008 study from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University found that students’ standardized reading test scores improved by 5 or 6 percentile points when a school has an incentive program attached to standardized testing.

“The results from this report provide reasons for optimism about the potential for reward systems,” said Margaret Raymond, director of CREDO. “Incentive programs may not be a silver bullet, but they appear to be a brass one.”

The study included 186 charter schools, of which 57% used an incentive system for rewarding student performance on achievement tests. Although the study found that students’ reading scores improved, incentives had no effect on their math scores.

Pat Wyman, author of Learning vs. Testing, cautions against using incentives as a cure for low test scores. Learning to earn incentives doesn’t address the critical need for the students to learn how to learn. The students’ learning methods will be “haphazard at best, and once again, millions of children don’t achieve, simply because we aren’t teaching them how,” Wyman said.

For school districts and teachers whose evaluations are strongly tied to their student’s performance on standardized tests, incentives can seem like the answer to falling reading scores. Wyman wonders how long those test score gains can last without upping the ante from MP3 players to rewards that school districts can’t afford.

“And what about the kids who want the incentives, but still don’t know how to learn?” Wyman said. “All the incentives in the world can’t take the place of the lifelong learning strategies a child needs to succeed.”

To encourage student success in learning and on standardized tests, Wyman recommends that teachers evaluate students’ learning styles. On her website, howtolearn.com, Wyman offers a free learning styles inventory for students, teachers, and parents.

Although students learn in many different ways, schools test in just one way: reading and writing. Once a student knows her learning style, succeeding on tests is a matter of learning and storing information in the way that best fits her learning style.

When a student knows how to learn effectively, that’s motivation in itself, Wyman said. “Once this happens, everyone’s happy and the kids feel better about themselves. Kids often measure their self-esteem by how well they do in school. When they use [learning strategies], they don’t need high-end incentives to keep meeting the goals they set for themselves.”