Licorice Learning! Does Offering a Candy Incentive Improve Academic Achievement?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective is to determine if offering a candy incentive to 6th grade students will improve their achievement on spelling test scores. Methods/Materials Informed consent was obtained from 50 selected students from two 6th grade classrooms. The experimental test variables that were used was a licorice incentive prior to studying for the test, and no licorice incentive provided. When testing the variables, each student was given 10 minutes to study their spelling lists and were informed that a licorice reward would be given to each student scoring at least an 80% on the spelling test. When testing the control group on alternating weeks, the same 50 students were given the same amount of study time with no licorice incentive. Each student was tested twenty times, ten times with a candy incentive and ten without. In addition to calculating the scoring average for each student, the total scoring average for each test variable was determined. Results When provided a licorice incentive, 92% of the student's test scores increased. The average test score was 92.1% from a total of 500 trials. For the control group with no licorice incentive, 8% of the student's test scores increased. The average test score was 83.85% from a total of 500 trials. Conclusions/Discussion Providing a candy incentive prior to studying improves student motivation and increases their academic achievement.

Competition history

• CSEF 2010 Cognitive Science (Junior Division Only) · Entry J0606

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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