The Influence of Automated Praise on Behavior and Performance

To be successful in college, students need to turn in their coursework, and a known strategy for improving submission rates is to present positive feedback when students turn in their assignments. In the current study, we test competing theoretical approaches to positive feedback in a large scale field experiment (n=1,766). Using a mobile app, we assigned college students to receive occasional notifications immediately upon submitting online assignments that either praised them for having submitted their coursework, or that highlighted the value of submitting coursework for academic success, or to a no-treatment control group. We find that only praise messages improved submission rates and course performance, suggesting that drawing attention to the feedback-eliciting task is necessary and sufficient for facilitating change at scale.