Goals and guesses as reference points: a field experiment on student performance (Q2689845)

This paper examines an experiment in which students enrolled in a microeconomics course were given the option to set their own target grade prior to taking the final exam. They were also asked to guess their grade immediately following the exam. In general, the students overestimated their performance, both at the goal-setting and at the post-diction stages. Other result of the experiment is that, controlling for cognitive abilities, academic record and self-reported academic confidence, monetary rewards reduced the overestimation of potential achievements and eliminated the overestimation of actual achievements through the improvement of actual performance. Using students' academic records to measure overall skill, a Dunning-Kruger bias was also observed, which was intensified by the presence of the monetary rewards.