DISCUSSION

Next, we look at how task-based goals changed the average level of task completion. Table
4 reports OLS regressions of the number of practice exams completed during the course
on an indicator for the student having been randomly allocated to the Treatment group in the
task-based goals experiment. To give a feel for the magnitude of the effects, the second row
reports the effect size as a proportion of the standard deviation of the number of practice exams
completed in the Control group in the task-based goals experiment, while the third row reports
the average number of practice exams completed in the same Control group. From the results in
the first column, which were obtained from an OLS regression that includes controls for student
characteristics, we see that task-based goals increased the mean number of practice exams that
students completed by about 0.5 of an exam (the effect has a p-value of 0.017). This corresponds
to an increase in practice exam completion of about 0.1 of a standard deviation, or almost six
percent relative to the average number of practice exams completed by students in the Control
group. From the second column we see that these results are quantitatively similar when we
omit the controls for student characteristics.
All students in the task-based goals experiment
Number of practice exams completed
OLS
OLS
Effect of asking students to set task-based goals 0.491 ∗∗ 0.479 ∗∗
(0.205) (0.208)
[0.017] [0.022]
Effect / (SD in Control group) 0.102 0.100
Mean of dependent variable in Control group 8.627 8.627
Controls for student characteristics Yes No
Observations 2,004 2,004
Notes: Both columns report OLS regressions of the number of practice exams completed during the course (out
of a maximum of fifteen) on an indicator for the student having been randomly allocated to the Treatment group
in the task-based goals experiment. In the first column we control for student characteristics as described in the
notes to Table 3 while in the second column we do not control for student characteristics. ‘SD in Control group’
refers to the standard deviation of the dependent variable in the Control group. Heteroskedasticity-consistent
standard errors are shown in round brackets and two-sided p-values are shown in square brackets. ∗ , ∗∗ and ∗∗∗
denote, respectively, significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels (two-sided tests).
Table 4: Effects of task-based goals on the average level of task completion
As we discussed in the Introduction, evidence from other educational environments suggests
that males have less self-control than females. This motivates splitting our analysis by gender
to examine whether self-set task-based goals act as a more effective commitment device for male
students than for females. In line with this existing evidence on gender differences in self-control,
Table 5 shows that the effect of task-based goals is mainly confined to male students. We focus
our discussion on the first column of results, which were obtained from OLS regressions that
include controls for student characteristics (the second column of results shows that our findings
are robust to omitting these controls). Panel I shows that task-based goals increased the number
of practice exams that male students completed by about one exam. This corresponds to an
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