Evaluating the effects of the provision of information on the impact of effort on rewards

INTERVENTION: Half of a cohort of undergraduate students within a single university department will be randomly assigned to a treatment group, the other half will form the control group. The treatment group will be provided with information regarding the empirical relationship between student effort, student academic achievement and graduate outcomes. The treatment will be administered in phases: initial information will be provided to students prior to arriving at the university and this will be followed up with further phases of information provision over the course of the students' registration on their degree. Students in the treatment group will be sent follow‐up emails and hard copy communications containing further research evidence on the relationships between student effort, academic grades and post‐university labour market outcomes. These follow‐ups will be sent at intervals of approximately two weeks. In total there will be four follow‐up interventions over a period of two months. The control group will receive no treatment. CONDITION: Behavioral choices regarding extent of study effort ; Not Applicable PRIMARY OUTCOME: 1. Records of attendance in seminars, submission of coursework, and attendance at tests; 2. Marks obtained in all forms of coursework throughout the academic year and in end‐of‐year examinations (in each year of study); ; Measures of student academic performance will be taken continuously through the academic year as students’ marks on coursework (essays, test and problem sets) are marked and at the end of the academic year when students’ end of module examination marks are confirmed. SECONDARY OUTCOME: 1. Engagement in studies, such as meeting contact points; 2. Engagement in the life of the department, such as volunteering as student ambassadors; ; Measures of student engagement in their studies will be taken at the end of each of the three study terms based on monitoring points of attendance in seminar meetings, personal tutor meetings, examinations and tests and submission of module evaluations. INCLUSION CRITERIA: 1. Full‐time undergraduate students in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick 2. All full‐time students are aged 17 or over. There is no upper limit, though in practice almost all students are below the age of 30