What Majority Think on Students Be Paid for Grades

Educational cash incentive programmes provide contradictory results. Meetville.com (dating app to find the right person) polled 30, 845 people in the period from 7/12/14 to 9/4/14.

Participants were asked to respond to the following question: “Should students get paid for good grades?” Those polled were for (49%) and against (51%) almost in equal measure.

Nigel Barber, Ph.D., an evolutionary psychologist as well as the author of Why Parents Matter, believes: “Although tangible rewards can motivate students to work harder, they also undermine motivation to learn for its own sake, as the focus shifts from studies to money. Praise students for good grades but don't pay them,” she sums up.

Most of those expressing doubt about this educational policy come from developed countries, such as the USA - 54%, Canada - 5%, Britain - 11%, Australia - 7%. Developing countries may have contributed to the remaining 23%.

Alex Cusper, Meetville service analyst, comments: “In developing countries, there is strong evidence for positive effects of financial incentives. In developed, however, countries it is less encouraging as financial problems don’t appear as crucial there. As the result stipends may improve students’ attendance but would not contribute to their achievement significantly.

Meetville, a leading mobile dating service, regularly conducts research among its users. Millions of people from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia answer hundreds of questions every month. You can find the results of the poll here. If you are interested in research on a particular topic, please contact us. Any reprint of the material should be followed by clickable links to the survey.