[HN Gopher] Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss
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       Experiment: Pay students to tackle learning loss
        
       Author : doat
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2022-06-20 16:21 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.newsnationnow.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.newsnationnow.com)
        
       | Pasorrijer wrote:
       | Only semi related, but when Dolly Parton noticed that her home
       | town had 30%+ highschool dropout rates, she created the buddy
       | program. Pair with a friend, and if you both graduate, you both
       | get $500. Drop out rate dropped to 6%.
       | 
       | Yeah incentives can be gamed... But if in the process of gaming,
       | the students achieve the outcome, does it really matter?
       | 
       | https://dollyparton.com/imagination_library/buddy-program/15...
        
       | baskethead wrote:
       | I think it's a good idea, but I also envision a lot of cheating
       | just to get free money. If they can tailor this so that cheating
       | isn't possible then I think it's a great idea for some areas of
       | the country.
        
         | okwubodu wrote:
         | After a certain point, cheating at scale is just studying.
        
         | PragmaticPulp wrote:
         | The obvious solution is to pay everyone when they reach the
         | achievement levels, not just the people who fell behind and
         | then caught up.
         | 
         | Having worked with kids before: Kids and young people _will_
         | game the hell out of any incentive structure put in front of
         | them with terrifying efficiency. If anyone gets the idea that
         | they can make some money by falling behind and then catching up
         | later, a significant number of students will start falling
         | behind so then can execute whatever catch-up maneuvers get them
         | their payout.
         | 
         | So sidestep the issue completely and pay everyone when they
         | reach the achievement threshold.
        
           | rahimnathwani wrote:
           | "pay everyone when they reach the achievement threshold"
           | 
           | They're paying people for activity (input) not achievement
           | (output).
        
       | Proven wrote:
        
       | oofnik wrote:
       | This sounds like a fantastic way to smother creativity and
       | imagination.
       | 
       | Anybody who has ever worked on open source projects should know
       | that incentives are not always additive.
       | 
       | https://commoncausefoundation.org/michael-sandel-on-the-corr...
        
       | neonate wrote:
       | http://web.archive.org/web/20220620162254/https://www.newsna...
       | 
       | https://archive.ph/7lGoi
        
       | skyfalldev wrote:
       | Why would the site be blocked in the EU? GDPR?
       | 
       | Edit: I used archive.org to read the article and copy-pasted it
       | here:
       | https://gist.github.com/SkyfallWasTaken/55b9787a7bda35f839a0...
        
         | RektBoy wrote:
         | Too dumb to setup cookiebar, I guess.
        
           | collegeburner wrote:
           | Setting up all the random shit gdpr requires (downloading and
           | deleting data, protection officer blah blah blah) takes a lot
           | more than a cookie bar. It's expensive and if the site
           | doesn't make much money from europe, why the hell would it
           | waste money on doing that?
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | feet wrote:
           | Or too dumb to just not use tracking cookies in the first
           | place?
        
             | collegeburner wrote:
             | I honestly feel like comments like this come from people
             | who have never run a marketing team. Analytics cookies are
             | very useful.
        
               | feet wrote:
               | Because server side tracking isn't sufficient? I've heard
               | from numerous people that it definitely is. Tracking
               | cookies are a massive privacy invasion for what is
               | minimal, if any, benefit
        
               | collegeburner wrote:
               | Even if your site is set up well to support it there is
               | objectively less data you get back. Like it's hard to
               | figure out where are the trigger points that increase or
               | decrease conversion all that stuff. Or if people leave
               | and come back. And it's a lot harder to run your own
               | analytics (coming from somebody who does) even if you are
               | just hosting somebody else's solution.
        
               | feet wrote:
               | At that point what are you actually optimizing? If
               | someone wanted to visit your site they would
        
               | SkinTaco wrote:
               | Too dumb to understand why so many websites use these :)
        
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       (page generated 2022-06-20 23:02 UTC)