I promise to work hard: The impact of a non-binding commitment pledge on academic performance.

• 
  By Puneet Arora
  Assistant Professor

  Co-Authors
  Nicholas A. Wright, Department Of Economics, Florida International University
  Jesse Wright, Florida Gulf Coast University)
  

  Journal : Education Finance and Policy
  Publisher : MIT Press

Article citation: Wright, N. A., Arora, P., & Wright, J. (2025). I promise to work hard: The impact of a non-binding commitment pledge on academic performance. Education Finance and Policy.

Abstract

Students often start a course with high expectations and an ambitious plan of action. Some instructors use goal-inducing non-binding commitment pledges to nudge students to follow through on their intended course of action. Using a field experiment, we asked treated students to set a goal grade, identify the actions they will take to achieve it, and sign a commitment pledge to work towards this grade. We find that while treated students pledged a greater time commitment and targeted a higher grade, their overall test scores decrease by 0.23 standard deviations and they were 15 percentage points less likely to pass the course.