Reflection #7

ECON 490 LA Prompt for Reflection #7
This week we want to focus on incentive schemes that you've experienced. Feel free to chose contexts other than school. That will make the posts more interesting. But here I will focus on school, because that experience is common to all members of the class. You've probably taken courses that have different grading schemes. Discuss how your performance varied based on differences in the grading scheme. You can do this on an assignment by assignment basis as well, or on a team by team basis. What we're after here, is how the reward scheme influenced your performance.

Then also write about about your sense of risk aversion. Do you try to reduce uncertainty by self-insuring or self-protecting with respect to your grades? If so, what do activities do you do to reduce the risk?


The grading schemes used by professors in my experience have been quite varied.  As an example, some professors take daily attendance, assign homework, give midterms and a final.  Other professors do not take attendance, but give scores based on 2 midterms and a final.  These two cases affect my study habits greatly. 

In the first case, I usually take a more structured approach.  I would go to class, take notes, and do the homework up until exams.  When exams arrive, I would attend review sessions, review homework and do past exams. 

In the second case, I tend to be more "casual".  Since there is no attendance, I feel less guilty about missing class.  If there is another class that needs more urgent preparations, I may skip class to attend office hours or do other work.  If it's a morning class, I may skip to get more sleep.  Since there is no homework, I would leisurely review the textbook or lecture notes. 

In order to maximize my utility and get an A, both class formats require a large amount of time.  Overall, my performance is better in the first scenario.  However, I've realized that in order for me to do well regardless of the class format, I need to use a more structured format outlined in the first case, modified to include extra office hours.

This factors into into my sense of risk aversion in the classroom.  Part of the reason why I prefer the first method is to protect myself against unexpected questions or concepts on exams.  Spending time in class and doing homework exposes me to more material, and through constant revisiting makes it easier to understand.  If I have questions, I try to solve it myself first before going to office hours and asking.  If there is homework and/or labs, I will do my utmost to get 100% on both to act as a buffer for potentially disappointing exam scores.  For further insurance, I will cram for exams regardless of how my studies are progressing.  On the surface, the first method seems like much more work compared to the relaxed pace in the second case but to me, the pressure and time spent cramming for exams at the last minute gives me less utility when compared to a relatively steady study process.

Outside of academia, the "easiest" incentive scheme for me to follow was in music, in this case playing piano.  For me, the reward is self perpetuating.  From a young age, my piano teacher would assign several pieces for me to learn.  She would ask me to sight read them.  Since I wasn't adept at playing music I had never seen before, my performance was pretty terrible.  Then, the teacher would give some quick words of encouragement and play the piece for me to hear.  The result was wonderful.  From that moment, I was motivated to get my performance comparable to the teacher's.  Every time I practiced I would remember my teacher's rendition.  To help ensure good results, I would listen to performances by world-class pianists and apply their signatures to my playing.  After practicing for some time, I could perform the pieces well (demonstrated through a recital), and my rewards of a good performance and self-confidence were obtained.  However, a new reward would quickly appear whenever I heard a new piece that I liked and wanted to learn.  Using my previous confidence and successful experience as motivation, I would start practicing something new -- and the cycle still continues today.  Playing musical instruments helped me learn from a young age that "Practice makes perfect" which can apply to almost every setting, including school.