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Nudge Nation: a New Way to Prod Students Into and Through College

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Nudge Nation: a New Way to Prod Students Into and Through College Our experts’ take on the issues that matter today . or will tomorrow. 10 SEPTEMBER 2013 Nudge Nation: A New Way to Prod New approaches are certainly needed. Just 58 percent of full-time, first-time college students at four-year Students Into and Through College institutions complete a degree within six years. Among Hispanics, blacks, and students at two-year colleges, BY BEN WILDAVSKY the figures are much worse. In all, more than 400,000 » When Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein took students drop out every year. At a time when post- his teenage daughter to the Lollapalooza music festival secondary credentials are more important than ever, during a Chicago heat wave some years ago, the huge around 37 million Americans report their highest level of electronic displays that typically show performance education as “some college, no degree.”2 schedules also flashed periodic admonitions: DRINK There are many reasons for low rates of persistence MORE WATER. YOU SWEAT IN THE HEAT: YOU LOSE and graduation, including financial problems, the WATER. “The sign was a nudge,” wrote Sunstein and difficulty of juggling non-academic responsibilities such his coauthor Richard Thaler, one of many described in as work and family, and, for some first-generation stu- their bestselling 2008 book, Nudge.1 Without coercing dents, culture shock. But academic engagement and concertgoers to behave in a certain way, it provided success are major contributors. That’s why colleges are information designed to prompt them to make wiser using behavioral nudges, drawing on data analytics and decisions—increasing their water intake to prevent behavioral psychology, to focus on problems that occur dehydration. along the academic pipeline: Thanks in part to Thaler and Sunstein’s work, the power • Poor student organization around the logistics of of nudges has become well-established—including on going to college many college campuses, where students around the • Unwise course selections that increase the risk of country are beginning the fall semester. While online failure and extend time to degree education and software-driven pedagogy on college • Inadequate information about academic progress campuses have received a good deal of attention, a and the need for academic help less visible set of technology-driven initiatives also has • Unfocused support systems that identify struggling gained a foothold: behavioral nudges designed to keep students but don’t directly engage with them students on track to succeed. Just as e-commerce • Difficulty tapping into counseling services entrepreneurs have drawn on massive troves of consumer data to create algorithms for firms such as These new ventures, whether originating within Netflix and Amazon, which unbundle the traditional colleges or created by outside entrepreneurs, are storefront consumer experience through customized, doing things with data that just couldn’t be done in online delivery, architects of campus technology the past—creating giant databases of student course nudges also rely on data analytics or data mining to records, for example, to find patterns of success and improve the student experience. failure that result when certain kinds of students take certain kinds of courses. Like many other technology By giving students information-driven suggestions initiatives, these ventures are relatively young and much that lead to smarter actions, technology nudges are remains to be learned about how they can be made intended to tackle a range of problems surrounding the most effective. Already, however, nudge designers are process by which students begin college and make having a good deal of success marrying knowledge their way to graduation. of human behavior with the capacity of technology to www.educationsector.org Our experts’ take on the issues that matter today . or will tomorrow. reach students at larger scale, and lower cost, than Springfield, Mass., researchers sent personalized texts would be possible in person. to recent high school graduates in the treatment groups to remind them about tasks such as registering for COOLING ‘SUMMER MELT’ freshman orientation and placement tests. The texts offered help with deciphering financial aid letters and For education researcher Benjamin Castleman, the idea more. The project was coordinated with the colleges of using technology nudges to keep teenagers on track that most district graduates attend, so the reminders to college was a logical extension of his thinking about and accompanying web links took students to the right adolescent cognitive development. For several years he places to complete tasks and were tailored to specific and his colleagues had conducted experiments gaug- deadlines and requirements of each student’s intended ing the effectiveness of various interventions designed school. Interestingly, although each text offered the to prevent “summer melt,” the troubling phenomenon in option to connect students to live counselors for which high school graduates, who have been accepted to a college and plan to attend, never show up in the fall. Summer melt affects 10 to 20 percent of teens na- Summer melt affects 10 to 20 percent of tionally and the numbers are higher among low-income, teens nationally and the numbers are higher first-generation-college teenagers. After counselors in the summer melt experiments reported that texting among low-income, first-generation-college was by far the most effective way to set up counseling teenagers. sessions with students, Castleman, who is finalizing his Harvard School of Education doctoral dissertation and personalized assistance, relatively few students (just six recently joined the faculty of the University of Virginia, percent in Dallas) sought this help. Results were strik- realized that making even greater use of texting would ing. Just 10 to 12 text messages sent to low-income capitalize on adolescent impulsiveness. students over the summer raised college enrollment by more than 4 percentage points among low-income As a onetime high school teacher, Castleman says in an students in Dallas and by more than 7 percentage interview, he knew that if students are given the choice points in Lawrence and Springfield, Mass. Castleman between “wading through a bunch of [college entry] notes that the texting intervention had no impact in paperwork they find confusing, without any help,” Boston, where students can access a wide range of or hanging out with friends and working at summer college-planning support services, both during the jobs, they tend to put off important pre-college tasks school year and during the summer after graduation. until too late in the summer. Why not turn teenage The total cost of this technology nudge: $7 per student, impulsiveness into an asset by allowing students to including the cost of counselors’ time. complete key pre-college tasks immediately from their mobile phones? Why was the intervention so effective? “The summer is a uniquely nudge-free time in students’ educational Castleman did just that in a 2012 summer experiment trajectory,” says Castleman. Given that so many with his collaborator Lindsay Page, a researcher at college-intending adolescents receive few reminders Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research. about completing key tasks—and that so many are In randomized experiments involving thousands prone to procrastination—well-designed prompts can of low-income students in the Dallas Independent fill a void. School District and districts in Boston, Lawrence, and www.educationsector.org 2 Our experts’ take on the issues that matter today . or will tomorrow. According to Castleman, “The text intervention has challenge as part of a broader look at how Austin Peay the potential to be several times more cost-effective could make better use of data to maximize student at increasing college entry among students from success. disadvantaged backgrounds than other comparable interventions,” such as additional college counseling The idea for a new system came to Denley while he during the summer after high school graduation. was traveling in Europe and reading three books: Super Crunchers,3 which describes how bodies of data This study surely won’t be the last word on summer can shed light on decision making across disciplines; melt. Many factors prevent disadvantaged students Moneyball,4 the Michael Lewis book about how Billy from enrolling in college; Castleman, Page, and other Beane, the general manager of the Oakland As, used researchers continue to explore numerous ideas for a revamped statistical analysis of the optimal way to tackling those barriers. But as policymakers seek assemble a successful team; and Nudge. He realized, to improve college-going rates, a cheap, scalable, Denley says in a telephone interview, that “data- personalized, technology-based intervention such as informed choice architecture” could help students the Castleman-Page texting campaign seems to have a make better course selections. “Every campus is sitting lot of appeal. on terabytes of historical grade data. It’s just a matter of ... can you take that data, analyze it in the right kind CHOOSING THE RIGHT COURSES of way, and communicate it?” Getting students through the campus gates is just the That’s just what Denley did, creating the Degree first step. New undergraduates must make course- Compass system, which combines data mining and selection decisions that have significant implications behavior nudges to match students with “best-fit” for their future persistence and success—yet they
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