Title: Does the timing of unannounced quizzes influence student behaviour in effort investment and learning output?

Authors: Tin-Chun Lin

Addresses: School of Business and Economics, Indiana University - Northwest, Gary, IN 46408, USA

Abstract: The main purpose of this research is to verify whether the timing of unannounced quizzes would influence students' behaviour in effort investment and learning output. Findings suggested that: (1) students' in-class effort was the same whether pop quizzes were held at the beginning or end of the class; while students studied harder outside the classroom in the beginning-of-class pop quiz system than in the end-of-class pop quiz system; (2) students' learning output was slightly better at the beginning of the system; (3) the mixed pop quiz system was better than the other two systems in improving students' efforts and learning outputs; and (4) daily lateness was lower in the beginning-of-class pop quiz system than in the end-of-class pop quiz system. However, early departures were lower in the end-of-class pop quiz system than in the beginning-of-class pop quiz system. A comparison of these three systems indicated that the mixed pop quiz system lowered late class arrivals and early departures.

Keywords: in-class effort; learning output; out-of-class effort; unannounced quizzes; timing; student behaviour; late arrivals; early departures; class arrivals; class departures.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2016.082175

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2016 Vol.7 No.3/4, pp.214 - 233

Received: 11 Aug 2016
Accepted: 27 Aug 2016

Published online: 09 Feb 2017 *

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