Influence of monetary and non-monetary incentives on students' behavior in blended learning settings in higher education

Abstract

Previous research shows that blended learning has the ability to increase the learners' motivation and learning success. However, motivational aspects in blended learning have not been sufficiently researched yet. We therefore investigated the influence of non-monetary and monetary incentives on learners' behavior. We selected "likes" as a non-monetary incentive and enabled students to rate other students' posts (similar to Facebook). In a second turn, a monetary incentive (a tablet PC or the cash equivalent, respectively) was raffled among the students of a top 10 "like"-ranking. Based on log-file data and survey results, we observe that both variations ((1) only "likes" and (2) "likes" & tablet PC prize) do not differ with respect of their influence on the overall activity of learners during the lecture. Thus, the additional monetary incentive did not increase activity. We conclude that monetary incentives do not seem to be efficient. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.