Motivation scholarships work, but not in the way universities would like

The motivation scholarships used by most Czech universities do very little to motivate students. This form of support is basically only for a select few, and only a small percentage of students will benefit from it. For the majority, on the contrary, it is rather demotivating because they know in advance that they will not be able to get a scholarship. This is according to a recent meta-analysis by Thomas Lintner of the National Institute of SYRI, published in the prestigious journal Educational Research Review.

"Performance-based financial incentives increase the number of credits earned, slightly improving grade point averages and exam scores. The problem is that the type of incentives, where the number of recipients is limited, only benefit students with above-average grades, according to current research. For those who come to college with lower grades from high school, these scholarships can even be demotivating. That's because they don't believe they can achieve them. At the same time, it is not true that financial incentives help students with lower incomes more," pointed out Tomáš Lintner.

Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1747938X24000307?via%3Dihub

Photo: MUNI