Feedback in Homogeneous Ability Groups: A Field Experiment

Relative performance feedback often increases effort and performance on average. However, in the context of education, learners with low ability often do not profit from relative performance feedback. Less is known on how learners react to feedback when changing the feedback group composition. In a randomized field experiment we allocated 7352 learners into (i) homogeneous ability feedbackgroups, (ii) heterogeneous ability feedbackgroups, and (iii) a control group. All learners were observed in an online learning enviroment with anonymity between them. We find that on average relative performance feedback increases learning effort by 0.11 standard deviations. However, we do not observe any difference between learners in homogeneous and heterogeneous feedback groups on average. Further, we analyze the differential treatment effect for different ability levels between homogeneous and heterogenous feedback groups.