efforts towards academic performance may be construed as less moral or less prosocial.<sup>26</sup> Hence, it is plausible that such social comparisons might have diluted the goal-setting _bite_ of the intervention.

The heterogeneity analysis suggests that the goal-setting intervention had a slightly larger impact on female students than their male counterparts. Most importantly, we find that the intervention relatively helped students belonging to the weaker socio-economic backgrounds who are likely catching up from lower levels of performance, and have larger room to improve. Building on our initial observation of students overestimating their baseline performance, we find that students who overestimate their baseline performance demonstrate slightly better performance in outcomes. We also find that low performing students overestimate their baseline scores, which is consistent with the Dunning-Kruger effect.<sup>27</sup> Higher improvements among overestimating students can also be linked to higher risk-taking ability which may result in better innovation (Hershleifier _et al._ (2012)). It can also be explained as a higher marginal improvement from low baseline levels as compared to their high baseline level counterparts.

Overall, the results from this study suggest that while goal-setting seems to move in the right direction by positively impacting effort, time-use, and self-discipline, the movement in these behavioral outcomes is not enough to have a discernible impact on actual academic performance. This study also highlights the importance of having an accurate idea of own performance/ability to set realistic goals, and being able to achieve those. This study was conducted _at scale_ encompassing the entire area of Zanzibar, and the results, therefore, circumvent the issues related to external validity and potential mismatches between trials at a small scale and large scale-ups.

# **References**

- Alan, S., Boneva, T., & Ertac, S. 2019. Ever Failed, Try Again, Succeed Better: Results from a Randomized Educational Intervention on Grit. _The Quarterly Journal of Economics_ , **134** , 1121– 1162.

- Almlund, M., Duckworth, A.L., Heckman, J.J., & Kautz, T.D. 2011. Personality Psychology and Economics. _Pages 1–181 of:_ Hanushek, E., Machin, S., & Woessman, L. (eds), _Handbook of Economics of Education_ . Amsterdam: Elsevier.

- Anderson, M.J. 2008. Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Interventions: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool and Early Training Projects. _Journal of American Statistical Association_ , **103** , 1481–1495.

- Angrist, J., Lang, D., & Oreopoulos. 2009. Incentives and services for college achievement: evidence from a randomized trial. _Journal of Applied Economics_ , **1(1)** , 136–163.

- ASER. 2017. _Annual Survey of Education Report (Rural)_ .

- Ashraf, N., Bandiera, O., & Lee, S.S. 2014. Awards unbundled: Evidence from a natural field experiment. _Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization_ , **100** , 44–63.

> 26Heyman & Ariely (2004) show that efforts in social markets are much less sensitive to compensation than in a monetary market. In a slightly different context, the model by Benabou & Tirole (2006) predicts that as publicity and rewards increase, incentives are more likely to backfire among volunteers whose preference for prosocial activities is most at risk of being misperceived as a preference for rewards.

> 27As described in Kruger & Dunning (1999), the Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which the people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.

13