The Real Reason Students Respond to Measurement and Accountability

iStock-864707808

When students are presented with a new concept in class, the question that always follows about 10 minutes into the lesson goes something like, “Will this be on the test/midterm/final exam?”

Why do students ask this?

And more importantly – what does any of this have to do with crowdfunding for your performing ensemble?

 

Real Science, Folks

Those answers lie in a phenomena called “The Hawthorne Effect”. The Hawthorne Effect is an industrial/organizational psychological concept that was identified back in the 1950s, when a researcher decided to analyze scientific data from the 1920s and 1930s from experiments that dealt with worker productivity in at a company called “Hawthorne Works”.

The experiments involved measuring worker output when environmental variables were manipulated – mainly visible light. Workers were asked to work in varying degrees of lit workspaces and productivity was documented.

The findings were suspect, because the researcher found that whenever workers were made aware that they were being measured and assessed, output improved (even in candle-lit near-darkness). When the employees were under observation, they sat up a little straighter and performed with better behavior because they were being measured.

Just the sheer fact that they were being measured caused the work to be performed with just a little more speed and effort, and a little more accuracy.

 

What does this have to do with your crowdfunding campaign?

(or ANY fundraising campaign for that matter?)

 

Kids are somewhat predictable, in that they generally tend to respond in like/similar ways to things. For all intents and purposes, students will generally tend to do better with things when they know they are being monitored, measured, and otherwise being held accountable.

(Grow-ups are exactly the same by the way…)

  • It’s why workout partners tend to increase the odds of fitness weight-loss success.
  • It’s why there are countless apps in your App Store to help hard-wire habits by making you accountable to “yourself.
  • It’s why music memorization tests, tests for seats, and solos and scales/sightreading are still a part of most instrumental and vocal curricula.

Key Takeaway :

Make sure your campaign participants in your ensemble(s) KNOW that they are being monitored and measured for individual progress (and possibly section-by-section progress) when it comes to logging-in, adding contacts, and developing donations. 

Students will sit up a little straighter, take the exercise a little more seriously, and probably care about things a little more deeply if they know that they will be held accountable.

 

 

By the way…

FansRaise makes it easy to monitor and measure how your participants are doing. You can see which students are completely on-board and crushing it, as well as which students have yet to log-in and set up a password for access.

Other crowdfunding platforms lack this very important function, as they normally just let you create a donation page and then you’re on your own.

Don’t settle for mediocre, and don’t settle for less than your students’ best effort.

 

For more detail around how the FansRaise platform works, download our free $10,000 Blueprint!

FansRaise.

 

Leave a Comment