Streaks to Success? The Effects of Highlighting Streaks on Student Effort and Learning

This project is the result of a large collaborative effort. We want to especially thank Elena Arias Ortiz, Sheila Avila, Mercedes Mateo, Carolina Méndez, Ben Petrazzini, Alejandra Vargas García and José Zegarra for their support to the project. The project would not have been materialized without the support by a team at the Centro de Investigación Avanzada en Educación of the Universidad de Chile directed by Roberto Araya and the team at the research center GRADE that was coordinated by Natalia Arteta, Jessica Simon and Claudia Sugimaru. Many people at the Ministry of Education of Peru played an essential role for the scale up of the learning platform used in this study including Carmen Beltrán, Sheridan Blossiers, Sandino Canales, Marilú Chávez, Cristina Gálvez, Killa Miranda, Mónica Miyagui and Germán Pachas. We also thank Miguel Chira, Andrea Clavo, Lisseth Escalante, Giacomo Marinelli, Carla de Oliveira and Gera Ríos for outstanding research assistance. We acknowledge excellent comments by David Evans, Stefano Fiorin, Julián Messina and seminar participants at Bocconi University. The ANID/PIA/Basal Funds for Centers of Excellence (Fund FB0003), the Inter-American Development Bank (including the Korean Fund), the International Research Development Center and the Old Dart Foundation provided funding for the scale-up of the learning platform. The opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Inter-American Development Bank. We received approval for this project from the Via Libre (Comite Institutional de Bioetica) ethics board and registered the Conecta Ideas data with the Ministry of Justice in Peru. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• August 20, 2025