Learner Control, Willingness to Pay and Reservation Wages

Abstract: This paper investigates whether increasing the amount of control a learner has in his/ her learning increases his/her willingness to pay for that learning, or his/her reservation wage for a topic related task. Using a small scale online experiment, separating participants into two groups, each corresponding to a different treatment; one with control and one without, this paper found no significant difference between the two groups in their willingness to pay for learning how to play chess. However, when using OLS regression with some additional control variables (gender, age, academic ability, a specific desire to learn the study topic and a preference for self guided tuition), being in the treatment group with some control was found to have a negative effect on participants’ reservation wage for a topic related task. This was significant at the 10% level. Additionally, when using perceived control as the measure of control rather than the treatment group, this paper found that having a greater sense of control had a small positive effect on willingness to pay for learning at the 1% significance level. However this paper acknowledges that the sample size is too small for the results to be conclusive, but suggests that relationship between learner control, willingness to pay for learning and subsequent reservation wages warrants further investigation.