Can you work when you’re being watched? In the 1920s, workers at the Hawthorne Works plant in Cicero, Illinois, took part in a novel study of productivity. To change habits in the workplace, researchers decided to give them more light. Researchers changed the light bulbs in certain parts of the plant, and lo and behold, productivity in the brighter rooms increased. Of course, there’s more to the story, and before you tell your students to study in brighter spaces, you should know that the real driver to productivity was not the lights. What increased work output was simply being observed, now referred to as the Hawthorne effect. There’s a simple moral to the story. We work harder if we’re being watched. Will students study more effectively if we’re watching them?
