Educating Effort and Its Impact on Scientific Problem-Solving

• In Event: Poster Session 17
  In Poster Session: Cognition and Motivation in STEM

Abstract

Effort is underrated by many young students, so that they don’t believe working hard would improve their academic performance. Previous research shows that educating effort has positive effects on students’ test scores, classroom engagement, etc. The present study extends to show that educating effort influences students’ scientific problem solving processes too. Sixty-two late elementary students were randomly assigned into two experimental conditions, strategy only group and strategy plus effort group. The intervention applies “learning by help others” approach to deliver the messages of strategy or strategy plus effort. Students’ problem solving on computer-based scientific tasks were captured by snapshot software for analysis. The result shows that educating effort positively improves students’ persistence in problem solving, as well as learning performance.

Authors

• Daoquan Li, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Xiaodong Lin, Teachers College, Columbia University

• John B. Black, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Jie Gao, Teachers College, Columbia University