Willpower in Achievement Tests: The Interplay Between Test Effort and Self-Control Depletion in Test Situations

• In Event: 75.062 - Poster Session 18
  In Poster Session: 75.062-2 - Motivational and Cognitive Processes: Self-Regulation, Emotions, and Memory

Abstract

To perform well on exhausting (large-scale) assessments, students have to maintain their test-motivation while inhibiting distracting thoughts or emotions. Thus, they have to exert self-control which draws on a finite mental energy resource that can be depleted by different kinds of cognitive operations. A lack of self-control resources impair subsequent performance and seem to undermine motivational processes. To learn more about the role of self-control in achievement tests, we investigated the interplay between test-effort and the exertion of self-control resources during test sessions in N=1826 vocational students. Our results indicate that test-takers´ resource depletion depends on test-efforts invested on task performance. In addition, these results were also related with dispositional self-control and cognitive abilities.

Authors

• Christoph Lindner, IPN - Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education

• Jan Retelsdorf, IPN - Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education

• Gabriel Nagy, Leibniz-Institute