The Structure and Antecedents of Positive Academic Risk-Taking

• In Event: 58.084 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: 58.084-4 - Poster Session 2: Motivational and Affective Processes

Abstract

Academic risk taking describes students’ willingness and comfort with trying new or challenging tasks and their ultimate engagement with such tasks, despite the potential for some undesired consequences. Despite the hypothesized importance of academic risk taking, this construct is relatively untested in terms of its structure or relationship to other constructs. In the current study undergraduate students (n=212) completed a questionnaire designed to measure three dimensions of Academic Risk Taking as well as measures of Achievement Goal Orientation and Need for Cognition. Results from confirmatory factor analyses and path analyses demonstrate the viability of the three-dimension model of academic risk taking as well as the relationship between risk taking and other motivational constructs.

Authors

• Sara A. Abercrombie, Northern Arizona University

• Kira Joy Carbonneau, Washington State University - Pullman

• Carolyn J. Hushman, University of New Mexico