Factors in Students' Decision to Attempt Academic Tasks,
Abstract
The purpose of these experiments was to investigate the strategies used by elementary school age students in their decisions to attempt academic tasks of varying difficulty. The underlying hypothesis was that students perceive their own choices of school tasks as a series of risky decisions. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that students select among the available courses of action in such a way as to maximize long run subjective expected value. The students make use of their own subjective estimates of success and the values associated with success in determining which of the available options will give them the greatest gain over all. To investigate the question the students were asked to select and attempt to solve a series of sets of arithmetic problems which varied in difficulty and varied in the values and costs associated with successful solution and failure. The experimental results from the three experiments showed that SEV predictions accounted for the students' selections substantially better than did the predictions based on either of the other two alternative strategies. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 14, 1972
- Accession Number
- AD0738483
Entities
People
- Carol Ann Gray
Organizations
- University of Washington