Effort: The double-edged sword in school achievement.

Abstract

Self-worth theory suggests that teachers and students often operate at crosspurposes: Teachers encourage achievement through effort, yet many students attempt to avoid the implication that they lack ability by not trying. To test these assertions undergraduates rated their affective reactions to hypothetical test failures under conditions of high or low effort and in the presence or absence of self-serving excuses. Then, in the role of teachers, they administered punishment to hypothetical students under the same failure conditions. Results indicated that inability attributions and negative affect were greatest when failure followed much effort. Conversely, failure reflected less on ability, and shame was correspondingly reduced when students studied little—the same failure condition that subjects, in the role of teachers, punished most severely. The virtues of hard work have long been extolled in America. Nowhere is this truer than in our schools, where it is widely held among educators and parents alike that while not all students are brilliant, at least everyone can try. The paramount importance of such a work ethic in the teacher's system of values has recently been demonstrated (see Weiner, 1972, 1974). In the typical procedure, teachers are asked to reward and punish a group of hypothetical students of varying ability levels (either high or low) for test performances that range from excellent to clear failure. These students also differ in the amount of effort they expend in preparing for the test (either high or low). While the results indicate that test outcome is the major determinant of classroom evaluation, teachers also reinforce effort. Students who are perceived as having expended effort are rewarded more in success and punished less in failure than those who do not try. Moreover, these evaluative reactions appear to be largely independent of student ability level. These same general results have been obtained repeatedly by investigators using various subject popula