EFFECTS OF ACHIEVEMENT RELATED MOTIVES, TIME, TASK IMPORTANCE AND DEGREE OF FAILURE ON SUBSEQUENT PERFORMANCE AND ACHIEVEMENT-RELATED AFFEC

One hundred twenty five male and female subjects taken from a section of General Psychology were pretested and classified on the test anxiety questionnaire measure of achievement motivation. Subjects below the median in test anxiety were considered success-oriented and those above the median in test anxiety were considered failure-threatened. Subjects were exposed to an in class Psychology exam to arouse the achievement-related motives. They were also classified according to the perceived importance of the Psychology exam for self-evaluation and future goals and perceived success or failure on the exam. Following the exam subjects scheduled either 30 minutes or 24 hours following the exam were given a performance measure and measure of achievement-related affect. The study was meant to investigate how motivation aroused by the Psychology exam would persist to affect subsequent performance. It was found that success-oriented males rated the Psychology exam as high in importance for self-evaluation and future goals performed better than those who rated the exam as low in importance. The reverse occurred for females. Failure-threatened males who rated the Psychology exam low in importance performed better than those who rated it high in importance. Both success-oriented and failure threatened males who expected a high success on the Psychology exam reported stronger feelings of enthusiasm and interest than those who expected failure on the exam. Again the reverse occurred for females. Success-oriented males expecting success on the exam performed better on the subsequent task when it was presented 30 minutes following the exam than 24 hours following the exam. Again the reverse occurred for females. Success-oriented females expecting success performed better on the subsequent task when it was presented 24 hours following the exam than 30 minutes following the exam. This indicates that the motivation to achieve of males decreased over time following success while that of females increased over time following success.