Study persistence and academic achievement as a function of the type of competing tendencies

  • Willy Lens
  • Marlies Lacante
  • Maarten Vansteenkiste
  • Dora Herrera
Article
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Revised:

Abstract

In order to understand and predict students’ achievement and persistence at learning activities, many contemporary motivational models consider how much students are motivated for their school work. However, students’ achievement and persistence might not only be affected by their amount of study motivation, but also by the motivation to engage in competing alternative activities, as suggested three decades ago by Atkinson and Birch in their “Dynamics of Action” (1970). Building on this line of theorizing, the present contribution indicates that it is not only instructive to consider the level of students’ motivation for these competing activities, but also the type of activities they engage in, that is leisure vs. working activities. Two studies demonstrated that whereas time spent on working activities is inversely related to study motivation, attitude, persistence and academic achievement, such relationships were not found for leisure time engagement. Spending some time on leisure time activities does not interfere with optimal learning.

Key words

Academic achievement Competing motivations Dynamics of action 

Résumé

Dans le but de comprendre et de prédire la performance et la persistance des étudiants dans des activités d’apprentissage, plusieurs théories contemporaines de la motivation considèrent l’intensité de la motivation des étudiants à l’endroit de leur travail scolaire. Cependant, la performance et la persistance des étudiants peuvent dépendre non seulement de l’intensité de la motivation à l’étude, mais aussi de la motivation à s’engager dans des activités différentes, comme l’ont déjà suggéré Atkinson et Birch dans leur ‘Dynamics of action’ (1970). Se basant sur cette théorie, le présent article propose de considérer non seulement le niveau de motivation des étudiants pour ces activités différentes, mais aussi le type d’activité (loisir vs travail). Deux études démontrent que le temps passé au travail est inversement relié à la motivation et à la persistance à l’étude, à l’attitude (positive) envers l’étude et au rendement scolaire; une telle relation n’est pas apparue pour le temps consacré aux loisirs. Un certain temps de détente ne nuit pas à l’apprentissage optimal.

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Copyright information

© Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisbon, Portugal/ Springer Netherlands 2005

Authors and Affiliations

  • Willy Lens
    • 1
  • Marlies Lacante
    • 1
  • Maarten Vansteenkiste
    • 1
  • Dora Herrera
    • 2
  1. 1.Department of PsychologyUniversity of LeuvenLeuvenBelgium
  2. 2.Department of PsychologyUniversity of LimaLima 33Peru

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