Abstracts - Earli

The interplay of cognitive and affective processes: students’ approaches to learning andachievement in HungaryMária B. Németh, Research Group on the Development of Competencies,, HungaryThe permanent and successful renewal of knowledge is impossible without effective learning.Since Hungarian students performed below the expectations in the PISA studies, in November2005 the Center for Research on Learning and Instruction of the University of Szeged examinedthe affective characteristics of 13 and 17-year-old students with regard to learning, administeringan equivalent version of the questionnaire used in PISA-2000. The questionnaire consisted of 49items in four categories (Learning strategies, Motivation, Self-related beliefs, Learning situationsand preferences), which were divided into 13 characteristics. The students had to evaluatestatements on a four point Likert-scale. The instrument proved reliable in both populations. Thequestionnaire was administered to 13- (N=3385) and 17-year-old (2037) students. The sample wasrepresentative for territorial coverage, gender and socio-cultural background. The results show that13-year-olds have a more positive attitude to learning. They think more advantageously about theirlearning qualities and activities than 17-year-olds. They differ greatly in their mathematicalinterest, but not in their use of elaboration strategies. The students’ interest in reading doesn’tdiffer significantly between the two age-groups. Hungarian students prefer memorization inlearning. Similarly to the PISA study, instrumental motivation had an outstanding position amongmastery motives. The majority of students trust their verbal abilities, but they are uncertain aboutmeeting the objectives in mathematics. The interest in mathematics decreases drastically betweenthe two age-groups, but the evaluation of co-operative learning has improved significantly since2000. While the individual student groups differ greatly with respect to cognitive performance,there is hardly any difference in affective personality features. This insignificant differenceprobably derives from the similar personality-shaping influences the students are subject to inclassrooms. The data about the students’ attitudes provides useful information for developingprograms that aim to improve academic success and student efficiency.On the formation of performance expectancies: The role of need for cognition and task difficultyMarc-Andre Reinhard, University of Mannheim, GermanyOliver Dickhäuser, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, GermanyIn this paper first the influence of cognitive motivation (NFC) and task difficulty on the process ofexpectancy formation should be analyzed. We assume, that differences in task difficulty onlyresult in differences in performance expectancies when cognitive motivation is high (high NFC)but not when cognitive motivation is low (low NFC). This should be the case because analyzingthe demands of the task (including analyzing task difficulty) is a process requiring cognitivecapacity. Individuals low in need for cognition should less likely engage in such cognitiveendeavors. Second, in line with considerations of Marshall and Brown (2004) we predict, thatexpectancies should not affect actual performance when the task is easy (because higher effort orhigher persistence [as an effect of high performance expectancies] are not likely to increaseperformance in rather easy tasks). For difficult tasks we argue that expectancies should affectperformance only when expectancies were formed via intensive processing (i.e. when NFC ishigh). When expectancies were formed via peripheral processing (i.e. when NFC is low), theexpectancies should not be related to actual performance. The results of study 1 (N = 175university students) were in line with our hypotheses: the interaction of NFC and task-difficultyaffected expectancies. Only for participants with higher NFC task-difficulty had an influence onexpectancies of success (with lower expectancies for the difficult task than for easy task). Givenlow NFC, no effect of task difficulty on the expectancies was found. Study 2 replicates the– 663 –