Effects of difficulty and diagnosticity on choice among tasks in relation to achievement motivation and perceived ability.

Replicated Y. Trope's (see record 1976-09902-001) study, by investigating the effects of 2 person characteristics (achievement motivation and perceived own ability) and 2 task characteristics (difficulty and diagnostic value about own ability) on choice among achievement tasks. Ss were 104 male high school students. In accordance with the results of Trope, it was found that high-diagnostic tasks were preferred to low-diagnostic tasks, independent of their difficulty. Trope's finding that high resultant achievers choose high-diagnostic tasks over low-diagnostic tasks to a greater extent than low resultant achievers was not replicated. The perceived degree of own ability affected choice behavior: When easy and difficult tasks were both high in diagnosticity, Ss high in perceived ability preferred difficult over easy tasks, whereas Ss low in perceived ability preferred easy over difficult tasks. It is concluded that a self-informational conception of choice behavior has to include the subjective probability of success at tasks as a determinant of choice, in addition to objective difficulty and diagnostic value. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)