Test-taking motivation and performance: Do self-report and time-based measures of effort reflect the same aspects of test-taking motivation?

Abstract

Several studies found a low correlation between two measures of test-taking effort: self-reported effort (SRE) and response time effort (RTE). This study examined test-taking motivation in low-stake cognitive ability testing (n = 1614) by applying expectancy-value theory as the framework. We investigated the complex relationship between test performance and test-taking motivation aspects (expectancy, importance, interest, test anxiety, time cost, and test-taking effort). Furthermore, we used both SRE and RTE, allowing us to examine whether the two measures of effort relied on the same underlying mechanism of test-taking motivation. Our finding showed that SRE and RTE simultaneously explained more than half of test performance variance, with the predictive power of RTE being higher. RTE and SRE were correlated lower than expected (r = 0.28). SRE is best predicted by expectancy, while RTE is best predicted by test anxiety. In practice, if motivation-filtering procedures are needed, it is better to use RTE.