E Is for Effort: Correlates of College Students' Differential Effort Expenditure across Academic Contexts

This paper offers findings intended to shed light on the determinants and consequences of college students' willingness to work hard. Self-report survey data from a sample of 1296 undergraduates revealed that (1) students expended significantly different amounts of effort across four pairs of study contexts (e.g., courses where they connected with the instructor vs. courses where they did not), (2) the more they worked in each of these contexts, the more they were succeeding, as indexed by GPA, adjustment to college, and degree of Mastery Orientation; and (3) the greater the difference in how much they were willing to work in these pairs of contexts, the less well they were succeeding. Results are interpreted as they speak to the growing need to assist an increasingly under-prepared population of students make their way to and through college. (Contains 2 tables.)