(90)AN INCREASE IN AVOIDANCE MOTIVATION, THROUGH USING NEGATIVE FEEDBACK IN ONLINE LEARNING TASK, REDUCES STUDENT PROCRASTINATION

摘要

Students who procrastinate often pay a heavy price. Because of the harmful consequences ofprocrastination, we predict that avoidance motivation, a self-regulation system that protects peoplefrom harm, will also protect them against procrastination. We designed two types of online learningtools (quizzes)to manipulate approach and avoidance motivation, with two types of instructions andfeedback. In the avoidance quiz, the students were instructed to try to avoid losing points, and lostpoints for each mistake. In the approach quiz, the students were instructed to try and gain as manypoints as possible, and gained points for each correct answer. In Study 1, we gave students threereading reports, preceded by control, approach-motivation, and avoidance- motivation manipulations(quizzes), respectively. Relative to the control condition, the avoidance manipulation reducedprocrastination in submitting the reading reports, whereas the approach manipulation did not. In Study96 students (73 females)were randomly assigned to either the approach or avoidance manipulationconditions. The manipulation was operated twice during the semester, and after each manipulationstudents were offered a benefit (e.g., bonus to their grade). Students had to enter a weblink to receivethe benefit and the time of entry to the weblink served as the behavioral procrastination measure. Wesend two weblinks after each manipulation (24 hours and 14 days after). The results were consistentwith our hypothesis but significant result was obtained only once. These results give initial support toour hypothesis that avoidance motivation can contribute to thriving, and suggest that our avoidancemanipulationtechniques could be applied in educational settings to reduce procrastination.