Motivation for participation in competition and avoidance of competition: the role of the accuracy of comparative self-evaluations of academic performance

• Authors: Damjan Šimek , Katja Košir

Abstracts

EN

To investigate the role of academic achievement in the reasons for participation in and/or avoidance of competition more clearly, the presented research was aimed at assessing the role of the discrepancy between objective evaluations and subjective self-evaluations of academic performance in secondary school students. The differences between under-raters, accurate raters, and over-raters in their reasons for participation in and/or avoidance of competition were investigated. The study comprised 534 secondary school students. The results do not clearly indicate possible benefits of the positive bias; we found that under-rating may have some advantages in the sense of mastery orientation and self-improvement motives (upward comparison) in competitive situations. Concerning other reasons for participation in competition, as well as reasons for avoiding it, students were found to rely more on teachers’ objective measure of academic performance than on the (in)accurate aspect of social comparison information.

Keywords

EN

competitiveness; comparative self-evaluations; academic achievement; social comparisons; secondary school students

• Publisher: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek
• Journal: The New Educational Review
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 39
• Pages: 142-152

Dates

published

2015

Contributors

author

Damjan Šimek

author

Katja Košir

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Identifiers

DOI

10.15804/tner.2015.39.1.12

Biblioteka Nauki

2012234