In traditional classrooms, where students are evaluated on the basis of their actions, poor performance is closely linked to the lack of ability. Many students often see failure as a threat to their positive self-image and instead of increasing efforts, apply various ego-protective strategies to shift attention from real or hypothesized lack of ability to other factors influencing unsatisfactory production. In both cases self-worth is protected. This paper aims at performing a motivational analysis of two such strategies, i.e. self-handicapping and defensive pessimism used by secondary school students in achievement context.
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