The Effect of Adverse Learning Conditions on Action-Oriented and State-Oriented College Students

Abstract

Abstract Over the course of their academic careers, college students have to deal with a variety of challenges, such as academic failure and ineffective teaching. Julius Kuhl's (1985) theory of action control would predict that students characterized by an action orientation will be buffered against the negative consequences of such experiences, whereas state-oriented individuals may have considerable difficulties under these adverse learning conditions. This hypothesis was tested in the present study by having action-oriented and state-oriented college students first take a GRE-type test Based on their perceived performance on the test, they were classified into perceived-success and perceived-failure groups. One week later, all students viewed a videotaped lecture presented by a low- or high-expressive instructor. Action-oriented students performed better than state-oriented students on a lecture-based achievement test, despite low-expressive instruction and prior perceived academic failure. Moreover, s...