FOSTERING HOPE: EFFECTS OF A HOPE INTERVENTION ON TASK PERSISTENCE AND PERFORMANCE

While hope has been consistently established as a significant predictor of academic outcomes, little work has been done to address whether it is possible to increase state hope levels to improve academic behaviour and performance. In this study, we tested a short and novel hope intervention (12-mins) aligned with Snyder’s cognitive model of hope on task persistence and performance through a difficult anagrams task. This condition is compared against the MCII strategy and an equivalent control group. In this between-subjects study, 195 university students were randomly assigned to one of the 3 conditions. Participants went through the respective intervention disguised as a writing task and completed the difficult anagrams task. Task persistence, operationalised as the time spent solving the anagrams and task performance, operationalised as the number of anagrams solved were measured accordingly. Results revealed that participants in the hope condition experienced significantly higher state hope levels, persisted longer and performed better in the difficult anagrams task as compared to those in the MCII and control condition. Unexpectedly, contrary to our hypotheses, the MCII condition did not outperform the control condition on the three dependent variables. Future directions and practical implications in education were discussed.

Author dc:creator

• LEW ZHI XIN RACHAEL

• Academic task persistence, Behavioural persistence, Snyder’s hope theory, Mental Contrasting and Implementation Intentions (MCII)