Task-orientation as it relates to psychological efficiency
Date
1968
Authors
McKenzie, Audrey Elaine
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Abstract
Two experiments are reported using senior high school students as Ss. The purpose of both experiments was to discover if the findings of Wishner's (1955) series of studies, concerning his concept of psychological efficiency, could be generalized to a population other than that which Wishner had used: first year college students. In his studies Wishner defined psychological efficiency as a function of the ratio of ener expended directly on the task to energy expended in activity irrelevant to the task. Orientation or direction of centering, whether toward the task or toward the ego, was basic to Wishner's experimental studies, in the experiments reported here the direction of centering was manipulated by another strategy of instruction than that customarily used by Wishner (1962). Results of the experiments gave only qualified support to the results which Wishner had demonstrated repeatedly and, in some respects, revealed a pattern of energy expenditure diametrically opposed to Wishner's findings.