The effects of effort training over time using two different training methods
Date
1987
Authors
Forer, Barry
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Abstract
The relative efficacy of two effort training methods and the effects of multiple training sessions on generalized effort were examined in local Grade 8 students. Each student underwent two effort training sessions. In each session, the problems were arranged in two easily distinguished sets. These sets were the main effort cue in the study. In one session, students were asked to solve a variety of problems involving addition, finding cities on maps and constructing words from target words. Each student received either high effort problems or low effort problems. In the other session, students received both low effort and high effort tangram problems, with each question set associated with either high or low effort. After the second session, generalized effort was measured by asking the subjects for a short written opinion; the opinion sheet came from one question set or the other. Effort was measured both for the quantity and the quality of the opinions produced. It was found that the second session had a greater effect on transferred effort than did the first session, but only for the quality scores. When cues were associated with low effort in both sessions, subjects wrote higher quality opinions than when the opinion cue was consistently associated with high effort. There were no differences found between the effort elicited by the two training methods. Subjects whose opinion cue was associated with contrasting effort levels on the two sessions wrote longer, but not better quality opinions than those subjects whose cue was associated with a consistent effort history. These results are indicative of the fragility of the effects of effort training. None of the notable trends was shown both for the quantity and the quality scores. In addition, high effort training resulted in reduced effort. The negative results may have been due to either the specific sample used in this study, or to the abstract nature of the effort training tasks. In order to assess the conditions under which effort training will be effective, long-term classroom studies need to be conducted.