PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

In view of high academic expectations and a broad offer of leisure time activities in the afternoons, students are torn between doing schoolwork and attending to self-determined activities. In an experiment, the authors examined whether the students' orientation towards achievement or towards well-being influences the motivational regulation and the result of learning in the case of a conflict between study and recreation. Value orientations were activated through priming and their influence on motivational interference and success in learning scientific contents was determined. While learning, students were allowed to switch to music videos, with the number of available videos varying between one and two. The regulation of learning was ascertained by means of a questionnaire on the experience of motivational interference. Learning success was determined through a multiple choice test as well as the number of correctly reproduced elements of mapping. As was to be expected, wellness-oriented students showed a higher motivational interference than the control group, whereas students oriented towards achievement showed neither lower interference nor higher achievement. Students in the group oriented towards well-being showed higher achievement in the multiple choice test when being offered one as compared to two attractive alternative actions.