A Study Of Student's Independent Thinking As Manifested In Real Achievement Situation

Abstract

The major aim of the paper is to examine to what extent expectancy as an expression of perceived ability is related to amount of independent thinking as manifested in the examination situation, and to what extent the latter is a determinant of grades. A randomly selected sample of 117 students, 77 female and 40 male were asked one week before their examination of psychology to estimate as realistically as possible the grades (1.4-4.0) in fact they think they will get in the examination0 This question and others were conducted to test the degree of expectancy within groups. A self Confidence scale (Vollmer, 1986) was used to measure students' perceived ability Grades on the Educational psychology examination range from 1.0 (best possible) to 4.0 For Correctional analysis the scale was reversed so that a high number meant good performance Path analysis showed that expectancy did have an indirect effect on grades through independent thinking, but this effect was not very strong. The hypothesis that expectancy measured shortly before an examination is a realistic of pre-examination knowledge level, and that expectancy grade correlation may be accounted for by just assuming a relation between pre-examination knowledge levels found to have strong support The assumption that students with high expectancy get better grades than those with low expectancy, because the former persons have worked harder in preparing for the examination and therefore have learned more than the latter, also found support