Conceptualization and Measurement of Beliefs About Effort

Abstract

The structure of beliefs about effort was investigated with the goal of developing a scale for assessing individual differences in beliefs that would enable an examination of whether beliefs about effort were related to goal-pursuit behavior. The participants in the present study were college students. The results of Studies 1 and 2 suggested that beliefs about effort could be divided into the following categories: importance/necessity, sense of cost, symbol of low talent, emphasis on efficiency, environmental dependence, duty/nurture, and external standards. Moreover, the results of Studies 2, 3, and 4 confirmed that the Beliefs About Effort Scale developed in the present study had sufficient reliability, as assessed by internal consistency and temporal stability, and adequate validity, as assessed by structural and external evidence. Furthermore, the results of Study 4 suggested that the way that individuals pursue difficult goals may depend on their beliefs about effort, that is, beliefs about effort defined their behavior. The Beliefs About Effort Scale may be useful in the examination of relationships between effort and various behaviors, including learning behavior.