Date of Graduation
Spring 2018
Degree
Master of Science in Psychology
Department
Psychology
Committee Chair
Thomas Kane
Abstract
This study contributed to an understanding of the goal setting process by investigating a variety of ways to evaluate the difficulty of short-term goals, including requested quantitative goals, different methods to rate the difficulty of self-defined goals, and the difficulty perceptions of the goal-setters themselves. To examine the validity of different goal-difficulty assessment strategies, I collected short-term academic goals from 116 freshman college students at the beginning of their first semester in college. I also collected antecedents of goal difficulty, such as prior performance and self-efficacy, and collected academic achievement at the conclusion of that semester. The validity of eight different measures of goal difficulty was examined through the examination of goal-difficulty measures with antecedents and academic performance. Correlations among goal-difficulty measures ranged from weak to strong. Patterns of correlations should encourage the future use of both quantitative goal measures and ratings of self-reported goals. Criterion GPA correlated most strongly with the GPA based assessments of goal difficulty. Goal-setters’ perceived difficulty of goals was not associated with predictors and criteria as goal-theory suggested. Applications, future research directions, and study limitations were discussed.
Keywords
self-set goals, task goal difficulty, perceived goal difficulty, breadth, commitment, self-efficacy
Subject Categories
Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Copyright
© Sidonia Christine Grozav
Recommended Citation
Grozav, Sidonia Christine, "The Operationalization of Task Goal Difficulty: An Exploration of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods" (2018). MSU Graduate Theses. 3283.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/3283
