A Measure of Delay Discounting Within the Academic Domain: Delay Discounting and Student Success

A fragile effect: The influence of episodic memory on delay discounting

Delay discounting occurs when a reward loses value as a function of delay. Episodic future thinking (EFT) reliably decreases delay discounting. EFT may share cognitive features with recalling episodic memories such as constructive episodic simulation. We therefore explored whether recalling episodic memories also reduces delay discounting. In Experiment 1, participants wrote about episodic memories and recalled those memories before completing a delay discounting task. Episodic memories reduced delay discounting according to one commonly used delay discounting measure (area under the curve) but not another (using the hyperbolic model). Experiment 2 compared the effects of general and episodic memories. Neither general nor episodic memories significantly decreased delay discounting compared with a control "counting" condition, but episodic memories reduced delay discounting compared with general memories under some conditions. In Experiment 3, episodic memories did not decrease delay discounting compared with three other control conditions while EFT did. Experiment 3 therefore found that thinking must be both episodic and future orientated to reduce delay discounting. Together, these results suggest that episodic thinking is not sufficient to reliably decrease delay discounting, rather, features unique to episodic future thinking are required. Episodic memory might reduce delay discounting in some contexts, but this effect is small and fragile.

Deadlines make you productive, but what do they do to your motivation? Trajectories in quantity and quality of motivation and study activities among university students as exams approach

Introduction

Recent research has emphasized that achievement motivation is context-sensitive and varies within individual students. Ubiquitous temporal landmarks such as exams or deadlines are evident contextual factors that could systematically explain variation in motivation. Indeed, research has consistently found that university students increase their study efforts as exams come closer in time, indicating increasing study motivation. However, changes in study motivation for a specific exam as it comes closer have rarely been investigated. Instead, research on developmental changes in expectancy and value beliefs has consistently founds that achievement motivation declines over a semester. Surprisingly, declining motivation thus apparently coincides with increasing study efforts for end-of-semester exams.

Methods

The present research investigates this apparent contradiction by assessing how exam-specific motivation and study behavior change under equal methodological conditions as an exam draws closer. Using parallel growth curve models, we examine changes in expectancy-value beliefs, performance approach and avoidance motivation and study behavior as well as motivational want- and should-conflicts among 96 students over eight weekly measurement points.

Results and discussion

Results show that students study more for their exam as it comes closer and increase their use of surface learning strategies more rapidly than their use of deep learning strategies. However, even exam-specific expectancy and attainment value beliefs decline while performance-avoidance motivation increases over time, indicating that students increasingly study out of fear to fail as exams come closer. Consistent with these findings, students' experience of should conflicts decreases while their want conflicts increase over time. We discuss several possible mechanisms underlying our findings in addition to potential theoretical consequences and suggest future research opportunities to better understand students' changes in situative motivation and study behavior in the context of temporal landmarks.

Reduced access to reinforcement drives delay discounting during experienced delays

Rewards lose value as a function of delay. Previous studies suggest that delays have a bigger effect on reward value when people must wait during the delay. However, whether delays involve waiting or postponing has often been confounded with whether choices are about hypothetical or real rewards. The current study characterized the effects of waiting and postponing in hypothetical and experiential choice contexts separately. In Experiment 1 we observed steeper delay discounting for waiting than for postponing in choices about both hypothetical money and about experienced computer game points. Two factors potentially contributing to steeper discounting in choices about waiting are reduced access to other rewards and direct costs of waiting. In Experiment 2, we adapted the experiential delay-discounting task to manipulate each factor separately. Reduced access to other reinforcers had a bigger effect on delay discounting than direct costs of waiting. These results underscore the importance of considering the unique influence of waiting and associated opportunity costs in both basic delay-discounting research and in applied contexts.

Choices about whether to wait: Changes in delay discounting without changes in time perception

Delay discounting occurs when the present, subjective value of a reward decreases as a function of delay. Delay discounting is steeper when individuals must wait during the delay, and delay discounting rates for decisions about waiting are not strongly correlated with those for decisions about postponing without waiting. We examined whether changes in delay discounting in choices about waiting are linked to changes in subjective time perception. In Experiment 1, participants completed an experiential waiting task twice. We established that delay discounting was steeper later in the session. In Experiment 2 participants again completed the delay discounting task twice, and we also tracked time perception across the session using the temporal bisection task. Once again, participants demonstrated steeper discounting during the second discounting task, but time perception did not differ significantly. Additionally, discounting rates were not correlated with subjective time perception. Changes in delay discounting across the session might be understood in terms of context or reference effects.

Recently encountered delay lengths produce contrast effects on delay discounting

People demonstrate shallower delay discounting when they have recently made decisions about smaller amounts of money than when they have recently made decisions about larger amounts of money. That is, recent reward amounts produce a contrast effect on delay discounting. We tested whether a similar contrast effect occurs for delays. We recruited two groups of participants via Mechanical Turk. The shorter-delay group made choices about delays ranging from one day to one month, and the longer-delay group made choices about delays ranging from 14 months to 30 years. Both groups then made choices about the same, intermediate delays (one week to 21 months); the longer delay group showed significantly shallower delay discounting, indicating a contrast effect. This suggests that delay discounting is affected not just by absolute delay length, but by the relative delay length.

Understanding procrastination: A case of a study skills course

Procrastination is consistently viewed as problematic to academic success and students’ general well-being. There are prevailing questions regarding the underlying and maintaining mechanisms of procrastination which are yet to be learnt. The aim of the present study was to combine different ways to explain procrastination and explore how students’ time and effort management skills, psychological flexibility and academic self-efficacy are connected to procrastination as they have been commonly addressed separately in previous studies. The data were collected from 135 students who participated in a voluntary time management and well-being course in autumn 2019. The results showed that students’ ability to organize their time and effort has the strongest association with procrastination out of the variables included in the study. Psychological flexibility also has a strong individual role in explaining procrastination along with time and effort management skills. Surprisingly, academic self-efficacy did not have a direct association with procrastination. Interestingly, our findings further suggest that time and effort management and psychological flexibility are closely related and appear to go hand in hand and, thus, both need to be considered when the aim is to reduce procrastination. The implications of the findings are further discussed.