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Anything You Can Do: The Effect of Observed Model Perseverance on Students' Persistence in an Unrelated Task
Task persistence has been associated with task mastery in many different realms of learning, and is thought to be evoked particularly through the observation of positive models; however, the capability of such exposures to transfer across domains is not currently well-understood. The present study sought to examine the effect of observing a model persevere on the observer’s own task persistence and task enjoyment in both related and unrelated tasks. Participants (N = 30) first observed either a video of a model struggling with a puzzle and eventually solving it or no video. Participants then completed a similar or an unrelated challenging learning task, operationalized using either a hand puzzle like the one seen in the video (i.e., related) or a learning guide and evaluation designed to teach and evaluate learning of force calculation (i.e., unrelated). Participants reported their subjective enjoyment of the task and I measured time spent on the task. I expected results to demonstrate that exposure to modeled perseverance improves task persistence (measured as a function of time spent on a puzzle or a learning task) and increases subjective enjoyment, as predicted by Bandura’s social cognitive theory; however, results suggest that modeling has no significant impact on persistence times and is negatively associated with enjoyment. Self-efficacy alone was an effective predictor of persistence