Department of Psychology, Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2011 Jun;81(Pt 2):207-22. doi: 10.1348/000709910X522186. Epub 2011 Mar 9.
Academic self-handicapping (ASH) tendencies, strategies students employ that increase their chances of failure on assessments while protecting self-esteem, are correlated with classroom goal structures and to learners' general self-perceptions and learning strategies. In particular, greater ASH is related to poorer academic performance but has yet to be examined with respect to learners' performance across a series of tests.
This research was designed to examine the relationship between students' ASH tendencies and their self-concept clarity, learning strategies, and performance on a series of tests in a university course.
A total of 209 (153 female; 56 male) Canadian university psychology students participated in this study.
Participants' ASH tendencies, self-concept clarity, approaches to learning, and self-regulatory learning strategies were assessed along with expected grades and hours of study in the course from which they were recruited. Finally, students' grades were obtained for the three tests for the course from which they were recruited.
Students reporting greater self-handicapping tendencies reported lower self-concept clarity, lower academic self-efficacy, greater test anxiety, more superficial learning strategies, and scored lower on all tests in the course. The relationships of ASH scores and learner variables with performance varied across the three performance indices. In particular, ASH scores were more strongly related to second and third tests, and prior performances were accounted for. ASH scores accounted for a relatively small but significant proportion of variance for all three tests.
These results showed that ASH is a unique contributing factor in student performance outcomes, and may be particularly important after students complete the initial assessment in a course.
学术自我设限（ASH）倾向是指学生在评估中增加失败几率的同时保护自尊心所采用的策略，它与课堂目标结构以及学习者的一般自我认知和学习策略有关。特别是，更大的 ASH 与较差的学业成绩相关，但尚未针对学习者在一系列测试中的表现进行检验。
本研究旨在考察学生 ASH 倾向与其自我概念清晰度、学习策略以及在大学课程一系列测试中的表现之间的关系。
共有 209 名（153 名女性；56 名男性）加拿大大学心理学学生参与了这项研究。
评估参与者的 ASH 倾向、自我概念清晰度、学习方法以及自我调节学习策略，同时还评估了他们在课程中的预期成绩和学习时间。最后，从他们所在的课程中获得了学生的成绩。
报告自我设限倾向较大的学生报告自我概念清晰度较低、学术自我效能感较低、考试焦虑程度较高、学习策略较浅，并且在课程的所有测试中得分都较低。ASH 分数与学习者变量与表现的关系因三个表现指标而异。特别是，ASH 分数与第二和第三次测试的关系更为密切，并且考虑到了先前的表现。ASH 分数占所有三个测试的相对较小但显著的方差比例。
这些结果表明，ASH 是学生表现结果的一个独特贡献因素，在学生完成课程的初始评估后可能尤其重要。
