EFFECTS OF PAYOFF AND TASK CONTEXT ON ACADEMIC RISK-TAKING

Fourth-grade Taiwan students completed 2 cognitive risk-taking tasks with either variable payoff (response value increased with item difficulty) or fixed payoff (response value remained constant regardless of item difficulty) and in either a game or a test context. As predicted, both variable payoff and game context increased the level of academic risk taking. However, consistent with previous academic risk-taking research, students selected mathematics items that resulted in mean success levels of 79% to 96%, suggesting that high levels of absolute success are preferred to moderate challenge. School Failure Tolerance and task interest scores were high and positively correlated, but neither variable reliably predicted academic risk-taking behavior. Explanations are presented for these findings and for the unexpected interactions found between ability and risk taking. Suggestions for future academic risk-taking research are offered.