Measuring achievement motives : the process of conditional reasoning through the reading comprehension and inference test

This study extended James' conditional reasoning process by investigating a new item format for measuring the latent motives to achieve and to avoid failure. Presented in the form of reading comprehension passages, the Reading Comprehension and Inference Test (RCIT) allowed for comprehensive passages of information through which the process of conditional reasoning could be applied. Initial item analytic work in a developmental sample demonstrated the usefulness of RCIT items in predicting the criterion of mean exam scores. Similarly, cross-validation results confirmed the usefulness of the RCIT format and the conditional reasoning process for predicting mean exam scores. Validities of .35 and .36 were obtained in the cross-validation sample for an a priori and a cross- sample scoring key, respectively. Comparative validities with traditional self-report measures are presented and areas of future research are discussed.