Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
12-1996
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Major
Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Major Professor
Lawrence R. James
Abstract
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.
Recommended Citation
Hemmelgarn, Anthony L., "Measuring achievement motives : the process of conditional reasoning through the reading comprehension and inference test. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1996.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/9752