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Mastery Motivation and Optimally Challenging Tasks:Issues in Conceptualization and Measurement

R. H. MacTurk: ChairTHE INFLUENCE OF TASK DIFFICULTY ON TODDLER MASTERYMOTIVATION George Morgan and Christine MaslinIn order to develop a method to measure toddlermastery mot i vat ion independent from abil ity 1eve1,three homogeneous sets of tasks with varying levelsof di ffi cul ty were refi ned, and the effect of taskdifficulty on measures of motivation was examined.Twelve toddlers each at 15,20,25, and 30 nnnthsof age were tested using three sets of structuredmastery tasks (puzzles, shapes, and cause &effect)with order of task s randomi zed between and withi nset s , Two meas ures of mastery mot i vat ion were used:intervals of task-directed behavior (persistence)and instances of smi 1i ng duri ng task-di rected be­havi or (mastery pleasure). The predi cted orde r oftask difficulty within each sequence was supported.Puzzles were found to best meet criteria for scale­ability, shapes were adequate, while cause andeffect tasks showed a number of reversals from pre-dicted difficulty. Task difficulty was determinedby predicted order(above) and two post-hoc methods,based on age-group data and on individual child per­formance. In general, older toddlers persistedlonger and smiled roore than younger toddlers, in­cluding for tasks of equivalent relative difficulty.Less persistence and less mastery pleasure werefound during difficult tasks than during rooderatelydifficult tasks. However, persistence at and smilesduri ng easy tasks were almost as high as duri ngmoderately-difficult ones. These findings empha­size that assessment of mastery motivation shouldbe individualized to assure that task difficulty ismoderate for each child.