- N: Number of observations or data points.
This variable specifies the number of subjects within any one
experimental group or condition. You may have from 1 to 100 subjects
in any one condition. If N is not specified, a value of 10 will be used.
- NGRP: Size of testing subgroups:
All of the subjects in one group, indeed all the subjects in the
experiment, might be tested individually or in subgroups of a given
size. Perhaps individual attention might motivate someone to perform
better. You can test your subjects in subgroups of 1, 2, 5, 10, 25,
50, or 100. If you don't specify, it is easier for the research
assistant to test as many people at once, so subgroups of 100 (or the
total number of subjects) will be used.
- INSTR: Instructions
The way in which a task is presented to subjects may influence their
performance on the task. In a rough sense, such a variable might
correspond in the factory setting to the climate of opinion about the
import of a particular job, a factor over which the management
personnel in a factory might have a certain amount of control. But
aside from the possible usefulness of such a variable in an actual
industrial setting, the possibility that the variable may influence
performance in the lab makes it an important variable which may
influence results and needs therefore to be controlled.
- TASK: Difficulty of the task:
Although all levels of the task involve routine performance, you may choose to
have subjects perform tasks of varying degrees of difficulty.
- NACH: Need for achievement:
The motive, need for achievement, may be described as a "capacity for
taking pride in accomplishment" (Atkinson, 1958). The relevance of
need for achievement for work behavior is well established. Several
studies have shown that men who are high in the need for achievement
in college tend to select "entrepreneurial" occupations--those which
involve a high degree of responsibility and provide objective feedback
about the adequacy of performance. In addition, men who are high in
the need for achievement tend to perform well in a job setting where
advancement depends upon personal competence, rather than upon "who
you know" (Andrews, 1967).
- NAFF: Need for affiliation:
The need for affiliation may be described as a desire for the close
personal ties of friendship, and a tendency to avoid circumstances
which leave the individual alone or in question about his
acceptability to other people.
- FEARF: Fear of failure:
The fear of failure is described in theoretical writings as a counterpart of achievement
motivation: just as the highly achievement motivated person is highly attracted to
success, the individual with high fear of failure has a strong tendency to avoid
situations which might lead to failure at an achievement task. Since the same situations
which allow success also often threaten failure, many writers have discussed possible
effects of various combinations of the achievement motive with the fear of failure
(Atkinson & Feather, 1966). Fear of failure is also sometimes referred to as anxiety.
- LENGTH: Length of the
testing task:
Implications for industry of the length of a task may have relevance
for the timing of work interruptions in the form of coffee breaks or
changes from one task to another. The time of the task may be varied
from 10 to 60 minutes, in increments of 10 minutes.
If LENGTH is not specified, a value of 10 minutes will be used.
Select values for the variables.
Return to the description of the motivational expersim.
Return to the expersim index.
Comments to: Gary.McClelland@Colorado.EDU
Revised: 22 August 2001
File: expersim/motivationalvars.html
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