The Contribution of Task Difficulty and Adult Reliability on Children's Academic Task Persistence

Task persistence plays a crucial role in children's academic success and achievement of long-term goals. Contextual variables may influence child persistence such as reward source reliability, task difficulty, or task arrangement. We evaluated the effects of reward source reliability on children's academic task persistence with task difficulty. The perception of the reliability of the reward source was manipulated by making a commitment to provide a reward after completion of the task, but upon completion, delivery was delayed to the next day. The study was designed to examine the extent to which experiencing prior disappointments would decrease persistence times on subsequent tasks of varying difficulty. Participants with a prior history of having rewards deferred persisted less on subsequent tasks. Children persisted longer on hard rather than easy tasks after disappointment after rewards were deferred. These results suggest that a complex relationship may exist between contextual variables and task persistence in children. Further understanding these mechanisms may provide insights for educators and caregivers seeking to promote persistence in children's academic endeavors.