Understanding students’ perceived source of effort: Bridging effort source belief and effort attribution

Learners’ perceptions of the source of study effort have been increasingly recognised as relevant for understanding how study effort informs judgments of learning (JoLs). This correlational study examined effort source belief (ESB) as a trait-like construct, measured using vignette-based scenarios, and its alignment with students’ situational effort attribution during learning. Participants were 74 first-year undergraduate students (59.5% female, 40.5% male; Mage = 18.43, range = 18–20) from a comprehensive public university in southern China, from diverse fields of study. Students engaged in self-paced learning on mathematics and English tasks drawn from their university curriculum and provided task-level ratings of invested effort and JoLs. Multilevel analyses supported our hypothesis that ESB moderated the associations between effort and JoLs: students with higher ESB scores (indicating more goal-driven beliefs) were more likely to associate greater study effort with higher JoLs. No corresponding patterns were observed in English. These findings suggest that general beliefs about the source of effort are reflected in students’ situational interpretation of effort, particularly in mathematics learning.