Year: 2012
Type: article
Study designs: Randomized Controlled Trial, Clinical Trial
Abstract: The purpose of my study was to investigate the possible utility of visualization, an intervention that has proven useful in both sports and clinical psychology, in an academic setting. However, knowing that there are other powerful performance oriented interventions, such as goal setting and planning, visualization would have to account for unique variance above these to be of value. Specifically, visualization was proposed to help college level students improve exam scores and account for unique variance above that accounted for by goal setting and planning in an intro level psychology course. It was concurrently hypothesized that this relationship would be mediated by the student's school specific self-efficacy and test anxiety. Participants (N = 204) from a Midwestern university were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions in which they were induced to do nothing (control group), utilize goal setting alone, utilize goal setting and planning, or utilize goal setting, planning, and visualization. I conducted a series of ANOVAs which revealed there was no significant effect on exam scores for any experimental group above that of the control. As such, a test of mediation was not possible. Alternative exploratory analyses were also conducted. Conclusions about the effectiveness of the methods implemented in this study, the effectiveness of visualization in the academic domain, and other implications for non-significant findings are discussed.
Author: Brian Michael
Institution: Wright State University
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2512894042