Recent research on classroom achievement dynamics suggests a conflict of teacher/student values regarding effort expenditure. Student effort is clearly rewarded and the indifferences punished by teachers. From the student perspective, expending effort when risking failure is a potential threat because high effort/failure invites ascriptions to low…

Under a mastery learning system students can take successive parallel tests with study interspersed between tests until they demonstrate a minimal level of competency. For most students, such procedures increase final performance, yet some may experience repeated subjective failure. Self-worth theory predicts that repeated failure in the face of…