Academic control and action control in the achievement of college students: A longitudinal field study

A contradiction to the typical pattern of academic success occurs when brig ht, enthusiastic high school students fail after entering university. Two m easures, perceived academic control and action control (i.e., preoccupation with failure) were administered to 524 college students at the beginning o f a 2-semester course. Achievement-related cognitions, emotions, motivation . and final grades were measured at the end of the course. High-academic-co ntrol students exerted more effort, reported less boredom and anxiety, were more motivated, used self-monitoring strategies more often, felt more in c ontrol of their course assignments and of life in general, believed they pe rformed better, and obtained higher final grades. Failure-preoccupied stude nts received higher final grades, which corroborated their self-reported pe rformance. Of note, high-control, high-failure-preoccupied students outperf ormed the other 3 groups by 1 to 2 letter grades.