Academic Diligence Task
The Academic Diligence Task (ADT) was designed to mirror a real-world choice students must confront when completing homework: the choice to remain engaged in tedious, but important assignments, and/or browse the Internet to play video games. Specifically, the task consists of a split-screen interface with the choice to complete single-digit subtraction problems (“Do Work”) or play games (“Play games”).
If you’d like to view the task, a sample version of the task can be found here:
If you’d like to use the task in your own study, download the following:
1) Academic Diligence Task Manual
2) Academic Diligence Task zip file
The task runs using Flash. The files need to be saved on a web server that you control, and then it can be run in any Flash-enabled browser on any computer. To learn how to set up the task on your own server, please reference the ADT Manual.
The ADT is free, with the stipulation that Galla et al. (2014) is cited:
Galla, B. M., Plummer, B. D., White, R. E., Meketon, D., D’Mello, S. K., & Duckworth, A. L. (2014). The Academic Diligence Task (ADT): Assessing individual differences in effort on tedious but important schoolwork. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 39(4), 314-325. [PDF]
*Please see our article, Measurement Matters, for our perspective on assessing personal qualities other than cognitive ability for educational purposes. [PDF]