The Academic Diligence Task (ADT): assessing individual differences in effort on tedious but important schoolwork

•We report on the development and validation of the Academic Diligence Task (ADT).•During this task, students either solve math problems or watch entertaining videos.•ADT demonstrated convergent validity with self-control and grit.•ADT demonstrated discriminant validity from theoretically unrelated constructs.•ADT showed predictive validity for five objectively measured academic outcomes.

The current study reports on the development and validation of the Academic Diligence Task (ADT), designed to assess the tendency to expend effort on academic tasks which are tedious in the moment but valued in the long-term. In this novel online task, students allocate their time between solving simple math problems (framed as beneficial for problem solving skills) and, alternatively, playing Tetris or watching entertaining videos. Using a large sample of high school seniors (N = 921), the ADT demonstrated convergent validity with self-report ratings of Big Five conscientiousness and its facets, self-control and grit, as well as discriminant validity from theoretically unrelated constructs, such as Big Five extraversion, openness, and emotional stability, test anxiety, life satisfaction, and positive and negative affect. The ADT also demonstrated incremental predictive validity for objectively measured GPA, standardized math and reading achievement test scores, high school graduation, and college enrollment, over and beyond demographics and intelligence. Collectively, findings suggest the feasibility of online behavioral measures to assess noncognitive individual differences that predict academic outcomes.