Which one works best? Considering the relative importance of motivational regulation strategies

Abstract Although previous studies have shown that motivational regulation strategies are generally effective in sustaining students' effort and persistence, little is known about which kind of motivational strategy works best in general, and for certain students in particular. In this article, we investigated the relative importance of eight different motivational regulation strategies across three samples (N = 531, N = 613, and N = 301, respectively) of German high school and college students under varying conditions. Relative weights analyses enabled us to control for multicollinearity and to disentangle the unique proportion of variance each motivational strategy explained in students' self-reported effort. Moreover, we examined potential moderating effects of gender, conscientiousness, dispositional interest, and achievement goal orientations. Consistently across the three samples, results revealed mastery self-talk as the most effective strategy, followed by proximal goal setting and performance-approach self-talk. Interest enhancement strategies and performance-avoidance self-talk did not explain a significant amount of variance in self-reported effort. There were no substantial moderation effects leading to the conclusion that the established rank order of motivational regulation strategies might be generally applicable to the majority of students. We discuss theoretical implications of our findings for future studies in motivation regulation research as well as practical implications for educational practitioners.