OLMT Objective Achievement Motivation-Test

Objective and personality test for behaviorally assessing achievement motivation under differing basic conditions.

Application
The Objective Achievement Motivation Test (OLMT) is a computerized test for the behavioural assessment of achievement motivation.  It provides information about the effort applied when working on tasks under various significant constraints.

Theoretical background
This test has been developed to take account of the findings of achievement motivation research (relating, for example, to the importance of motivating conditions such as setting specific goals for the respondent, making the outcome of the test dependent solely on the respondent, giving performance feedback). Each of the three subtests is built around a particular incentive or stimulus that has been shown to be relevant in motivating respondents’ performance:  incentives arising from the task itself, from setting one’s own goals, and from competition.

Administration
The respondent is required to follow as long a route as possible around the screen by pressing two buttons in order to move left or right; each press of a button causes him to advance by one field.  Each “run” lasts for 10 seconds. The test records how many fields the respondent covers in the 10 seconds.

Test forms
There is one test form.

Scoring
The scoring is computerized and yields values for the effort put into completing the test, for changes in the respondent’s performance in the face of personal goals and of competition, and for difficulty level. If performance is implausibly poor on individual runs the computer can make a correction for invalid reactions. Information is also provided on performance over the course of the test and on the error percentage.

Reliability
Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) is over .90 for performance scores and between .80 and .90 for difficulty level.

Validity
For task-related effort in particular clear indications of validity were found in that there were positive correlations with very different indicators of performance (final grades in the secondary school leaving examination, educational level, intelligence test performance and various attention evaluation tests).
 
Norms
Age-specific norms are available for a sample of N=630 individuals.