WISE INTERVENTIONS

At the start of an online 6-week introductory computer science course, students were randomized to complete a mental contrasting with implementation intentions exercise—vividly describing the positive outcomes associated with watching most of the course lectures and obstacles that could interfere with this goal (mental contrasting), and then writing if-then plans, one for each obstacle and how they would overcome it and one for when and where they intended to watch the lectures (implementation intentions) (Duckworth et al., 2011)—or control exercise (prior experience with the course topic, expectations for the course, how much time they intended to spend on the course per week). Whereas students from individualistic cultures (e.g., the United States Australia, France) were more likely to complete the course in the treatment condition (29.5%) than in the control condition (25.7%), those from collectivist cultures (e.g., Mexico, China, Romania) showed no benefit (treatment: 21.1%; control: 23.5%). Students who completed either the mental contrasting or the implementation intention exercise (but not both) showed no benefits, regardless of cultural context.