Measuring explicit and implicit bi-dimensional attitudes to predict studying behaviour and outcome

Attitudes have traditionally been measured as unitary constructs i.e. a person has a positive or a negative evaluation of a concept. However, Elliott et al., (2015) suggests that attitudes are better measured as having concurrent positive and negative dimensions which act as independent predictors of behaviour. In addition to these explicit measures of attitude, implicit measures also have been shown to be predictive of behaviour (see Greenwald & Banaji, 1995) but the relationship between bi-dimensional explicit and implicit measures has never been examined. This study measures bi-dimensional explicit attitudes via questionnaire and implicit bi-directional attitudes via a specially constructed Implicit Association Test and regression modelling examines the relationship between these, studying behaviour and exam performance in Higher Education students. Theoretical conclusions from these results and implications for real world behaviour change will be discussed.