Most teachers could name one kid who has the ability but can’t get an assignment started, let alone over the line. But while laziness is the easy explanation, research shows it’s often the wrong one.
A new study from UNSW Sydney suggests some people feel the cost of effort more sharply than others, enough to turn down a bigger reward to avoid it.
The findings land at an awkward moment for schools rushing to bring AI into the classroom.
In one experiment, people who thought a real person had delivered a lesson felt more connected to them, and that connection made them want to learn more.
UNSW Sydney psychology Professor Steve Most is leading an international team, backed by an Australian Research Council grant, to study “effort aversion”, or how much people devalue a reward once work is involved. The research aims to explain why people procrastinate, disengage from learning, lean on AI or give up when things get hard.
‘Effort doesn’t have to be aversive’
In Professor Most’s lab, participants were given the choice to take $10 and walk away, or earn $20 by completing a deliberately tedious task.
While some jumped at the extra money, others settled for a fraction of it to avoid the work.
In follow-up research, a 15-minute measure of effort motivation predicted university grades across two terms, with students who were more willing to give up a reward to dodge effort tending to score lower. This proved a stronger predictor than their own sense of how much they procrastinate.
For schools, the more pressing question is what to do when the same pattern starts showing up as early as Year 7.
Professor Most said that while students procrastinate for many reasons beyond effort aversion, the study’s finding that it measurably affects grades suggests schools have an opportunity to help students build a more positive relationship with effort.
“I wouldn’t advocate for schools tracking kids through measures of effort aversion — we have no evidence that this would be useful. However, when effort itself is rewarded, it can become enjoyable and encourage persistence,” Professor Most told The Educator.
“As teachers, I think there’s also potential for us to role model effort, even if only by sharing stories about how we once had to struggle through the material ourselves. Effort doesn’t have to be aversive: with the right mindset and contextualisation, it can be intrinsically rewarding.”
What AI tutors can’t teach
In another experiment, two groups heard the same lecture. One was told it had been generated by AI. The other was told it came from a real person, someone who had battled self-doubt on the way to finding a love of teaching.
When it came to test scores, there was no difference between the two groups. But the second group felt more connected to the lecturer, and those who felt that connection were keener to learn more about the topic.
It’s a finding that sits uneasily with the push to bring AI tutors into schools to free up teachers’ time.
Professor Most said he is “highly concerned” about the push to get AI into schools.
“One of my favourite sayings is that ‘education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire’. If the goal is simply to fill students’ heads with knowledge — like filling a pail with rocks — then AI tutors can be effective – so, there’s a place for it,” he said. “But ultimately, we also want to inspire students to see the joy in learning.”
Professor Most pointed to a 1996 UNESCO report on education in the 21st century, which envisioned schooling as something that imparts a desire to learn, a pleasure in learning, and a sense of intellectual curiosity.
“Our experiment highlights the role of human connection in lighting this fire, supporting the importance of ‘relatedness’ — a feeling of mattering to the people around us — for student motivation,” he said.
“My message to an education minister? Students matter, teachers matter, and the space between us matters. I’d draw the line between the pail and the fire. AI can help transmit knowledge, but I don’t think that stoking a passion for learning is something that can be outsourced to AI.”
Curiosity makes learning stick
For teachers, the test is making effort feel worth it to a room full of restless Year 9s. Then there’s the “future me” effect, and whether it can be harnessed in class or teaches students to put things off.
Professor Most said the implications of the “future me” findings — that people are more willing to sign on to effort if they can kick it down the road — still need to be worked out.
“It might be the kind of self-awareness that can be useful in helping students budget their time: ‘future me’ will eventually be ‘present me’, who will resent ‘past me’ for throwing me under the bus,” he said. “As far as engagement in the classroom, cognitive science — like Aristotle over 2,000 years ago — highlights the power of engaging students’ hearts alongside their minds.”
Professor Most said the most memorable lessons often have little to do with how they’re presented.
“Neuroimaging suggests that curiosity primes the brain to hold on to information, and there are so many ways to foster curiosity in the classroom, whether through storytelling or through surprising or memorable demos,” he said.
“Of course, as teachers, maybe the best lessons on how to engage come from looking back on the teachers who inspired us: it probably wasn’t just that they had well-designed PowerPoint slides… they probably engaged our emotions and made us feel that we mattered.”