Why should teachers be interested in expectancy and value ratings?
Expectancy and value ratings have been shown to predict learner effort and performance on learning tasks and tests. Research has shown that there is an indirect effect of perceived importance (attainment value) on test performance via effort. That seems a very convincing reason.
Although not yet interpreted in the context of expectancy value theory, research findings in the area of value-directed remembering show the influence of value on effort and attention allocation. (I have written on mind wandering here). Learners who are able to selectively control their attention and allocate effort – learn more. Directing attention and stimulating curiosity, two of the proposed reasons pretesting benefits learning.
Perhaps you are beginning to understand my interest in this area of research now, as it relates to self-directed, personalised, spaced retrieval practice and successive relearning.
Finally costs. Costs, is defined as the negative aspects that result from engaging in a task. Costs include effort costs (the effort and hard work required by a task), opportunity costs (opportunities that are lost because of the engagement in the task), and emotional costs (feeling worried, anxious, and being stressed). As I understand it, costs are usually expected to be low when other value components are high, though this might differ between situations. It makes sense. Learning is one such situation.
Where the costs are high, but at the same time enjoyable or important to one’s identity – persist.
Where costs are high, enjoyable even, but have no value to one’s indentity – desist.
Expectancy beliefs
What Bridgid outlined and wanted to draw my attention to was momentary experiences, or “in-the-moment” profiles for expectancies, values and costs. That recent evidence suggests that it is insightful to distinguish between dispositional and malleable, situational components of expectancies and values.
Hence she shared Dietrich et al, (2019), who in their research developed in situ measures for expectancies (success expectations and perceived competence), task values (intrinsic, attainment, utility value), and costs (effort cost, opportunity cost, and emotional cost), as part of the Momentary Motivation research project.
Memories of past achievement related failures and successes have wide ranging motivational effects, and influence the way that people approach effortful tasks. Experiences of failure undermine students’ willingness to engage in similar experiences whereas memories of achievement related success can enhance motivation, and improve academic engagement and lead to better academic performance. As teachers, that will come as little surprise.
Right – now we are ready to tackle motivation
A large number of studies have shown a linear relationship between expectancies and values, showing that both are distinct but positively correlated constructs, and that this relationship becomes stronger with increasing student age.
What we already know is, the motivational dispositions that students bring into a learning situation likely affect their motivational experience during learning (Durik et al., 2015). A student who generally does not believe in her competence to learn a foreign language might also expect little success in situations in a new foreign language. That repeated experiences of situational motivations may influence the development of stable motivational dispositions. Undoubtedly so. Ask any Alternative Provision teacher. Repeated failure engrains the expectation of failure. Failure is not feared. It is simply and unceremoniously side-stepped.
If this outline rings true for your, if this is the case for a number of pupils (this in school and those out of traditional schooling), it further underlines the importance of pupils experiencing success before teachers expecting them to be motivated.
So to momentary motivation
I did check back in with Bridgid for clarification and apparently, there are no glaring faux pars, so here it is – read with the foresight of getting a better handle on the relationship of achievement motivation, cognition and desirable difficulties with reference to learning and test enhanced learning.
Earlier papers from the Momentary Motivation research project (Dietrich et al., 2017) measured situational success expectancies and values (including costs) with respect to the learning contents in a university lecture, as well as dispositional competence beliefs, values, and costs that students assign to Educational Psychology as a subject in their undergraduate studies. (I know, like me, you may already be thinking that these undergraduates must already assign x task value by being at University. Just read the next paragraph). Earlier analyses of these data (Dietrich et al., 2017) showed considerable intra-individual variability of success expectancies and values. However, the question to what extent does distinct in-the-moment profiles of motivation exist, and to what extent do these profiles change from one learning situation to another? This is what Dietrich et al., (2019) set out to answer.
They expect university students’ situational experiences of expectancies, values and costs to be associated with their dispositional expectancies, values and costs for learning at the beginning and at the end of the semester. Students with high (vs. low) dispositional levels of expectancies, values, or costs were expected to show frequent occurrences of motivational situations characterised by similarly high (vs. low) situational expectancies, values, and costs. Moreover, the motivational states experienced during the semester were expected to predict corresponding changes in dispositional expectancies, values and costs from the semester start to the semester end. I hope that makes sense.
Specifically Dietrich et al., (2019) focused on two research questions:
- What profiles of situational motivation do university students experience during learning and how do they change?
- How are these profiles of situational motivation related to students’ motivational dispositions?
Results
Now you can imagine, the statistics employed here, well, they well and truly sank my battleship. That said, this is what information or understanding I could pull out and share with you – relatively confidently.
- Students on average affirmed experiencing success expectancies and values, while they on average denied the items asking about costs. Situational expectancies and values were positively correlated with each other (r = 0.55) and negatively correlated with costs (−0.33).
- Students who often experienced highly motivating situations during the lecture reported higher success expectations in the beginning of the semester.
- Students who often experienced highly motivating situations (high expectancies and values, and low costs) during the lecture tended to hold higher intrinsic, attainment, and utility value.
What does this mean for teaching? According to expectancy-value theory, task value includes positive components (intrinsic, attainment, and utility values) and negative ones (costs), typically attributed to general domains, classrooms, learning, being an obvious general domain to focus upon. Did experiences of situational profiles predicted changes in dispositional motivation over the course of the semester?
- The results showed that frequently experiencing highly motivating situations was associated with more positive changes in intrinsic and attainment value, compared to frequent experiences of other motivational situations.
- Moreover, students who often experienced motivating but costly situations tended to show more positive change in attainment value compared to students with frequent experiences of low cost motivation or low motivation situations.
- Also, students with frequent experiences of motivating but costly situations increased their intrinsic value relative to students with frequently low motivation.
So what do we learn?
- Students bring different (motivational) dispositions, but also that these vary over time in their motivational state.
- A student’s frequency of experiencing certain situational profiles was associated with that student’s dispositional motivation towards the topic of the lecture.
- Students experience most learning situations in terms of similar expectancies and values, and opposite levels of costs – regardless of their overall level of motivation.
- Students’ general values and success expectancy about the study subject predicted their situational experiences during lecture sessions.
- Situational expectancies and values could be more malleable to change than situational costs.
Final thoughts
Of course, and rightly highlighted by the researcher, there is a significant difference in the agency of university students and pupils in school.
Taken together, studying expectancies, values, and costs in the moments in which they occur helps to understand how students’ in-class experiences contribute to their long-term motivational development. At least, that is what I took away from the paper.
Practically – reflecting upon expectancy value theory and observing how individuals approach learning, has helped me approach various class situations differently this week. Particularly those situations where pupils appear to be detached, disaffected or uninterested. Applying a “motivational equation” to the context, expectancy x value = motivation, has been a useful and swift pre-action calculation.
Eccles, J. S., and Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 53, 109–132. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135153
Dietrich, J., Viljaranta, J., Moeller, J., and Kracke, B. (2017). Situational expectancies and task values: associations with students’ effort. Lear. Instr. 47, 53–64. doi: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2016.10.009
Dietrich, J., Moeller, J., Guo, J., Viljaranta, J., & Kracke, B. (2019). In-the-Moment Profiles of Expectancies, Task Values, and Costs. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1662. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01662
Durik, A. M., Shechter, O. G., Noh, M., Rozek, C. S., and Harackiewicz, J. M. (2015). What if I can’t? Success expectancies moderate the effects of utility value information on situational interest and performance. Motiv. Emot. 39, 104–118. doi: 10.1007/s11031-014-9419-0
Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (2020). From expectancy-value theory to situated expectancy-value theory: A developmental, social cognitive, and sociocultural perspective on motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, Article 101859. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2020.101859