How to Excite School Motivation With Open Pathways to Future Goals

• In Event: “Wise” Educational Interventions: How Understanding Stereotyped Students’ Subjective Construals Can Improve Motivation and Performance

Abstract

Doing homework makes sense if one believes that this effort increases chances of attaining positive and avoiding negative possible futures. But if college is financially out of reach, do motivation (expected grades for the year) and effort (time spent doing homework) falter at young ages? Current action feels sensible if there is an open path toward attaining the desired, college-educated self, but not if paths are closed. Following this logic, children from families with fewer assets may lower their expectations for school success and plan to engage in less effort in school. To test this hypothesis, we examined the impact of experimentally manipulating mindsets about college as either ‘‘closed’’ (by receiving information about high tuition costs) or ‘‘open’’ (by receiving information about need-based financial aid) among low-income early adolescents. In two field experiments, predominantly African American and Latino seventh-grade students who were assigned to an open-path condition expected higher grades than those assigned to a closed-path condition and planned to spend more time on homework than those assigned to a no-prime control condition. Subsequent studies tested whether the effects of the small, open-path intervention were moderated by a student’s socioeconomic status. In mixed-income schools, students from low-asset neighborhoods, assessed by census block level home-ownership rates, showed the strongest motivational benefits from focusing on financial aid opportunities.
Finally, the open vs. closed-path effects on motivation were replicated in a laboratory experiment with college students and extended to more basic cognitive processes. The perception of financial strain should lead to a cognitive burden, characterized by decreased self-regulatory ability, and this effect can be reversed by a focus on future financial rewards. In a closed path, ‘financial strain’ condition, participants calculated their current tuition costs and/or loans. In an open-path, ‘future rewards’ condition, the financial strain calculation was followed by a future income estimation. In a comparison condition, students performed an unrelated mathematical calculation. All participants subsequently completed a Stroop (1935) task, in which they read color words, which are presented in non-matching colors, which is a self-regulatory task because they were forced to suppress the tendency to read the word, followed by a measure of planned behaviors. As expected, students in the closed, financial strain condition showed the highest levels of “Stroop interference” and lowest academic motivation, compared to the open, future financial rewards and comparison conditions. The effects were particularly pronounced for students who expected high amounts of loans or future income, showing that the momentary salience of financial strain or future rewards drives effects on cognition and motivation.
Subtle shifts in the perception of how financial circumstances may facilitate or hinder goals can dramatically transform how youth perform in school at various ages. The stress of thinking about seemingly stable barriers stifles motivation, but drawing attention to current and future resources can promote achievement, particularly for underprivileged youth.

Authors

• Mesmin Destin, Northwestern University

• Daphna Oyserman, University of Michigan