Moving From an Expectancy-Value Model of Motivation to an Expectancy-Value-Cost Model of Motivation

• In Event: Extending the Expectancy-Value Model: Definitions and Functions of Cost in Students' Choice, Engagement, and Performance

Abstract

For over 30 years, Expectancy-Value Models of motivation (Eccles et al., 1983) have highlighted the important role that two components play in motivating students -- having an expectancy of being successful in a task and having a value for engaging in the task. In the current talk, we propose a revised Expectancy-Value-Cost Model to highlight the important role of a third component in motivating students -- the cost of engaging in an activity. Our rationale for the proposed revision comes from four sources.
First, we start by reconsidering the theoretical placement of cost in Eccles et al.’s Expectancy-Value original model and re-interpret data collected by Eccles and her colleagues suggesting a much greater role for cost.
Second, we review an emerging body of qualitative and quantitative research now being conducted on cost by researchers around the world. While cost has historically remained a theoretical construct with little empirical data (Wigfield & Cambria, 2010), this has rapidly changed over the past five years. This work consistently reveals that cost separates into its own factor and is empirically distinguishable from expectancy and value factors
Third, we review our own qualitative and quantitative program of research on cost. For example, we are currently involved in a grant project to develop a measure of expectancy, value, and cost that can be used across a wide range of age groups and academic contexts. For example, we are assessing expectancy, value, and cost at the level of a specific academic task (e.g., a particular science unit), at the level of a specific class (e.g., biology), at the level of academic semester (e.g., for your coursework this semester), and at the level of pursuing a particular major (e.g., Engineering). We have three major findings to report (Flake et al., 2011; Grays et al., 2015; Kosovich et al., in press; Lazowski et al., 2012): a) factor analyses strongly support the separation of expectancy, value, and cost components into three different scales; b) expectancy and value are positively related, but in turn are both negatively related to cost; and c) Expectancy, value, and cost provide unique predictive validity on important educational outcomes when tested simultaneously.
Finally, in professional development work with teachers, we began using an Expectancy-Value model as a way to offer a simple formula of motivation (aka, M = E * V) to help teachers understand and improve student motivation in their classes (Barron & Hulleman, 2006; Hulleman & Barron, 2013). Then as an exercise in applying the formula, we asked teachers to list the motivational challenges in their classrooms and to link challenges to a component of the formula. Until we started training teachers about cost and expanding the formula to be M = E * V – C, we were unable to account for all of their motivational challenges. The implication is that this has resulted in better diagnoses of what the most appropriate motivation interventions would be depending on whether their issue involved students’ expectancies, values, or costs.

Authors

• Kenn E. Barron, James Madison University

• Chris S. Hulleman, University of Virginia

• Jessica Kay Flake, York University

• Jeffery John Kosovich, University of Virginia

• Rory Lazowski, The College Board