Adding Value to Motivate Engagement: The Role of Individual Interest

• In Event: The Roles of Value and Interest in Promoting Learning

Abstract

Although students can start an activity for many reasons, maintaining motivation poses a greater challenge. As the basis for motivation, goal-based perspectives emphasize the value and expectancy of reaching goals (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002), whereas experience-based perspectives emphasize interest. The Self-Regulation of Motivation (SRM) Model (Sansone & Thoman, 2005) integrates both perspectives and suggests that enhancing value can affect interest, both directly and indirectly. We found that a variety of reasons to value a boring task (e.g., health benefits, helping others) were associated with students being more likely to engage with the activity in ways that made the experience more interesting (e.g., Sansone, Weir, Harpster, & Morgan, 1992). We also found that at least in the short term, actions that create interest could sometimes come at the cost to performance outcomes (Sansone, 2009).

However, we wondered whether different sources of value would work additively and similarly to motivate engagement, especially when students differ in the degree to which they begin with well-developed interests (Hidi & Renninger, 2006). We examined these questions in two studies where undergraduates came to the lab and completed an online lesson in HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Individual Interest in Computers (IIC) was measured by students’ ratings of interest, knowledge and value prior to arriving in the lab. In the first study (n=108), reason to value the activity was manipulated via utility value (UV) information. In the second study (n=272), two kinds of value were varied: UV and competence value (via forewarning about a quiz). We unobtrusively measured engagement via the degree to which students modeled sample HTML codes while working through the lesson, and measured Lesson Interest and Quiz Scores at lesson completion via questionnaires.

In Study 1, the UV information was associated with students being more likely to model sample HTML code, and this was particularly true for students with higher IIC (Sansone, Fraughton, Zachary, Butner & Heiner, 2011). In Study 2, there was a significant 3-way interaction among the two reasons to value the activity and IIC. Specifically, for individuals with lower IIC, the greatest frequency of modeling sample HTML code occurred when students received both the UV information and the quiz forewarning. For individuals higher in IIC, in contrast, receiving either reason to value the activity was associated with greater modeling, but receiving both was associated with lower modeling. In both studies, modeling positively predicted Lesson Interest and Quiz Scores at lesson end.

These results suggest a more complex relationship between value and engagement than we anticipated. For clearly boring tasks or individuals with low individual interest, the results suggest an additive relation such that different sources of value together motivate greater engagement. However, individuals who begin with higher levels of individual interest already see value in learning. In this case, value interventions might function more to motivate how to engage rather than whether to engage. The compatibility in orientations toward the activity created by additional sources of value may thus become important. Implications for motivational interventions will be discussed.

Authors

• Carol Sansone, University of Utah

• Sungchoon Sinclair, University of Utah

• Tamra Birch Fraughton, University of Utah

• Joeseph Zachary, University of Utah

• Jonathan Butner, University of Utah