Expectancy-Value Theory and Its Relevance for Student Motivation and Learning

• In Event: Motivation and Learning: What Is Provocative and/or Novel?

Abstract

In this presentation, we will overview developments in Eccles and colleagues’ expectancy value theory (EVT) of motivation and consider their relevance for understanding and improving student learning. According to EVT, students’ expectancies for success and task values are two critical factors impacting their motivation and academic performance (Eccles-Parsons et al., 1983). Recent research has suggested that students’ perceptions of cost, the negative consequences of completing a task, also impact their academic outcomes (e.g., Conley, 2012; Flake et al., 2015; Perez et al., 2014). We will review cost alongside expectancies and values, considering correlational studies, longitudinal studies, and theoretical papers grounded in expectancy-value theory. We will define expectancies, task values, and cost, explain how these constructs develop over time, and discuss how they predict students’ academic behavior, performance, and choice. We will point more specifically to intervention studies that have tried to improve students’ academic outcomes by targeting their expectancies, values, and/or perceptions of cost.
We will explain that students’ expectancy-value motivation is malleable. Expectancies, task values, and perceptions of cost are impacted by features of students’ educational environments and by their interactions with others. Furthermore, these constructs often can be targeted through educational interventions that improve students’ achievement in turn. We will also note that there are many individual differences in terms of how students’ motivation develops and how students respond to interventions targeting their motivation. Thus researchers and educational practitioners should understand that it is possible to improve students’ motivation, and also that they should use caution when making generalizations about what factors impact students’ motivation in the classroom. Finally, we will note that students’ perceptions of cost seem to be important factors impacting their achievement and other aspects of their motivation; we suggest that researchers need to measure this construct more often in order to better understand how cost relates to the other components of the expectancy-value model, and students’ motivation and learning more generally.

Authors

• Emily Quinn Rosenzweig, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Allan L. Wigfield, University of Maryland - College Park