Exploring the Cross-Cultural Validity of a Value/Cost Scale in Three Countries

• In Event: Understanding and Measuring Achievement Motivation in Diverse Contexts Using Practical Measures: Expectancies, Values, and Costs

Abstract

Perspectives

The expectancy-value model by Eccles et al. (1983) is one of the most influential frameworks that has been used to investigate students’ value-related beliefs in the academic setting. Eccles and her colleagues proposed that task value is multidimensional and comprises four major components: intrinsic value, attainment value, utility value, and cost. Although the expectancy-value model describes four value components in depth, they have not always been assessed separately in previous research (Wigfield & Cambria, 2010). Recent studies have demonstrated that some value components can be further differentiated into multiple facets (e.g., Gaspard et al., 2015). Meanwhile, the cost component has been largely overlooked in the empirical literature. Over the last years, researchers in different countries started to develop scales measuring cost and found that students perceive various types of cost in the academic settings (e.g., Jiang, Kim, & Bong, 2016). However, there is still a lack of studies exploring the cross-cultural validity of value/cost measure.

Objectives

The objectives of this research were two-fold. First, we wanted to test the measurement properties of a scale measuring value and cost facets in three countries representing two distinct cultures: East Asia (China and Korea) and Europe (Germany). Second, we wanted to examine whether the structure of these beliefs differs across these settings.

Methods

The sample sizes of the German, Chinese, and Korean data were 483, 598, and 617 adolescent students, respectively. Samples were recruited with the aim to be comparable across countries.
Questionnaires were translated to students’ native language in the three countries. We collected data from Math and English domain. The value scale (Gaspard et al., 2017) consists of twenty-five items tapping seven sub-facets including intrinsic value, importance of achievement, personal importance, utility for daily life, utility for job, utility for school, and social utility. The cost scale (Jiang et al., 2016) consists of twelve items with three items each for four sub-facets of effort, opportunity, ego, and emotional cost. All value facets demonstrated acceptable reliability in both subject domains (s ≥ .66).

Results

Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) showed that models separating the eleven value and four cost facets yielded an acceptable fit to the data in all three countries for both math and English. Multiple-group analyses further demonstrated strong measurement invariance across both age and gender within each country for both domains. In all three countries, factor variances and covariances were additionally found to be equal across age and gender for both domains.
CFA models demonstrated weak measurement invariance across countries for both domains. Nevertheless, we found that 89.8 % and 88.0 % of item intercepts in math and English were approximately invariant across the three countries. We further found factor variance invariant but factor covariances varied between the three countries, indicating that the correlation patterns between value/cost facets differed between three countries.

Significance

Our value/cost scale demonstrated good measurement properties across different samples. Using this questionnaire can enable researchers to compare students’ value-related beliefs in different settings and to better understand students’ academic functioning in a global manner.

Authors

• Yi Jiang, East China Normal University

• Hanna Gaspard, University of Tübingen

• Heide Kneissler, University of Tuebingen

• Benjamin Nagengast, University of Tübingen

• Jeesoo Lee, Korea University

• Mimi Bong, Korea University