An Explanatory, Mixed-Method Study of Expectancy, Value, and Cost in College Courses

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

Abstract

For the past three decades, Expectancy-Value models of motivation have been a powerful motivational framework to understand student achievement and persistence in education (Eccles et al., 1983). When students hold expectancy beliefs, they are more likely to believe they can do a task; when students hold value beliefs, they are more likely to want to do a task. However, recently a number of theorists have suggested that a student could still hold high expectancy and high value beliefs for a task but still be at risk for lower achievement and persistence. This occurs when a student experiences significant costs, limiting time, energy, and resources that the student has to invest in a given activity. While cost was theorized in original Expectancy-Value models (Eccles et al, 1983), reliable cost measures were never fully developed to test how cost combined with expectancy and value beliefs to influence students’ motivation (Barron & Hulleman, 2015; Wigfield & Cambria, 2010).

Fortunately a growing body of research is actively investigating the role of cost in Expectancy-Value models, and suggests cost plays an independent role separate from expectancy and value on student achievement and persistence. As a result, a number of researchers have called for a revised Expectancy-Value-Cost model of motivation (Barron & Hulleman, 2015) and the need for unique interventions depending on whether students’ motivational deficits involve expectancy, value, or cost issues (Hulleman et al., 2016).

To extend past research, we adopted an explanatory, mixed-method approach to study expectancy, value, and cost in unique educational context where university courses are taught in a compressed 4 week format (rather than the traditional 15 week semester format). We hypothesized that the accelerated pacing of the course would heighten students’ experience of cost, which if not adaptively dealt with would negatively impact student outcomes.

We collected a new, quantitative measure (Kosovich et al., 2015) of students’ expectancy, value, and cost in two different college classes being taken in this compressed format. One was an introductory general education course (N=94), and the second was an upper level methodology course (N=46) in the same major. Then we added open-ended, qualitative questions to allow participants an opportunity to list reasons why they were motivated (or not motivated) for these particular courses. We coded student responses into themes that reflected having their motivation increased or decreased due to expectancy, value, or cost reasons.

Quantitatively, we replicated past research supporting the separation of expectancy, value, and cost as three distinct components, and found each component had unique effects on students’ final graded performance and future interest. Qualitatively, we discovered the component most noted for increasing students’ motivation involved value whereas the component most noted for decreasing students’ motivation involved cost. Implications of using this mixed-method approach for both research and practice will be discussed. In particular, the addition of qualitative questions provided a rich list of recommendations on how to improve expectancy, values, and costs in these particular classes, which would not have been as apparent with just the quantitative measures.

Authors

• Steve Getty, Colorado College

• Kenn E. Barron, James Madison University