The Impact of Individual Motivation on Study Group Selection

• In Event: 61.015 - Embracing and Modeling the Complex Dynamics of Motivation and Engagement: Contextual, Temporal, Dynamic, and Systematic

Abstract

Theoretical Framework
Theorists posit that motivation processes develop in tandem with socialization processes (Eccles et al., 1983; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). However, motivation and group dynamics have seldom been investigated together. Because individuals’ experiences with others may influence and shape their personal motivation beliefs, fully understanding the complexities of the motivation process requires simultaneous consideration of individuals’ choices to engage with others.
Expectancy-value theorists define motivation as an individual's perception of future success on a task (expectancies) and an individual's perception of task value (TV; Eccles et al., 1983). TV can be further defined as attainment, intrinsic, and utility value, and cost. More recently, researchers have investigated the multidimensionality of TV and, more specifically, of cost (effort, opportunity, and psychological cost; Part et al., 2017; Perez et al., 2014).
Purpose
This study investigates the interactions between perceptions of specific value beliefs and costs and the formation of study groups at the beginning and end of a semester in an undergraduate biology course. This investigation allows for exploration of the ways social context and motivation interact within a system.
Methods. Data & analyses
Participants included 184 undergraduate students at a Southwestern university enrolled in a biology course (66.8% female, 39.1% from underrepresented minority groups) who endorsed study partnerships and reported expectancies, values, and costs for the course. Exponential-family Random Graph Models (ERGMs) software package (version 3.7.1) in R (Handcock et al., 2017) were used to model the directed social network at two time points. ERGMs were specified to examine network characteristics and to estimate the probability of selecting or being selected as a study partner given individual specific value and cost beliefs at the beginning and end of a semester.
Results & Significance
Students were more likely to select study partners and be selected as a study partner when they have greater intrinsic value at the beginning of the semester. Students who report higher levels of utility value were significantly less likely to select study partners. By semester’s end, only students who report higher levels of perceived opportunity cost were more likely to be selected as study partners (Figure 1; Tables 1, 2).
These findings suggest that, in the context of a large lecture course, not all students manage and maintain relationships. Across the course of the semester (figure 1), students become more interconnected, indicating increased self-organization of the system, and that their reasons for selecting others to engage with may change as a result of their personal motivation beliefs and their perceptions of the personal motivation beliefs held by others. These findings, using SNA as a driver, provide preliminary but novel evidence that supports theoretical claims about the intertwined development of individual self-processes and socialization processes.

Authors

• Rachel Part, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Jonathan C. Hilpert, Georgia Southern University

• Gwen C. Marchand, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Matthew L. Bernacki, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

• Harsha Perera, University of Nevada - Las Vegas