Examining Low Points in Motivation Throughout a Semester: Predicting Calculus Students' Performance and STEM Career Intentions

• In Event: Complexity in Motivation and Engagement Research: Evidence for Contextual Dynamic Patterns

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework
Students with low motivation in the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) risk changing STEM career paths, but little is known about the process of losing motivation for STEM fields. Research typically focuses on the average predictive power of motivational constructs measured at static time points. Yet emerging research suggests that motivation is a dynamic process influenced by the classroom context, and these dynamics also influence students’ performance and behavior. For example, students may experience a “motivational shock” after receiving their first performance feedback in a class (Benden & Lauermann, 2022). We build on these findings by examining how students who experience a a low point in motivation during a semester, compared to students who do not, perform in a course and report on their STEM career intentions.
Methods
Students in a calculus course (N = 429; 37% women; 62% white) completed 11 weekly surveys that assessed their motivational beliefs (i.e., perceptions of competence, importance, interest, costs; Eccles & Wigfield, 2020). We created a variable to identify students who, on any weekly survey in the semester, reported scores for any construct that were 1.5 standard deviations (SD) or more below their within-person mean (or above their mean, for the construct of perceived cost). Students whose within-person mean never fell below 1.5 SDs throughout the 11 weeks were assigned a 0. We used this variable to predict course grade and end-of-semester STEM career intentions throughout path analyses, controlling for gender, race, and prior achievement.
Results and Significance
Students who reported a low point in interest at least once throughout the semester had higher grades in the course and students who reported high points of loss of valued alternatives cost at least once throughout the semester reported lower STEM career intentions (see Table 1). To understand why these trends may have occurred, we examined on how many weekly surveys each student reported very low levels of motivation (or high costs; see Table 2). Of the 115 students who reported low interest, only 16 students reported low interest more than twice. We also examined when these low reports of motivation were likely to occur (see Table 3). Week 6, the week after students’ first exams, had the most reports of low interest.
This drop in interest may have corresponded with students’ first exam feedback, supporting Benden & Lauermann’s (2022) finding of a “motivational shock.” However, we did not find that a short-term drop in interest predicted lower performance in the class. It is possible that high achieving students are most sensitive to exam feedback and thus experience a “low point” in interest upon receiving that feedback. Additionally, we found consistency in past results that students’ experiencing high points in loss of valued alternatives cost reported lower STEM career intentions. This work builds on other recent work that emphasizes the dynamic nature of motivation.

Authors

• Patrick N. Beymer, University of Cincinnati
  Presenting Author

• Katherine M. Muenks, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Emily Quinn Rosenzweig, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author