Testing a Weekly Cost Reduction Intervention Among Calculus Students

• In Event: Unpacking Gender and Race Dynamics in the Development of STEM Motivation Using Situated Expectancy-Value Theory

Abstract

Purpose and Theoretical Framework
Students’ cost perceptions, or what a student perceives they must give up to complete a particular task (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020), have been shown to be negatively related to achievement and STEM career intentions (Flake et al., 2015; Jiang et al., 2018; Perez et al., 2014). Because of this, researchers have begun testing cost reduction interventions, but have found mixed effects (Rosenzweig et al., 2022; Perez et al., 2019). Recently scholars have begun examining the factors that predict cost providing critical information on what could be used to reduce cost, such as self-regulation strategies (Beymer & Rosenzweig, 2023; Kim, Zepeda, et al., 2023). These findings suggest that there is potential in using self-regulated learning interventions (e.g., Chen et al., 2017) to reduce cost perceptions for college STEM students. Thus, the goal of the current study was to use one type of self-regulated learning intervention, one focused specifically on motivational regulation strategies, delivered weekly, to reduce students’ cost perceptions in a college calculus course.
Method
Using a pre-registered randomized controlled trial, students were recruited from one of 19 sections of an introductory calculus course and were assigned to either a Cost Reduction condition (n = 223) or a Control condition (n = 226; Table 1). In both conditions, students responded to a weekly survey for 13 consecutive weeks. Students in the Cost Reduction condition were further asked to reflect on a list of motivational regulation strategies and wrote about how they would use one specific strategy to complete their work during the following week (Table 2). We used path analysis with full information maximum likelihood estimation to assess all outcomes (i.e., weekly cost, weekly interest, final cost, STEM intentions, course grade).
Results
There was a main effect of the intervention on weekly interest. Racially marginalized students who were in the cost-reduction intervention condition reported lower weekly emotional cost, higher weekly interest, lower final task effort cost, outside effort cost, and emotional cost, compared to racially marginalized students in the control condition. Students with lower high school GPAs in the cost-reduction intervention condition reported lower final task effort cost, higher STEM career intentions, and higher course grades compared to those with lower high school GPAs in the control condition Table 3; Figures 1-4).
Discussion
Though we did not find main effects of the intervention on the pre-registered outcomes, our observed positive interaction effects demonstrate the potential of brief weekly cost reduction interventions for helping some students engage more adaptively with their learning. Results suggest that the weekly cost-reduction intervention has the potential to effectively reduce certain types of cost, particularly for racially marginalized students and students with lower prior achievement. This intervention has the potential to teach students about effective motivational regulation tools to overcome their anticipated costly course experiences, in a consistent way throughout the course. We believe this helps to prepare students to maintain or enhance their motivation in the face of academic challenges, which helps those challenges seem less costly.

Authors

• Patrick N. Beymer, University of Cincinnati

• Yeo-eun Kim, Sungkyunkwan University

• Elise C. Allen, University of Northern Colorado

• Emily Quinn Rosenzweig, Teachers College, Columbia University