What Is the Role of Motivation in Social and Emotional Learning?

• In Event: Motivating the SEL Field Forward Through Equity

Abstract

A growing research literature now highlights the role of social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies in student achievement and success in school (Osher et al., 2016). Still, numerous challenges remain to clarify: a) which social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies are most fundamental to students’ overall success, b) how should researchers, evaluators, and practitioners best measure and use data on SEL (Humphrey et al., 2011), and c) how can inequities in education and beyond be addressed by SEL. At the same time, a broad body of work over the last half-century has laid a foundation for the key role that motivation plays in learning and student achievement (e.g., Elliot & Dweck, 2005), but once again we are struck how the same list of challenges for SEL can easily be applied to work in motivation. Finally, an additional challenge emerges for researchers and practitioners when trying to integrate theoretical frameworks and terminology from both fields.

The purpose of our paper (and forthcoming chapter) is to help address this shortcoming. First, we begin by reviewing which theories of motivation currently appear in major SEL frameworks. Second, we introduce how a more comprehensive theory of motivation (based on an Expectancy-Value-Cost framework; Barron & Hulleman, 2015) could be incorporated into SEL frameworks to advance their overall impact. Third, using an example from our ongoing research in STEM classrooms, we show how a broader knowledge of motivation can inform practitioners on how to promote key SEL competencies and subsequent achievement and engagement for students, especially to address inequities for historically marginalized and minoritized students.

Our example highlights how centering the culture of Indigenous Americans when designing a climate science curriculum can increase students’ motivation, engagement, and learning. We show how motivation assessment data can inform interventions, as well as provide timely information to practitioners to support social and emotional learning and academic achievement. Specifically, we used formative motivation data from a national field-test to revise instructional materials for a target audience in a regional field-test in the American Southwest (where 65-70% of the students in the field test were of Native American ethnicity). Compared with the materials for the national field test, important Native-American cultural elements such as symbolism embedded in the instructional materials (eagle, maize, sky), a specific color pallet (sky-blue, maroon red rocks, turquoise), science content through story-telling by elders, and photos of people and places from the region that would look familiar to students were included. To assess effectiveness of the curriculum improvements, we combined data from the expectancy-value-cost measures for both study samples (national, regional) into a single database. Students in the regional sample reported significantly higher expectancy and value than students in the original, national sample (Δexpectancy = .61, p<.001; Δvalue = 1.08, p<.001), and students in the regional sample reported significantly lower cost (Δcost = -.70, p<.001). Lastly, although both samples reported equivalent levels of pre-curriculum future STEM interest, students in the regional sample with revised, culturally focused materials reported higher post-curriculum future STEM interest (Δpost-curriculum = .25, p<.01).

Authors

• Kenn E. Barron, James Madison University

• Steve Getty, Colorado College

• Christopher Hulleman