Motivation in Education at a Time of Global Change

Theory, Research, and Implications for Practice

Eleftheria N. Gonida, Marina Serra Lemos, Eleftheria N. Gonida, Marina Serra Lemos

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781787546141
• eBook ISBN:
  9781787546158
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Economic, social and political disruption, financial recession, international migration and rapid technological advancements have produced major changes throughout the world regarding the availability and access to knowledge, human communication, social relationships, learning and education. As socioeconomic, sociodemographic and sociocultural conditions are constantly changing in parallel with rapid scientific and technological progress, learning environments are also evolving. The increased complexity of educational processes calls for new research and theoretical inquiry to address how these global changes affect education, schools and academic learning. This volume in the Advances in Motivation and Achievement Series is dedicated to the role of motivation in that process. The fundamental assumption of the volume is that, on the one hand, change and challenge have a significant impact on students' and educators' motivation to learn and achieve and, on the other hand, motivation can have a significant impact on students' and educators' capacity to cope with change and challenge effectively. 

This book opens up a dialogue on how to support achievement motivation in challenging times as a means for successful academic trajectories and positive adaptation to school. Internationally leading researchers provide a critical understanding of the role of current motivational theories during unsettling times, discuss a number of challenges affecting motivation in education, and indicate potential implications of motivational theory and research for educational practice.

PART I:
CURRENT MOTIVATIONAL
THEORIES AT A TIME OF GLOBAL
CHANGE AND UNCERTAINTY

WHAT DOES EXPECTANCY-VALUE THEORY HAVE TO SAY ABOUT MOTIVATION AND ACHIEVEMENT IN TIMES OF CHANGE AND UNCERTAINTY?

Allan Wigfield and Jessica R. Gladstone

ABSTRACT

We discuss the development of achievement motivation from the perspective of Eccles and colleagues’ expectancy-value theory (EVT), focusing on the importance of children developing positive expectancies for success and valuing of achievement to help them cope with change and uncertainty. Although research has shown that, overall, children’s expectancies and values decline, recent studies show many different trajectories in the overall pattern. Children’s expectancies and values predict their school performance and choices of which activities to pursue in and out of school, with these relations getting stronger as children get older. When children’s expectancies and values stay more positive, they can better cope with change and uncertainty, such as the increasing difficulty of many school subjects, or broader changes such as immigrating to a new country. Parents can buffer children’s experiences of change and uncertainty by encouraging them to engage in different activities and by providing them opportunities to do so. Parents’ positive beliefs about their children’s abilities and discussing with them the importance of school can moderate the observed decline in children’s ability beliefs and values. For immigrant and minority children, parents’ emphasis on the importance of school and encouragement of the development of a positive sense of their racial/ethnic identity are critical buffers. Positive teacher–child relations also are a strong buffer, although research indicates that immigrant and minority children often have less positive relations with their teachers. We close with a discussion on recent EVT-based intervention research that shows how children’s beliefs and values for different school subjects can be fostered.

Keywords Expectancy-value theory; development of motivation; immigrant and migrant children; socialization at home and school

As the editors of this volume Gonida and Lemos discuss in their introduction/overview, children around the world are growing up during a time of great global change, economic challenges in many countries, and immigration of many children from their home countries to countries around the world. The editors note that these changes can create a variety of uncertainties that young people currently face. Examples include uncertainties about how well they will do in a new school environment, whether education will give them better job prospects and brighter economic futures, and whether they (immigrant children and/or minority children) will be accepted by adults who will have a large impact on their lives (such as teachers), most of whom will be from the majority group in a given country. Gonida and Lemos note in their introduction that children’s motivation can impact their capacity to cope with both change and uncertainty.

In this chapter, we discuss the role of constructs and processes from one major theory of motivation, expectancy-value theory (EVT; Eccles, 2009; Eccles-Parsons et al., 1983; Wigfield, Tonks, & Klauda, 2016) in helping children to cope with change and uncertainty in certain aspects of their lives, particularly their experiences and outcomes in school. Expectancy-value theorists focus on two fundamental issues: (1) the nature of children’s motivational beliefs, values, and goals for different activities, how they change over time, and how they impact both performance on the activity and choices made regarding whether to continue with them; and (2) how socialization practices in the home and school influence children’s developing expectancies, values, and goals (see Eccles-Parsons et al., 1983; Wigfield et al., 2016).

We organize the chapter as follows. First, we discuss how children’s motivational beliefs and values develop, predict their performance and choice of activities in different areas, and help them deal with change and uncertainty. We focus in particular on how minority or immigrant status in the USA can create uncertainties with respect to children’s experiences and outcomes in school, such as the nature of their relations with their teachers, their grades, and whether they should continue in school. We next discuss parents’ socialization practices and teacher–student relations and how they can impact children’s developing motivation, as well as buffer negative effects of change and uncertainty, or perhaps exacerbate them. Then, we discuss recent intervention work on how to enhance students’ motivational beliefs, values, and school achievement. We finish with suggestions for future research.

EXPECTANCY-VALUE THEORY: AN OVERVIEW

We focus in this chapter primarily on Eccles’ and colleagues’ (e.g., Eccles, 2005, 2009; Eccles-Parsons et al., 1983; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992; Wigfield, Rosenzweig, & Eccles, 2017; Wigfield et al., 2016) expectancy-value model of performance and choice as it has guided most of the expectancy-value research that has been done in a variety of countries over the last 30 years. In their theorizing and research, Eccles and her colleagues have focused on how expectancies, values, and their determinants influence choice, persistence, and performance. They also have examined the developmental course of children’s expectancies and values. They initially developed the model to help explain gender differences in mathematics expectancies and values and how these influenced boys’ and girls’ choices of mathematics courses and majors. The gender differences in part were based on challenges girls faced (and often still face) in math classrooms, so the theory is quite germane to helping us understand how children cope with challenges and uncertainty.

Eccles-Parsons et al. (1983) proposed that individuals’ expectancies and values directly influence performance and task choice. Their expectancies and values themselves are influenced by their task-specific beliefs such as their beliefs about their competence, and their goals and self-schema, along with their affective memories for different achievement-related events. These beliefs, goals, and affective memories are influenced by individuals’ perceptions of other peoples’ attitudes and expectations for them and by their own interpretations of their previous achievement outcomes. Children’s perceptions and interpretations are influenced by a broad array of social, personal, and cultural factors. These include socializers’ (especially parents and teachers but also peers) beliefs and behaviors, children’s prior achievement experiences and aptitudes, and the cultural milieu in which they live. Wigfield and colleagues (2016) provide a detailed review of recent research based in EVT, and Tonks, Wigfield, and Eccles (in press) discuss the model’s applicability to children’s development in different cultures.

Defining the Expectancy, Value, and Ability Belief Constructs in the Model

Eccles-Parsons et al. (1983) defined expectancies for success as children’s beliefs about how well they will do on an upcoming task (e.g., how well do you think you will do in math next year?). Ability (or competence) beliefs are children’s evaluations of their current competence or ability, both in terms of their assessments of their own ability and also how they think they compare to other students. Although Eccles and colleagues distinguished these two beliefs theoretically, they strongly overlap empirically (Eccles & Wigfield, 1995). Thus, in this chapter, we will use these terms interchangeably, for the most part.

Eccles and her colleagues define values with respect to the qualities of different tasks and/or subject areas and how those qualities influence the individual’s desire to do the task (Eccles, 2005; Eccles-Parsons et al., 1983; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992). Eccles-Parsons et al. (1983) proposed that individuals’ overall subjective task values are positively influenced by three components: attainment value or importance, intrinsic value, and utility value (UV) or usefulness of the task, and negatively influenced by one component: cost (see Eccles-Parsons et al., 1983; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992; Wigfield et al., 2017, for more detailed discussion of these). Eccles-Parsons et al. defined attainment value as the importance of doing well on a given task. Attainment value incorporates identity issues; tasks are important when individuals view them as central to their own sense of themselves, or allow them to express or confirm important aspects of the self (Eccles, 2009). Intrinsic value is the enjoyment one gains from doing the task. When children intrinsically value an activity, they often become deeply engaged in it and can persist at it for a long time. This component is similar in certain respects to notions of intrinsic motivation and interest (see Ryan & Deci, 2016; Schiefele, 2009). UV or usefulness refers to how a task fits into an individual’s future plans, for instance, taking a math class to fulfill a requirement for a science degree. In certain respects, UV is similar to extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2016), because when doing an activity out of UV, the activity is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. However, the activity also can reflect some important goals that the person holds deeply, such as attaining a certain occupation.

In contrast to these three generally positive influences, perceived cost negatively influences individuals’ overall valuing of an activity because it is what the individual has to give up to do a task (e.g., do I do my math homework or spend time on Instagram?), as well as the anticipated effort one will need to put into task completion (is working this hard to get an A in math worth it?), among other things. Eccles-Parsons et al. (1983) emphasized that cost is especially important to choice because choosing one activity and investing time in it means that other potentially valued activities can’t be done. The research on cost has burgeoned in the last 10 years (see Wigfield et al., 2017, for a detailed discussion). We return to its impact on children’s experiences of uncertainty and change later.

Development of Children’s Expectancy Beliefs and Task Values

Researchers in many different countries have found that the normative pattern of change in children’s expectancies and values is declining (see Wigfield et al., 2015, for review). Many young children (but not all; see Heyman, Dweck, & Cain, 1992) are quite optimistic about their competencies in different areas, and this optimism changes during middle childhood to greater realism and (sometimes) pessimism for many children. Researchers have also shown that there are different trajectories in children’s competence beliefs and values, with some showing increases during the high school years, indicating that the normative pattern does not capture the trajectories of all children (Archambault, Eccles, & Vida, 2010; Musu-Gillette, Wigfield, Harring, & Eccles, 2015). However, most of these trajectories show decline as well; particularly relevant to this chapter is Archambault et al.’s finding that children whose literacy competence beliefs and value declined most included boys and students of lower socioeconomic status (SES). To date, there has been very little work on the development of perceived costs of different activities. Along with the normative decline, researchers (e.g., Eccles et al., 1989; Wigfield et al., 1997) showed that children’s beliefs and values become more stable over time. For example, Eccles et al. showed that the correlation of sixth-grade children’s math ability beliefs with their beliefs at seventh grade was 0.52; Wigfield et al. showed the same correlation for second- and third-grade children was 0.27.

Relations of Children’s Expectancies and Values to Performance and Choice

Many studies done in different countries show that children, adolescents, and adults’ expectancies for success and achievement values predict various achievement outcomes and choices of which activities to do (e.g., Bong, Cho, Ahn, & Kim, 2012; Musu-Gillette et al., 2015; Trautwein et al., 2012). Students’ expectancies for success and beliefs about ability are among the strongest direct psychological predictors of performance. Students’ subjective task values directly predict both intentions and actual decisions regarding persisting during different activities, such as taking mathematics and English courses. Because children’s expectancies and values relate positively to each other, their expectancies indirectly influence choice, and values do so for performance. Several researchers have found that cost negatively predicts adolescents’ and college students’ achievement, plans to take AP courses, and plans to pursue science careers or graduate school in general (Kirkpatrick, Chang, Lee, Tas, & Anderman, 2013; Perez, Cromley, & Kaplan, 2014). Finally, work by Nagengast, Trautwein, and their colleagues (e.g., Nagengast et al., 2011; Trautwein et al., 2012) showed that there are interactions of children and adolescents’ expectancies and values on their school performance. Nagengast et al. found these interactions in samples of adolescents from around the world.

The relations between children’s expectancies and values and indicators of performance strengthen across the school years (Simpkins, Davis-Kean, & Eccles, 2006; Wigfield et al., 1997). Importantly, they also extend over time (Musu-Gillette et al., 2015; Simpkins, Fredricks, Davis-Kean, & Eccles, 2006). For instance, Musu-Gillette et al. (2015) found that students’ valuing of math measured in elementary school predicted their college major choice. Simpkins et al. (2006) found that children’s participation in math and science activities in late elementary school related to their subsequent expectancies and values in these areas, which in turn predicted the number of math and science courses they took through high school. The findings that the strength of these relations increase across age and extend over time could mean that positive expectancies and values increasingly could buffer children’s responses to challenges they face, and negative ones leave children more vulnerable over time; we discuss this in more detail in the next section.

Expectancies and Values as Buffers against Change and Uncertainty

We believe children and adolescents’ expectancies and values both separately and together can impact the way they deal with change and uncertainty. First, when children develop and maintain positive expectancies and values for different school subjects, they are more likely to succeed in them and continue to take classes in these subject areas even as they become more challenging and difficult (e.g., how math gets increasingly difficult at different levels of complexity). Continuing success on these activities will strengthen chi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Motivation in Education at a Time of Global Change: Theory, Research, and Implications for Practice
• PART I CURRENT MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES AT A TIME OF GLOBAL CHANGE AND UNCERTAINTY
• PART II MOTIVATION AT A TIME OF GLOBAL CHANGE: INDIVIDUAL AND CONTEXTUAL FACTORS
• PART III MOTIVATION AND CURRENT CHALLENGES AT A TIME OF GLOBAL CHANGE AND UNCERTAINTY
• Index