LEARNING AND ASSESSING

Effectively Facilitate Learning in Practice



Effectively Facilitate Learning in Practice

Introduction

The two main beliefs that are studied most often are students' expectations for success, or whether they believe they can accomplish an academic task, and students' valuing of the academic task, or their reasons for choosing to do the task (Schunk et al., 2008).

Expectations for task-specific success are closely tied to students' perceptions of competence, and research has shown that both expectancy for success and competence beliefs correlate with grades, effort, and persistence (Wigfield, 1994; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992). There are four kinds of values that students might have about a task: utility value, attainment value, intrinsic value, and cost beliefs (Wigfield & Eccles, 1992). Utility value is the usefulness of the task for individuals in terms of their future goals.

Theories and Research

Can I Learn and Why Do I Learn? Principles of Expectancy-Value Theory

To reiterate, expectancy-value theory is a comprehensive motivational theory, and although all three motivational theories incorporate some aspect of competence or control, only expectancy-value theory focuses explicitly on the role of value. Some would argue that because Weiner was a student of Atkinson, the originator of expectancy-value attribution theory contain aspects of value as well as expectancy. Weiner, however, uses Atkinson's definition of value in his own attributional model, which is more like affect than values defined in modern expectancy-value theory. Because the theory is cognitive in nature, most of the research has capitalized on the beliefs that students have and how these beliefs affect their academic behavior.

Discussion

Less research has been done on other aspects of the theory, such as investigating the student's social world where these beliefs come from, or exploring the student's cognitive processes (e.g., students' perceptions of the social environment or interpretations and attributions of past events) that are necessary for developing these beliefs. Therefore, this summary focuses on aspects of the theory that have empirical support for classroom application.

Attainment value is the importance of doing well on a task. For example, boys might believe that it's important do to well in math and science because of gender-related expectations. Therefore, they may have high attainment goals for math- and science-related activities because these subjects are central to one's sense of self as a boy (Wigfield & Eccles, 1992).

Intrinsic value is the enjoyment one experiences while engaged in a task. For example, some students really enjoy participating in game-like tasks at school because games tend to make learning fun and meaningful (Bergin, 1999). The final and fourth value associated with expectancy-value theory is cost. For example, a student who does homework rather than going over to a friend's house to play video games has probably acknowledged that completing a homework assignment is associated with less cost (e.g., giving up a social opportunity) than not doing homework. Many students, however, choose not to do their homework because something else (e.g., playing video games) has outweighed the value of completing the assignment. At times, students' negative affect state prevents them from engaging ...