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Students, instructors, and policy makers are in need of research-based recommendations for supporting students’ motivation to pursue STEM fields. The present study addressed this need by examining relations between perceived motivational supports, year-long trajectories of expectancy for success and three task values, and grades among students ( N = 1,021) in a large, gateway engineering course. Results indicated that students with higher motivation at the beginning of the year tended to perceive their class as more motivationally supportive. Controlling for relations between initial motivation and perceptions, perceived instructional supports for mastery goals, autonomy, and competence predicted more positive trajectories of all three task values. Conversely, higher perceived instructor performance goals negatively predicted grades and the slopes of self-efficacy and interest value. Results contribute key understanding about the interconnectedness of individual motivation and climate perceptions, while indicating the importance students place on certain motivationally supportive practices in promoting students’ STEM motivation trajectories.
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How do perceptions of importance support from a reading intervention affect students' motivation, engagement, and comprehension?
Interventions can enhance students' motivation for reading, but few researchers have assessed the effects of the specific motivation‐enhancing practices that comprise these interventions. Even fewer have evaluated how students' perceptions of different intervention practices impact their later motivation and academic outcomes. In this study, we utilised data from a study of Concept‐Oriented Reading Instruction, a programme designed to enhance seventh‐grade students' reading comprehension and motivation. We examined the effects of students perceiving one practice from this intervention, emphasising the importance of reading, which was designed to enhance their task values for reading (Eccles‐Parsons et al.,). Unexpectedly, structural equation modelling analyses showed that students' perceptions of importance support predicted their later competence‐related beliefs, but not their task values. Students' competence‐related beliefs predicted their reading comprehension and behavioural engagement, whereas students' task values predicted reading engagement. However, there were no significant indirect effects of perceiving importance support on students' reading outcomes.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1714481
- PAR ID:
- 10081212
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Research in Reading
- Volume:
- 41
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0141-0423
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 625-641
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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