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1. Motivators Matter When Gamifying Learning Activities

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26876-2_89  

   Dichev, C.; Dicheva, D.; Ismailova, R. (March 2023, 25th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL2022))

   Auer, M.E.; Pachatz, W.; Rüütmann, T. (Ed.)

   Gamification, the use of game design elements in non-game contexts, has become a promising strategy for enhancing learners’ motivation, engagement, and performance. However, our understanding of how the motivational affordances of gamification interact with the motivational drivers engendered by a learning activity is still limited. In most of the studies the focus is on the role of the incorporated gamification elements, disregarding motivational factors associated with the learning activity, such as perceived utility, expectancy of success, and needed effort to complete it. Expectancy-Value model offers a practical method for estimating the level and quality of learners’ motivation towards a particular task as it accounts for both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. Employing this model can shed a new light on the motivational potential of educational gamification. Accordingly, in this paper we present experiments with Expectancy-Value-Cost scale (EVC) as an instrument for estimating the level of students’ motivation towards a gamified learning activity. We studied empirically how the motivational factors measured by EVC relate to the level of learners’ engagement in gamified practicing and assessed their predictive qualities. 

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2. Early year undergraduate researchers’ reflections on the values and perceived costs of their research experience

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-020-00248-x  

   Ceyhan, Gaye D.; Tillotson, John W. (December 2020, International Journal of STEM Education)

   Abstract Background Prior research reported that motivational beliefs that individuals attach to specific tasks predict continuing interest and persistence in the task. A motivational approach may be particularly useful for understanding undergraduate students’ engagement with research in their first and second years in college. The current study utilizes the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation to qualitatively explore how much and in what ways early year undergraduate researchers value their research experience and what kinds of costs they associate with it. Results The results revealed that intrinsic value had the highest expression in participants’ motivation to engage in research. The second most expressed value type was the utility value of undergraduate research with regards to obtaining the desired outcomes, and attainment value played the least important role in participants’ motivation to engage in research. Findings also indicated that some of the participants associated a cost(s) to their research experience. The highest mentioned perceived cost was opportunity cost, where participants commented on losing other valued alternatives when engaging in research. Participants commented on the time, effort, or amount of work needed to engage in research, and a few participants commented on the emotional cost associated with their research experience in terms of the fear of failure. Conclusion As perceived cost is the least studied in the expectancy-value framework, this study contributes to cost values within college students, particularly about early year undergraduate researchers. The findings of this study can form the basis for future work on exploring ways to increase the values and decrease the costs students experience in their undergraduate research experiences. 

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3. Appealing to Faculty Gatekeepers: Motivational Processes for Intentions to Adopt an Evidence-B ased Intervention

   https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac029  

   McPartlan, Peter; Thoman, Dustin_B; Poe, Jennifer; A_Herrera, Felisha; Smith, Jessi_L (June 2022, BioScience)

   Abstract What motivates faculty teaching gateway courses to consider adopting an evidence-based classroom intervention? In this nationally representative study of biology faculty members in the United States (N = 422), we used expectancy–value–cost theory to understand three convergent motivational processes the faculty members’ underlying intentions to adopt an exemplar evidence-based classroom intervention: the utility value intervention (UVI). Although the faculty members perceived the intervention as valuable, self-reported intentions to implement it were degraded by concerns about costs and lower expectancies for successful implementation. Structural equation modeling revealed that the faculty members reporting lower intentions to adopt it tended to be White and to identify as male and had many years of teaching or were from a more research-focused university. These personal, departmental, and institutional factors mapped onto value, expectancies, and cost perceptions uniquely, showing that each process was a necessary but insufficient way to inspire intentions to adopt the UVI. Our findings suggest multifaceted, context-responsive appeals to support faculty member motivation to scale up adoption of evidence-based classroom interventions. 

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4. Instructional Supports for Motivation Trajectories in Introductory College Engineering

   https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584221083662  

   Robinson, Kristy A.; Lira, Amalia Krystal; Walton, S. Patrick; Briedis, Daina; Linnenbrink-Garcia, Lisa (January 2022, AERA Open)

   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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5. Work in Progress: Motivational Differences Between Civil and Environmental Engineering Doctoral Students in the Pre-writing and Writing Phases

   Rodriguez_Mejia, Eduardo; Bodnar, Cheryl A (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   This work in progress paper describes the preliminary findings from the implementation of a graduate engineering student motivation survey with Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) doctoral students. In the doctoral process, two phases can be identified: pre-writing and writing. The first phase is generally where most of the coursework is taken, while the second phase is when the dissertation takes most of the time. These phases have been found to be of importance when seeking to address graduate students’ motivation because they present a transition between a more structured and guided process into an unstructured, self-directed, and isolated phase that is prescribed as challenging for students. The graduate student motivation survey, derived from the Expectancy-Value Theory constructs (i.e., interest, attainment, utility, cost, and self-efficacy), was developed by the authors in a prior study. The constructs of interest/intrinsic (how fun and interesting is a task), attainment (personal/identity importance of a task), utility (usefulness for present or future goals), and cost (resources to be invested in a task) are values that individuals consider when selecting and taking actions; Whereas, the self-efficacy construct explores an individual’s beliefs about how well their performance will be on an upcoming task. This motivation survey was distributed among 20 CEE doctoral students during the second week of the Fall 2023 semester. Out of the 20 participants, 3 were in the research phase of their dissertation (writing phase), 16 were still in the process of completing their coursework requirements (pre-writing phase), and 1 did not provide a response about their program phase. Measurement of Expectancy-Value Theory constructs on a scale from 1 to 7 was performed. Analysis of the mean values for each construct between students in the pre-writing phase and those in the writing phase of their doctoral program showed statistical significance with large effect size values for the constructs of attainment and utility. Values for students in the pre-writing phase were higher on the attainment and utility construct, with students in pre-writing phase having attainment and utility mean values of M = 6.29 and M = 5.69, respectively, and those in the writing phase having M = 5.50 and M = 4.17 respectively. These preliminary results can help to better understand students' motivations during their doctoral journey, especially as they make the transition from the pre-writing to the writing phase and may lead to identification of areas where additional support can be provided. 

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