Invaluable values: an expectancy-value theory analysis of youths’ academic motivations and intentions

ABSTRACT

While Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields have increased in importance over the past decade, minorities have remained traditionally underrepresented in these fields. In this study we seek to better understand some of the factors that might contribute to or potentially mitigate early STEM pipeline leaks, specifically, high school graduation and college entrance leaks. Student interest formed in the early school years has an impact on future course selections and persistence in school. These choices can have long-term repercussions on the future career options and the financial security of students. We apply expectancy-value theory (EVT) in order to examine the factors that may influence students’ motivations and intentions to complete high school and attend college. Specifically, we investigate if EVT can help to explain change in students’ academic intentions and motivations after a computing intervention. We hypothesize that changes in students’ expectancies for success and subjective task values will be positively associated with changes in students’ intentions and motivations to persist in academia. Data were gathered from a sample of elementary students within an urban, high poverty, and predominately minority school district located in the southeastern USA. Changes in students’ expectancies for success and subjective task values over the course of the intervention played an important role in students’ academic motivations and intentions to both finish high school and attend college. These findings demonstrate that EVT is useful in explaining general academic motivations in young children, which could potentially increase the structural integrity of the STEM pipeline.

KEYWORDS:

• Expectancy-value theory
• college motivation
• minorities
• computing intervention
• STEM

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Christopher Ball is currently a PhD student in the Media and Information Studies program at Michigan State University. His research interests involve the influence of new technologies on society and how these new technologies can be studied and harnessed for research, education, and outreach purposes. More specifically, his research interests involve the use of interactive media and technologies such as video games, virtual worlds, and virtual reality to foster prosocial outcomes through experiential learning. Christopher is currently employed as a graduate research assistant for Dr. Shelia Cotten working on the Integrating Computing Across the Curriculum (ICAC) project. [email: [email protected]].

Kuo-Ting Huang is a doctoral student in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. His research interests lie in information and communication technologies (ICTs) with a focus on the effects of virtual environments on learning and education. His current research focuses on the social psychological effects of ICTs on education and health. [email: [email protected]].

Shelia Cotten is Professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. She has served as the Chair of CITASA. Her work has been funded by The National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Aging. Cotten’s work addresses key social problems with sociological tools related to technology access, use, and impacts/outcomes. She has published on a number of topics including the XO laptop program in Birmingham and the use of ICT resources to improve older Americans’ quality of life. The body of her work was recognized by the CITASA Award for Public Sociology in 2013. [email: [email protected]].

R.V. Rikard is a Postdoctoral Research Associate under the direction of Dr. Shelia Cotten in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. R.V.’s research interests include: the intersection of health literacy and health disparities, the social impact of technology on health and community health, the connection between online health messages using social media/social network site and offline health behaviors, and the social science of “Big Data.” [email: [email protected]].

LaToya O. Coleman is a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Preventive Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research examines the role of risk and protective factors in developmental psychopathology among children and adolescents. She is also interested in the social reproduction of health and educational inequality. [email: [email protected]].

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DRL-1404467; Shelia R. Cotten, PI). The views expressed in this manuscript reflect those of the authors and not the National Science Foundation.