Motivational interventions grounded in Eccles and colleagues' situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT) can promote students' motivational beliefs and academic performance. However, most prior work has focused on one construct, perceived utility value. SEVT includes multiple constructs found to influence students' academic motivation, performance,…

Researchers developing questionnaire measures of personality, motivation, and self-regulation constructs related to students' achievement and persistence in STEM or other fields rarely have examined whether the items on the measures used are functioning differently across groups, which is necessary for accurate group comparison. The present study…

This study compared two expectancy-value-theory-based interventions designed to promote college students' motivation and performance in introductory college physics. The utility value intervention was adapted from prior research and focused on helping students relate course material to their lives in order to perceive the material as more useful.…

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…

The goal of the present studies was to examine whether students' reasoning about the relation between levels of effort and ability is influenced by the perceived source of an individual's effort. Two sources of others' effort were examined: "task-elicited effort," or effort due primarily to the subjective difficulty of the task, and…

One way to increase students' participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is to target their motivation. Researchers have conducted a growing number of interventions addressing students' motivation in STEM; however, this body of work has not been adequately reviewed. We systematically reviewed experimental and…