0.1 Motivation  (Page 6/7)

Watching others’ experiences of mastery

A second source of efficacy beliefs comes from vicarious experience of mastery, or observing others’ successes (Schunk&Zimmerman, 1997). Simply seeing someone else succeed at a task, in other words, can contribute tobelieving that you, too, can succeed. The effect is stronger when the observer lacks experience with the task and therefore may be unsure of his or her ownability. It is also stronger when the model is someone respected by the observer, such as a student’s teacher, or a peer with generallycomparable ability. Even under these conditions, though, vicarious experience is not as influential as direct experience. The reasons are not hard toimagine.

Suppose, for example, you witness both your teacher and a respected friend succeed at singing a favorite tune, but you are unsure whether you personallycan sing. In that case you may feel encouraged about your own potential, but are likely still to feel somewhat uncertain of your own efficacy. If on theother hand you do not witness others’ singing, but you have a history of singing well yourself, it is a different story. In that case you are likely to believe in yourefficacy, regardless of how others perform.

Expectancy-value theory

By now, it should be clear that motivation is affected by several factors, including reinforcement for behavior, but especially also students’ goals,interests, and sense of self-efficacy. The factors combine to create two general sources of motivation: students’ expectation of success and thevalue that students place on a goal. Viewing motivation in this way is often called the expectancy-value model of motivation (Wigfield&Eccles, 2002; Wigfield, Tonk,&Eccles, 2004), and sometimes written with a multiplicative formula: expectancy x value = motivation. The relationshipbetween expectation and value is “multiplicative” rather than additive because in order to be motivated, it is necessary for a person to haveat least a modest expectation of success and to assign a task at least some positive value. If you have high expectations of success but do not value atask at all (mentally assign it a “0” value), then you will not feel motivated at all. Likewise, if you value a task highly but have noexpectation of success about completing it (assign it a “0” expectancy), then you also will not feel motivated at all.

Ideally both expectancies and values are high in students on any key learning task. Expectancies are the result of various factors, but particularly the goals heldby a student, and the student’s self-efficacy . A student with mastery goals and strong self-efficacy for a task, for example, is likely to hold high expectations for success—almost by definition. Values are also the resultof various factors, but especially students’ interests and feelings of self-determination . A student who has a lasting personal interest in a task or topic and is allowed to choose it freely is especially likely to value the task—and therefore to feel motivated.

Raising the value of academic tasks is equally important, but the general strategies for doing so are different than for raising expectations. Increasingvalue requires linking the task to one’s own personal interests and prior knowledge, realizing the utility of the task to one’s future goals, andbecoming aware that the task is valuable to other people whom one respects.