Eccles And Wigfield’s Expected Value Theory: What It Is And What It Proposes

Can our beliefs about our own competencies influence the final result? Motivation and the beliefs we have about our abilities are very important factors to be taken into account in the educational field, since they condition performance and influence subsequent success or failure.

The model that supports this is Eccles and Wigfield’s expected value theory a proposal that has contributed to changing the way it is taught, being aware that what the student thinks about their own ability can make them master the subject or not, regardless of whether they really have learning problems or not.

Below we will try to take a deeper look at this model, what its main hypotheses are, its components and how important it is in the field of education.

What is Eccles and Wigfield’s expected value theory?

Eccles and Wigfield’s expected value theory, also called expectancy value theory, is a model that has been widely applied in the field of education, implying that it is not only the student’s own ability and the learning time study that reverses what influences your academic success or failure. The idea behind this model is, basically, that There are both expectations and values ​​or beliefs that affect our subsequent behavior that is, academic performance.

The antecedents of this theory can be found in John William Atkinson, who in the 1950s and 1960s expounded the ideas that would be precursors to the theory presented by Eccles and Wigfield.

Atkinson knew that Achievement motivation, that is, how motivated the individual was to achieve the goal that the environment or he himself had set, influenced the performance itself regardless of how objectively good or bad he was doing the tasks that led him to achieve that achievement.

Taking this idea, in the 1980s Jacquelynne Eccles applied this idea to the field of education, considering as “achievement” any aspect of academic life that the school curriculum considered necessary to be learned. His expectancy value theory, formulated in collaboration with Allan Wigfield, argues that student achievement and choices related to final performance are determined by two main factors: expectations of success and subjective task values.

When we talk about “expectations” we refer to the confidence that the individual has in his or her own ability to be successful in completing a given task and achieve the objective after doing it. Regarding the “subjective values ​​of the task” we refer to the personal value that the person attributes to that task, that is, whether they consider it important, useful or pleasant or, on the contrary, they consider it to be a waste of time. , has no importance in your academic life or is very boring and boring.

According to the research of Eccles and Wigfield, expectations and values ​​interact with each other, allowing them to predict important results in the individual’s behavior, especially in aspects such as commitment, continued interest or persistence, and academic performance or performance. Depending on how good they think they are and how motivated they are to do the tasks, the person will be more or less committed, perform better, or want to do the task voluntarily.

It has also been seen that other factors can influence a person’s motivation and performance when carrying out an academic task. Among these we can find demographic characteristics (e.g., different socioeconomic level), stereotypes (e.g., men good at math, women good at language), previous experiences (e.g., I failed the first midterm of mates therefore the rest will not be better for me) and the perceptions of the beliefs and behaviors of others.

The expectations

Going deeper into expectations, we can define them as the specific beliefs that people have regarding whether they will be successful in doing and completing certain tasks that they will do in the future, both immediately and in the long term. That is to say, are beliefs about how well or poorly a task will be done in the future and these beliefs influence their decision making and associated behaviors.

For example, let’s imagine a high school student who thinks that he is not good at multiple choice exams. She knows that next week she has one of these tests and thinks that she is not going to do well, even though she hasn’t passed yet. Since she believes that she is going to do poorly on the day of the exam, she performs poorly, she makes more mistakes and does not read all the questions correctly, which is why she has a bad grade. The bad grade is not due to the fact that she has not studied, but due to the simple fact of convincing herself that she was going to do poorly on the test and that is what happened.

Expectations about success or failure in the future are closely related to two concepts related to the individual’s own way of seeing themselves: self-concept and self-efficacy.

On the one hand, the self-concept related to Eccles and Wigfield’s expected value theory involves the beliefs one has about one’s own abilities in relation to certain goals, in this case the educational ones. In the previous example, the person has a self-concept of being bad at multiple choice exams, so when he has to answer one of them, since he underestimates his real ability, he performs worse.

Self-efficacy is similar to self-concept but with certain nuances. This idea involves one’s beliefs about one’s own abilities and competencies but in terms of performance rather than in terms of one’s own way of being. That is, do not think in terms of “I am bad at…” but rather “my abilities at… are bad”, being more specific for each subject.

For example, we may be high school students who are convinced that our skills in mathematics are very bad but very good in natural sciences. Thus, in the mathematics subject we expect to perform very poorly, we do not have much hope of passing and we are not at all motivated by having to do our homework or study for the next exam. On the other hand, we do believe that we are going to pass the biology subject and it motivates us to study. Our concept of self-efficacy in mathematics is bad and in biology it is good.

Subjective task values

According to Eccles and Wigfield, Subjective task value can be understood as the motivation of an individual with respect to a certain task, regardless of whether they have high or low expectations of doing it well It is no secret that in education students have favorite subjects which makes them study more or understand the concepts of some better and have a harder time understanding others. A subject that fascinates us, seems fundamental to our lives and that we consider easy is going to motivate us much more than one that we think is a real bore.

The subjective values ​​of the task, as its name indicates, They are arbitrary, different depending on the person It is clear that there are tasks in the educational field that can arouse different interest and involvement on their own among students (e.g., solving mathematical problems vs. playing dodgeball in physical education), however, as we mentioned in the paragraph above, each one attributes a different subjective value to it. These values ​​would answer the question “Do I want to do this activity and why?”

We can identify the following types of subjective task values.

1. Achievement value

The personal importance for our identity of achieving this achievement That is, if we consider it something fundamental to our own way of being or it is simply something else that we have to achieve because it is in the academic curriculum.

For example, if we consider ourselves people with musical culture, regardless of what we want to do when we grow up, we will be very interested in what is explained to us in the subject of music, such as the great composers, musical currents, musical notation, reading of sheet music…

2. Intrinsic value

How interesting we find the task, regardless of its importance to our lives Whether doing that task is something we enjoy or whether we see it as a kind of punishment.

For example, playing dodgeball is an activity whose intrinsic value is greater than solving mathematical problems.

3. Utility value

If we consider that doing this task, regardless of whether we like it or if it is important for our self-concept to do it well it is something important for our academic lives and professional future.

For example, if when we grow up we want to study a science career we will have to learn mathematics, biology, physics and chemistry in high school. Regardless of whether we like these subjects, we must learn their content very well so that access to our favorite science career is guaranteed.

4. Cost

It is the loss of time, high effort demands, loss of more interesting and enjoyable alternatives or negative psychological experiences such as stress, associated with doing this task.

For example, when we are doing homework we cannot do other things like play video games, meet up with friends, watch television…

Applications and findings related to this theory

This model and the research associated with them has allowed us to see how expectations vary throughout the school years and the subjects themselves within the same course In fact, from the beginning of primary education there are differences in motivation depending on the subject being asked. From the age of 11, more or less coinciding with fifth grade, the types of value also vary, in the sense that one can be motivated because the subjects are interesting for the students or they can be motivated because they consider them very important in your professional future.

What there is no doubt about is that motivation, whatever the type of value and how good it is considered in the performance of subjects, decreases over time, especially in adolescence. Adolescents are having worse expectations about their own academic performance, although they do not necessarily have to be fatal but it undoubtedly causes them to have worse grades. The causes of this are very varied, ranging from a general loss of interest in studies to not seeing what relationship it has with what they want to dedicate themselves to.

The ideas raised from Eccles and Wigfield’s expected value theory have been used in intervention programs that strive to change students’ motivational beliefs. Students’ beliefs influence their academic performance as we have commented throughout the article If they are more pessimistic, regardless of their real skills, they will have worse grades. For this reason, based on this model, efforts have been made to change these expectations and beliefs so that they have greater motivation to study and a better vision of their abilities.