1. Exploratory Factor Analysis Participants, Procedures, & Measures
Predicting Utility Value Beliefs and Cognitive Engagement From Instructor Involvement and Provision of Relevance
Antonio P. Gutierrrez, Gwen C. Marchand & Nicholas M. Nardi
Department of Educational Psychology and Higher Education, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Introduction
Results
Results
Multiple theories of motivation view instructional support as interacting with individual motivational orientations or perceptions to support or undermine student engagement and learning in the classroom.
When students experience supportive relationships with an instructor and the instructor is successful in communicating the usefulness of research methods topics to students, students may be more likely to develop positive beliefs about the value of difficult or initially uninteresting topics, such as research methods, to their lives outside of school and to their career goals (Eccles, 2006).
We identified no studies specifically investigating the relationships among instructional support, motivation, and engagement for graduate-level learners.
We sought to investigate how changes in instructional support influenced changes in student beliefs about the value of research methods and cognitive engagement. The overarching research questions guiding the study are:
Does instructional support predict changes in beliefs about utility value during the course of a semester?
Does instructional support and beliefs about course utility value uniquely predict changes in cognitive engagement over the course of a semester?
Does change in utility value beliefs mediate the relationship between perceived initial instructional support and end-of-semester cognitive engagement?
Table 1.  
Descriptive Statistics of Instructional Support, Motivation, and Cognitive Engagement
Exploratory Factor Analysis
Results of the three EFAs indicated that the factor structure of the four constructs under consideration was stable across time and that the manifest variables were in fact adequate measures of the latent constructs.
Relevance Model
Results of the relevance model indicated that relevance, utility value, and cognitive engagement remained somewhat stable across the semester in this sample of graduate students, but some variability was present in student perceptions of these constructs across the semester. As expected, initial relevance predicted mid-semester utility value and cognitive engagement, and mid-semester utility value predicted end-of-semester cognitive engagement, while controlling for previous waves of the model. Mid-semester utility value beliefs partially mediated the effect of initial perceived relevance on end-of semester cognitive engagement. Moreover, mid-semester relevance significantly predicted end-of-semester utility value.
Table 2.
Exploratory Factor Analysis Results Across Three Waves for Instructional Support, Utility Value, and Cognitive Engagement
Involvement Model
Results of the involvement model indicated that utility value remained stable across the semester whereas involvement demonstrated greater variability from beginning to end of the semester. Evidently, students’ perceptions of instructor involvement increased significantly from the beginning and middle to the end of the semester while perceptions of utility value remained high. Initial involvement significantly predicted mid-semester utility value, and mid-semester involvement predicted end-of-semester utility value, although the structural path coefficients were relatively modest. Mid-semester utility value did not mediate the relationship between initial perceived instructor involvement and end-of-semester cognitive engagement.
Note. Loadings greater than .40 are reported. Explained Variances: T1 = 62%; T2 = 60%;
T3 = 57%.
N = 217
a Label indicates the suggested factor (i.e., extracted factor) name. .
Discussion
Methods
Evidence from this study suggests that learning contexts that foster the substantive connection of to-be-learned material with events outside the classroom (e.g., students’ professional practice) and include instructors who are engaging, empathic, and receptive to student needs are associated with an increase in students’ cognitive engagement as manifested in deeper processing and the use of more meaningful learning strategies. Further, changes in instructional support influences changes in perceived task value. Instructional support that is perceived as highlighting the relevance of a task may influence student engagement by supporting perceptions of task value.
Our research supports the line of inquiry of Assor and associates (Assor et al., 2002; Katz & Assor, 2007), who contend that taking into account characteristics of the learning environment is essential for success in learning, as learning environments that are more supportive will encourage students to strive for success and engage more meaningfully with the topic.
Participants, Procedures, & Measures
A convenience sample of 219 graduate students enrolled in a research methods course from a large, urban, southwestern university. Data were collected via online self-report questionnaires during the 2nd , 7th and 13th week of the semester.
Cognitive engagement. Greene, Miller, Crowson, Duke, and Akey’s (2004) measure of meaningful strategy use was used to assess students’ learning strategy use with the course material. A subset of items was selected for use in this study.
Utility Value. The extrinsic utility value scale was adapted from the work of Eccles and Wigfield (1995) and measured perceived value of the task.
Instructional Support. Items were loosely adapted from existing measures (Assor et al., 2002; Nix et al., 2005; Belmont et al., 1992) and some new items were created for the purpose of this study. A subset of items was selected for use in this study that focused on perceived provision of relevance and instructor involvement.
References
Assor, A., Kaplan, H., & Roth, G. (2002). Choice is good, but relevance is excellent: Autonomy-enhancing and suppressing teacher behaviors predicting students’ engagement in schoolwork. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 72,
Belmont, M., Skinner, E. A., Wellborn, J., & Connell, J. P. (1992). Teacher as social context (TASC): Two measures of teacher provision of involvement, structure, and autonomy support: Student report measure. Technical Report, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.
Eccles, J. S. (2006). A motivational perspective on school achievement: Taking responsibility for learning, teaching, and supporting. In R. F. Subotnik & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Optimizing student success in school with the other three Rs: Reasoning, resilience, and responsibility (pp ). Information Age Publishing.
Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (1995). In the mind of the actor: The structure of adolescents’ achievement task values and expectancy-related beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 3,
Greene, B. A., Miller, R. B., Crowson, H. M., Duke, B. L., & Akey, K. L. (2004). Predicting high school students cognitive engagement and achievement: Contributions of classroom perceptions and motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29,
Katz, I., & Assor, A. (2007). When choice motivates and when it does not. Educational Psychology Review, 19,
Nix, R. K., Fraser, B. J., & Ledbetter, C. E. (2005). Evaluating an integrated science learning environment using the Constructivist Environment Survey. Learning Environments Research, 8,