General Education Professional Education Practice Exam

Motivation comes from two key judgments: whether you believe you can succeed at the task, and how much you value the goal. This is the heart of expectancy-value theory. If you expect to do well (high expectancy) and you care about the outcome (high task value), you’re strongly motivated to invest effort. Task value includes intrinsic interest, the personal importance of doing well for your identity, the usefulness of the outcome for future goals, and the costs you’d incur (time, effort, sacrifice). For example, a student will study harder for a difficult course if they feel they can master it and if earning a good grade or understanding the material matters to them. If either expectancy or value is low, motivation tends to be weaker. This theory is distinct from drive theories, which focus on internal urges to reduce needs, and attribution theories, which look at how we explain successes and failures, or from other theories that don’t tie performance expectations to the value placed on the goal.