What Matters in Motivation? Probing the Dimensionality of Expectancy-Value Theory in Diversity Education
Location
Measurement and Statistics - Boston 1
Proposal Track
Research Project
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to help bridge the gap between motivation and diversity education by examining the dimensionality of Expectancy-Value (EV) theory in diversity education through a comparative exploratory factor analysis. Participants were 254 college students who were predominantly education majors (86.7%), White (60.6%), and female (76.4%). Separate exploratory factor analyses (EFA) produced very similar 2-factor structures in contrast with the five-dimensional model of EV theory: value and cost. While the results confirmed the domain-specific nature of EV theory, they raised parsimony concerns and suggested the essentials to helping make diversity education more motivating. Future research needs to further examine the dimensionality of EV theory and develop EV instruments for diversity education through confirmatory factor analysis.
Keywords
Expectancy-value theory, dimensionality, diversity education, comparative, exploratory factor analyses
Professional Bio
Dr. Yan Yang is an associate professor of Educational Psychology at the University of West Georgia. Her major research interests are motivation in distance learning and diversity education. Dr.Yang published two dozen articles on peer-reviewed journals with national/international circulations and delivered dozens of research presentations at juried conference organizations at both national/international and local levels. Dr. Yang was invited to present at AERA as a Best Paper award winner at Eastern Educational Research Association in 2015, and she was selected as OER Research Fellow in 2019 due to her dedication to OER research initiatives.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Yang, Yan, "What Matters in Motivation? Probing the Dimensionality of Expectancy-Value Theory in Diversity Education" (2019). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 45.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2019/2019/45
What Matters in Motivation? Probing the Dimensionality of Expectancy-Value Theory in Diversity Education
Measurement and Statistics - Boston 1
The purpose of this study was to help bridge the gap between motivation and diversity education by examining the dimensionality of Expectancy-Value (EV) theory in diversity education through a comparative exploratory factor analysis. Participants were 254 college students who were predominantly education majors (86.7%), White (60.6%), and female (76.4%). Separate exploratory factor analyses (EFA) produced very similar 2-factor structures in contrast with the five-dimensional model of EV theory: value and cost. While the results confirmed the domain-specific nature of EV theory, they raised parsimony concerns and suggested the essentials to helping make diversity education more motivating. Future research needs to further examine the dimensionality of EV theory and develop EV instruments for diversity education through confirmatory factor analysis.
