Rosenzweig Emily Q, Harackiewicz Judith M, Priniski Stacy J, Hecht Cameron A, Canning Elizabeth A, Tibbetts Yoi, Hyde Janet S
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Department of Psychological and Brain Science, University of Indiana.
Motiv Sci. 2019 Sep;5(3):269-276. doi: 10.1037/mot0000113.
Utility-value interventions, in which students are asked to make connections between course material and their lives, are useful for improving students' academic outcomes in science courses. These interventions are thought to be successful in part because the intervention activities afford students autonomy while they complete them, but no research has explored directly whether interventions that include more support for autonomy are more effective. In this study, the degree of choice incorporated in a utility-value intervention was systematically varied in order to test this possibility. We assigned college biology students ( = 406) to a high-choice utility-value intervention condition (choose between two formats- essay or letter- for each of 3 writing assignments), one of two low-choice intervention conditions (complete either an essay and then a letter, or vice versa, and choose a format for the third assignment), or a control condition (summarize course material 3 times). Students in the high-choice condition reported significantly higher perceived utility value and interest for biology course content compared to students in the low-choice conditions. There were also significant, but small, indirect effects of choice on students' final course grades and enrollment in the next course in the biology sequence via perceived utility value and interest. Results suggest that social-psychological interventions which include more choice are likely to be more effective than those which include less choice.
实用价值干预要求学生将课程材料与他们的生活联系起来，这对提高学生在科学课程中的学业成绩很有用。这些干预措施被认为之所以成功，部分原因是干预活动在学生完成时给予了他们自主权，但尚无研究直接探讨包含更多自主权支持的干预措施是否更有效。在本研究中，为了测试这种可能性，我们系统地改变了实用价值干预中包含的选择程度。我们将大学生物学专业的学生（n = 406）分配到高选择实用价值干预条件组（为3篇写作作业中的每一篇在两种形式——论文或信件——之间进行选择）、两种低选择干预条件组之一（先完成论文然后完成信件，或者反之，并为第三项作业选择一种形式）或对照组（三次总结课程材料）。与低选择条件组的学生相比，高选择条件组的学生报告对生物学课程内容的感知实用价值和兴趣明显更高。选择通过感知实用价值和兴趣对学生的最终课程成绩和生物课程序列中下一门课程的注册也有显著但较小的间接影响。结果表明，包含更多选择的社会心理干预可能比包含较少选择的干预更有效。
