Background: Utility-value interventions have been shown to promote students' achievement and motivation in mathematics through encouraging them to identify connections between course content and their real lives. To extend the benefits of these interventions, additional research is necessary to test their efficacy in diverse high school contexts,…

To improve student motivation, the authors propose a five-step process that entails learning about a motivation framework, identifying students' motivational challenges based on that framework, adopting interventions to address those challenges, and assessing the effectiveness of the interventions. In particular, they recommend adopting the…

A growing body of research suggests that interventions promoting students' utility value for a subject can improve their academic outcomes. However, numerous questions remain regarding how much to adapt prior intervention materials to promote utility value in new educational contexts and how implementation constraints of an educational context may…

A growing body of research suggests that interventions promoting students' utility value for a subject can improve their academic outcomes. However, numerous questions remain regarding how much to adapt prior intervention materials to promote utility value in new educational contexts and how implementation constraints of an educational context may…

In this dissertation, I evaluate whether helping students see the value in their coursework contributes to interest and achievement. Part 1 describes two studies that test the effectiveness of an instructional intervention to promote perceptions of utility value and interest--particularly for students with lower competence beliefs--compared to a…