Abstract
With technology increasingly prevalent in schools, it is critical that pre-service teachers learn how to select and use technological resources, such as digital curriculum, to support student motivation and learning. By presenting a framework that maps certain digital mathematics curriculum features onto specific motivational factors, this book chapter provides guidance for teacher education programs to select and adopt digital curricula that not only supports content learning but also promotes students' motivation for learning. To build the theory, the authors conducted an exploratory case study, examining the use of a specific digital mathematics curriculum in a middle school classroom. Results demonstrate that authenticity can aid student motivation, but culturally relevant pedagogy is also needed; interactivity can support motivation and engagement, but interactions should target students' conceptual knowledge; easy to use curriculum supports learning, but should also be easily incorporated with a learning management system.
TopBackground
Expectancy-Value Theory
Research has shown that when digital curriculum programs include features that directly target specific motivational constructs, it can improve students’ motivation (for example, Chao et al., 2016; Resendez et al., 2009; Star et al., 2014), ultimately leading to higher performance (Higgins et al., 2019; Huscroft-D’Angelo et al., 2019). One way to examine students’ mathematical motivation is through the lens of EVT, which demonstrates that students’ beliefs about the value of mathematics and their expectations that they can be successful in mathematics are strong influencers of their performance and achievement (Bowman, 2021). The EVT posits that students’ academic motivation is determined by their perceptions of the task values (e.g., are the tasks interesting? How important are the tasks? How useful are the tasks? etc.) as well as students’ expectancy for success in such tasks (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). In mathematics learning, when students perceive the values of mathematical tasks and when they believe they can succeed in those tasks, they are more likely to engage. Therefore, perceived task values and expectancy for success are keys to engaged mathematics learning. Researchers such as Eccles and Wigfield (2002) and Gaspard et al. (2015a, 2015b) also demonstrated factors that can affect task values and expectations of success, which may ultimately benefit students’ short-term performance and long-term achievement. This section explains how certain features of the digital mathematics curriculum can influence motivation when examined through the lens of the expectancy-value theory.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Digital Mathematics Curriculum: An integrated, coherent, sequenced system of standards-based content, mathematical tools, materials, student activities, teaching methods, and assessments, delivered using digital technologies, and designed for interaction with students, working collaboratively with each other, and teachers.
Ease of Use: A design feature that makes the content or device easy to interact and engage with.
Interactivity: A design feature that requires the user to actively engage with the content or device.
Expectations of Success: Beliefs about how well a person expects to do on a task.
Expectancy-Value Theory: A widely used motivations framework which demonstrates that students’ task values and expectations of success, which can be influenced by many factors, are positively correlated with their performance and achievement in mathematics.
Authenticity: A design feature that is realistic and relevant to the user.
Utility Value: The relevance that students see for mathematics and the tasks they must engage in to learn mathematics.