In the eyes of the beholder: Tertiary students’ perceptions of personal interest, task value, and relevance

In recent years, the construct of academic relevance has garnered increasing attention within the educational literature (Albrecht & Karabenick, 2018). Unfortunately, the findings from studies have been inconsistent with regard to the effects of relevance interventions on students’ academic performance (Alexander, 2018). In this study, one potential reason for such inconsistency is explored, which is conceptual ambiguity. We inquired with students to find out how relevance is perceived among those who are the target of such interventions. We found that most students preferred a conceptualisation of relevance as interconnected and conceptually overlapping with personal interest and task value, suggesting that the rigid conceptualisations of relevance as personal interest or task value that presently dominate the literature are too narrow. Poster for: Schoute, E. C., Alexander, P. A., Loyens, S. M. M., Lombardi, D., & Paas, F. (2022). College Students’ Perceptions of Relevance, Personal Interest, and Task Value. The Journal of Experimental Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2022.2133075 https://www.drlrl.org/presentation peerReviewed unknown