University Students’ Perceptions of Personal Interest, Task Value, and Relevance: An Exploratory Study

Recent motivation research has reconsidered the construct of relevance, and despite arguments that this pathway is likely to be indirect, it is a commonly held belief that high perceptions of relevance lead to increased motivation and educational outcomes. This hypothesis is not upheld by empirical evidence, as relevance interventions yield mixed and sometimes even negative effects. It is suggested that these problems can be traced back to the conceptual ambiguity of relevance, which is frequently conceptualised in relation to personal interest and task value in the literature. Students, who are often the object of motivation research, are believed to be able to help clearing the clouded conceptual skies. As such, the Conceptualisation of Relevance Task (CoRT) was designed to tap into American and Dutch tertiary students’ tacit conceptualisations of personal interest, task value, and relevance by probing them via (1) a graphic representation, (2) a justification and exemplification, and (3) a definitional task component. In (1), students preferred a depiction of the three constructs as strongly interrelated. Most students were able to give an adequate justification and example in (2), and it was found that they described either an internal/affective or external/cognitive orientation, which was echoed by their definitions in (3). It was concluded that the students’ conceptualisations of relevance generally lean towards personal interest (internal, affective) or task value (external, cognitive), but that their acknowledgement of both orientations suggest that either of them are too narrow. Future research should inquire more in-depth about students’ tacit conceptualisations and how they are enacted, bearing in mind that a more holistic conceptualisation of relevance as both affective and cognitive is likely to arise. notReviewed other