According to attribution theory, students' expectancy for success is influenced by the factor (e.g., luck, ability, effort) to which they attributed success or failure on similar tasks (Greene, 1985; Weiner, 2010).
But it is likely that much more can be done to increase students' expectancies for success beyond what current scaffolds do, and expectancy for success is also far from the only pertinent motivational variable.
In addition to students' expectancies for success [8], motivation can also be affected by a student's value for the domain or task.
Moreover, students' expectancies and goals are directly related to their mathematics self-concepts and the perceptions of their parents' and teachers' attitudes towards their mathematics competence (Eccles[Parsons] et al. 1983; Gunderson et al. 2012).
Peer modeling also helps increase students' expectancies for success doing the modeled activities (Hsu, 1999; Schunk & Hanson, 1985).
For example, research by Weinstein, Gilmore, Szpunar, and McDermott (2014) demonstrated that when students expected to be tested, the increased test expectancy led to better-quality encoding of new information.
From an expectancy-value theory perspective, students will not be motivated to engage in the task without perceiving the task to have value, even if they expect to be successful at it (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000).
Research suggests that communicating utility value is especially effective when students have increased expectancies for success (Durik, Scheter, Noh, Rozek, & Harackiewicz, 2015).
"I used to make huge photocopied sheets of Unicef statistics for the students on income, life expectancy and fertility rates around the planet.
Selecting reliable strategies to fulfill goals may lead students to feel greater expectancy for success.
