Precursors of students’ cost perceptions: Identifying proximal and distal predictors

Studies of students’ cost perceptions have been prevalent in recent years; however, little work has examined what may precede the formation of these costs. Understanding predictors of cost may allow for the implementation of more established interventions in these areas. For example, interventions to increase belonging may serve to subsequently reduce students’ perceptions of cost. Such established interventions with more consistent results in the literature may provide a promising pathway to reduce costs as compared to intervening on cost directly, since these direct interventions have produced mixed results to date. In the present study, we examined proximal and distal precursors of students’ (N = 321) weekly cost perceptions throughout a semester in college physics using a weekly diary survey. Costs were examined across four dimensions: task effort, outside effort, loss of valued alternatives, and emotional cost. Multilevel modeling indicated that weekly measures of belonging and self-regulated learning predicted lower levels of nearly all cost types. Meanwhile, baseline measures of students’ expectancies for success and physics identity were non-significant. The number of credits students were enrolled in also did not predict costs. This study contributes to better understanding how cost perceptions are formed and has implications for contributing to future interventions aimed at reducing costs.