Profiles of afterschool motivations: A situated expectancy-value approach

Despite the benefits of afterschool programs, we know very little about what motivates adolescents to attend and what costs they might associate with doing so. Situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT) proposes that expectancy for success, value, and cost perceptions are motivational beliefs that are important precursors to students’ engagement in such programs, and thus may shape the extent to which students can benefit from them. Accordingly, we examined profiles of expectancy, value, and cost beliefs associated with afterschool program participation in a sample of middle school students (N = 197) in an urban context. We then examined profiles for their relations to student demographics (gender, grade, race/ethnicity), achievement (English and Math grades), and program attendance. Latent profile analyses yielded three profiles: a moderate-low mixed motivation profile, a high cost and mixed motivation profile, and a positively motivated with moderate effort cost profile, thus uniquely contributing to the literature by describing the nature and incidence of how multiple motivational beliefs co-occur among groups of students in afterschool spaces. Subsequent analyses revealed that the positively motivated with moderate effort cost profile was associated with higher program attendance rates than the other two profiles. These results extend the theoretical knowledge base by exploring students’ expectancies, values, and costs in an informal educational context and have important implications for afterschool educators and policymakers.