The system of academic task values: The development of cross-domain comparisons of values and college major choice

This study synthesizes theories of achievement motivation to better understand the development of academic task values in high school students and their relation to college major selection. We utilize longitudinal structural equation modeling to understand how grades relate to task values, how task values across domains relate to one another over time, and how the system of task values relates to college major choice. In our sample of 1,279 high students from Michigan, we find evidence that task value for math negatively relates to task value for English and vice versa. We also find that task value for math and physical science positively relates to the math-intensiveness of selected college majors, whereas English and biology task value negatively relates to math-intensiveness of majors. Gender differences in college major selection are mediated by differences in task values. Our findings have implications for theories of achievement motivation and motivational interventions.

This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental
Health (MH31724), the National Science Foundation (BNS 85-10504),
and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (HD17296) to Jacquelynne Eccles and by grants
from the National Science Foundation (DBS-9215008, DBS-9215016), the
Spencer Foundation (199500053), and the William T. Grant Foundation
(94145992) to Jacquelynne Eccles and Bonnie Barber.

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