Liz Murray: Value

        

        Liz could not make it to Harvard University without having a high expectancy and high value on learning. Expectancy and value both composite two critical factors on people’s motivation. Under the value section, achievement goals, instrumentality, and interests played an essential role in Liz’s learning motivation. Achievement goals refer to the purpose of a person’s achievement behavior, and it asks people why they want to achieve specific goals. Two main types of achievement goals are mastery goals and performance goals, and they differ in reasons that constitute their competence. People are oriented by mastery goals, seek to understand the knowledge to improve themselves, focus on mastering content or skills, and show greater persistence and effort on a goal. People are oriented by performance goals, seek to demonstrate their competence of knowledge and skills, compare with others’ performance, and focus on outcomes. Mastery goals are related to intrinsic motivation because the doing of activity is for self-satisfaction, while performance goals are related to extrinsic motivation because the behaviors are driven by external factors. Under mastery goals and performance goals, due to demonstrate the direction of motivation, it can be divided to mastery approach: a person wants to master the knowledge, mastery avoidance: a person wants to avoid not mastering the knowledge, performance approach: a person wants to perform better than others, performance avoidance: a person does not want to perform worse than others. Another important factor in value is instrumentality, which refers to how a person perceives current tasks connected to future goals. If a person does not see the relevance between their current tasks and their future goals and does not recognize the value of their tasks, their motivation is low. Furthermore, a person’s interest in his goal is essential for him to succeed. If a person has no interest in his tasks, all motivation will come from extrinsic factors, and it does not bring a person enjoyment in the learning process. When interested, it brings a person most extended satisfaction and enjoyment in the learning, and the procedure will be more effective and productive. 

        Taking these theories into Liz Murray’s behaviors, it can be found that her learning process was driven by achievement goals, instrumentality, and interests. When she was an elementary student, she was given the Encyclopedia, and she read a whole set except for Erdos, which she did not have. She got 100 on the test and did not care if she performed better or worse than others. When she was fifteen and became homeless, she still brought books with her to read while others were hanging around. She was oriented by mastery approach and her interests because she loved reading, and she was doing it for her own enjoyment and satisfaction. At this time, instrumentality did not play a role in her behaviors because she did not see the relevance between her current learning and future life. Things changed after Liz’s mother’s death. She started to ponder the significance of life and how to change her life because she wanted to climb out from the environment that she was born in. It brought the instrumentality in her mind that how she could do now to help her have a bright future. She went to Eva’s apartment and said to her, “I don’t want to be an idiot.” At this time, she was oriented by the mastery avoidance because she was worried about the consequence if she did not have knowledge or skills, and she saw the connectedness of the absence of learning to her future. That made her want to go back to study. She looked for a high school and used all her effort to get into that school. Later after she had the chance to visit Harvard University, she mentioned, “I want to stand beside people beside walk and not be so far beneath them,” and that shows the performance avoidance appeared in her motivation behaviors because she did not want to perform worse than others, and she longed to stand at the same position with other people to read the best books and become well-educated. Achievement goals, instrumentality, and interests brought value to Liz’s learning and provided her motivation to strive for her goals. The three approaches worked together during her different life stages, combing intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation, assisted her to the greatest extent in achieving her goals and making to Harvard!