Yep the expectancy value thing fits really well. It’s just that the fields of motivation and cognitive load have only just started talking to one another. We can win over more of the “teach the whole person” crowd when there’s more evidence
I think this is a great piece, thanks. Full of useful ways of articulating an important issue. I just wanted to chuck in Adler again, who (from my limited understanding) always frames things in social terms. Yes we want students to be able to succeed through effort, but we also need to make success socially rewarding in a school context. I have seen students refuse to engage with the most basic of tasks and it isn't because of a rational concern over failure or wasted effort etc. (at least not in the moment), but rather I think they have come to consider that an attitude of apathy and indifference (or worse) is more socially rewarding than making even minimal effort. So I'm not sure exactly what point I'm making here, but I think I entirely agree but just suggesting the discussion could be broadened to include non-rational, often hidden, social aspects.
Thanks. What looks like apathy or defiance is often a way of preserving dignity. If a student believes effort won’t bring success and suspects they’ll be mocked for trying, then disengagement becomes the smart move. Not doing the work becomes a socially rewarded identity. In that light, indifference is entirely logical.
Really nice explanation! I agree the phrase "try harder" should be ushered out of the teacher lexicon. It's a lazy way of not considering what is really going on with a student. It's also a reason why teachers need to be fully versed in learning differences. The cognitive "costs" of a task are not the same for all students. Researchers have found physiological/metabolic differences in the brains of dyslexic students when engaged in language processing. The tasks are literally more tiring for their brains.
I find the current MTSS trend in the US, which proposes to give struggling readers enough extra intervention and practice to keep up with their peers to also falls on the wrong side of the calculus you lay out here. Double and triple dosing of reading intervention in K-2 at the expense of art/recess/down time (and yes some advocates push this) likely has diminishing returns in this calculus. Some tasks/skills are just going to take longer for some kids. That should be ok. Keeping this balance in mind would be good practice for teachers and interventionists.
Good piece. I think Shenhav and Botvinick make clean models. EVC is one of the better models we have for understanding effort allocation, but like so many others, it assumes a fully intact agent is already in place. It tells us how effort is spent, but says nothing about the capacity for self-governance. Most students aren’t making cost-benefit calculations about effort because they don’t yet have the internal structure like values, identity, ownership that would make those calculations meaningful. It’s this architectural absence that I think best explains lack of effort. Until we help children build a self that effort can belong to, we’ll keep mistaking disengagement for disinterest, when really, there’s no one home yet to care.
You’re right: exhaustion clearly matters. No amount of prior success or clever motivational framing can override the basic reality that mental and physical fatigue are real constraints. It’s not just that different students hit the wall at different points, it’s that the wall itself moves depending on sleep, stress, hunger, and all the invisible baggage they bring into the room. While we should absolutely design for success to build momentum, we also need to be attentive to effort costs: not just in theory, but in practice.
Thanks for sharing this summary of the research. What I'm left wondering is, if while ego depletion was the wrong idea, if it might not have been a wrong idea standing in place of a real need. Doesn't other research show benefits in learning from switching between focused and diffuse modes in thinking, something that might be accomplished via the so-called "magical" quick stroll around the playground? And while it might not be "willpower" exactly that one runs out of, certainly there's also got to be a role for genuine exhaustion, particularly for students like those I work with with specific learning disabilities, ADHD and autism who are often putting in significantly more effort than some of the other students around them in order to engage in the same learning tasks. I've always found it ironic that in graduate school control of one's schedule, frequent breaks in learning, limiting the amount of time expected to be sitting in a seminar or lecture on any one day, and plenty of down time for reflection and thinking are a given, but yet these same needs are definitely not so readily recognized or offered to students in K-12, many of whom are working just as hard as those graduate students.
Success absolutely breeds motivation, and as you demonstrated research has shown that willpower as the limiting factor is wrong, but there also needs to be room for genuine issues of physical and/or cognitive fatigue, and that different students will hit the wall here at different points, no?
There’s also a motivation cost associated with cognitive load, which is essentially measured as effort. More research is needed into the interaction.
I think it’s the same thing: if the load we experience is too high, the perceived effort vs reward calculation is unlikely to be worth it
Yep the expectancy value thing fits really well. It’s just that the fields of motivation and cognitive load have only just started talking to one another. We can win over more of the “teach the whole person” crowd when there’s more evidence
Maybe but no one won an emotional argument with evidence
I think this is a great piece, thanks. Full of useful ways of articulating an important issue. I just wanted to chuck in Adler again, who (from my limited understanding) always frames things in social terms. Yes we want students to be able to succeed through effort, but we also need to make success socially rewarding in a school context. I have seen students refuse to engage with the most basic of tasks and it isn't because of a rational concern over failure or wasted effort etc. (at least not in the moment), but rather I think they have come to consider that an attitude of apathy and indifference (or worse) is more socially rewarding than making even minimal effort. So I'm not sure exactly what point I'm making here, but I think I entirely agree but just suggesting the discussion could be broadened to include non-rational, often hidden, social aspects.
Thanks. What looks like apathy or defiance is often a way of preserving dignity. If a student believes effort won’t bring success and suspects they’ll be mocked for trying, then disengagement becomes the smart move. Not doing the work becomes a socially rewarded identity. In that light, indifference is entirely logical.
Really nice explanation! I agree the phrase "try harder" should be ushered out of the teacher lexicon. It's a lazy way of not considering what is really going on with a student. It's also a reason why teachers need to be fully versed in learning differences. The cognitive "costs" of a task are not the same for all students. Researchers have found physiological/metabolic differences in the brains of dyslexic students when engaged in language processing. The tasks are literally more tiring for their brains.
I find the current MTSS trend in the US, which proposes to give struggling readers enough extra intervention and practice to keep up with their peers to also falls on the wrong side of the calculus you lay out here. Double and triple dosing of reading intervention in K-2 at the expense of art/recess/down time (and yes some advocates push this) likely has diminishing returns in this calculus. Some tasks/skills are just going to take longer for some kids. That should be ok. Keeping this balance in mind would be good practice for teachers and interventionists.
I have written about the lived experience of "try harder" with my own dyslexic kids. https://jessicajkulynych.substack.com/p/try-harder
Good piece. I think Shenhav and Botvinick make clean models. EVC is one of the better models we have for understanding effort allocation, but like so many others, it assumes a fully intact agent is already in place. It tells us how effort is spent, but says nothing about the capacity for self-governance. Most students aren’t making cost-benefit calculations about effort because they don’t yet have the internal structure like values, identity, ownership that would make those calculations meaningful. It’s this architectural absence that I think best explains lack of effort. Until we help children build a self that effort can belong to, we’ll keep mistaking disengagement for disinterest, when really, there’s no one home yet to care.
I'm.really enjoying reading your articles. They are considered, articulate and rooted in practice. Thanks
You are most welcome
You’re right: exhaustion clearly matters. No amount of prior success or clever motivational framing can override the basic reality that mental and physical fatigue are real constraints. It’s not just that different students hit the wall at different points, it’s that the wall itself moves depending on sleep, stress, hunger, and all the invisible baggage they bring into the room. While we should absolutely design for success to build momentum, we also need to be attentive to effort costs: not just in theory, but in practice.
Thanks for sharing this summary of the research. What I'm left wondering is, if while ego depletion was the wrong idea, if it might not have been a wrong idea standing in place of a real need. Doesn't other research show benefits in learning from switching between focused and diffuse modes in thinking, something that might be accomplished via the so-called "magical" quick stroll around the playground? And while it might not be "willpower" exactly that one runs out of, certainly there's also got to be a role for genuine exhaustion, particularly for students like those I work with with specific learning disabilities, ADHD and autism who are often putting in significantly more effort than some of the other students around them in order to engage in the same learning tasks. I've always found it ironic that in graduate school control of one's schedule, frequent breaks in learning, limiting the amount of time expected to be sitting in a seminar or lecture on any one day, and plenty of down time for reflection and thinking are a given, but yet these same needs are definitely not so readily recognized or offered to students in K-12, many of whom are working just as hard as those graduate students.
Success absolutely breeds motivation, and as you demonstrated research has shown that willpower as the limiting factor is wrong, but there also needs to be room for genuine issues of physical and/or cognitive fatigue, and that different students will hit the wall here at different points, no?