Chapter 3: Adolescents’ Expectancies for Success and Achievement Task Values during the Middle and High School Years

Adolescence is a time in which individuals experience many changes, including the biological changes associated with puberty, changes in relations with family and peers, and the social and educational changes resulting from transitions from elementary to junior high school and junior high school to high school (see Eccles & Wigfield, 1997; Wigfield, Eccles, & Pintrich, 1996). Different theorists (e.g., Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Hill & Lynch, 1983; Midgley & Edelin, 1998) have proposed that these changes have significant impact on a variety of developmental outcomes. Many children make these changes relatively easily. Others, however, have difficulty with one or another of these changes and as a result are at risk for various negative outcomes. We focus in this chapter on the development of adolescents’ achievement motivation. We take an expectancy-value approach to motivation, and so the particular focus of our chapter concerns the development during adolescence of expectancy-related beliefs and task values.