Background
Prior research reported that motivational beliefs that individuals attach to specific tasks predict continuing interest and persistence in the task. A motivational approach may be particularly useful for understanding undergraduate students’ engagement with research in their first and second years in college. The current study utilizes the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation to qualitatively explore how much and in what ways early year undergraduate researchers value their research experience and what kinds of costs they associate with it.

Results
The results revealed that intrinsic value had the highest expression in participants’ motivation to engage in research. The second most expressed value type was the utility value of undergraduate research with regards to obtaining the desired outcomes, and attainment value played the least important role in participants’ motivation to engage in research. Findings also indicated that some of the participants associated a cost(s) to their research experience. The highest mentioned perceived cost was opportunity cost, where participants commented on losing other valued alternatives when engaging in research. Participants commented on the time, effort, or amount of work needed to engage in research, and a few participants commented on the emotional cost associated with their research experience in terms of the fear of failure.

Conclusion
As perceived cost is the least studied in the expectancy-value framework, this study contributes to cost values within college students, particularly about early year undergraduate researchers. The findings of this study can form the basis for future work on exploring ways to increase the values and decrease the costs students experience in their undergraduate research experiences.



中文翻译：

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一年级本科生研究人员对他们的研究经验的价值和可感知成本的思考

背景技术
先前的研究报道说，个人对特定任务的依恋的动机信念预测了对任务的持续兴趣和持久性。激励方法对于理解本科生在大学的第一年和第二年的研究活动尤其有用。当前的研究利用成就动机的期望值理论来定性地研究初一本科生研究人员对他们的研究经验以及与之相关的各种费用的评价程度和方式。

结果
结果表明，内在价值是参与者参与研究动机的最高表达。第二大表达的价值类型是本科研究在获得期望结果方面的效用价值，而成就价值在参与者参与研究的动机中起着最不重要的作用。研究结果还表明，一些参与者将成本与他们的研究经历相关联。提到的最高感知成本是机会成本，参与者在参与研究时评论说失去了其他有价值的替代方案。参与者评论了从事研究所需的时间，精力或工作量，而一些参与者则出于对失败的恐惧而评论了与他们的研究经历相关的情感成本。

结论
由于在期望值框架中对感知成本的研究最少，因此该研究有助于大学生（尤其是初年本科生研究人员）的成本价值。这项研究的发现可以为未来的工作探索基础，以探索增加价值和减少学生在本科学习经历中的花费的方法。