Understanding the interplay between targeted motivation interventions and motivational teaching practices in mathematics classrooms

Prior research has shown that brief motivation interventions, such as interventions targeting students’ perceptions concerning relevance of the learning material, can have long-lasting effects on students’ motivation and performance. However, the educational contexts in which these interventions have been implemented have their own motivational affordances, such as the extent to which teachers support students’ perceptions of relevance in regular classes. According to the seed-and-soil hypothesis for the effectiveness of psychological interventions, such interventions can be seen like a “seed” that needs to be implemented in a supportive educational context (i.e., the “soil”) in order to work. Therefore, in this study we examined the interplay between a one-time relevance intervention implemented in mathematics classrooms and the mathematics teacher’s relevance support as perceived by the students before and after the intervention. Data stemmed from a cluster-randomized controlled trial with 79 ninth-grade mathematics classes ( N = 1744 students) in which the intervention was implemented by the mathematics teacher or a master’s student, both trained for this purpose. Multilevel moderation models showed that both intervention conditions had larger effects when students perceived higher relevance support before or after the intervention, thus providing support for the seed-and-soil hypothesis. Furthermore, multilevel mediation models indicated a positive effect of the teacher condition on perceived relevance support at posttest compared with the control condition, which partly explained the positive effect of this intervention condition on utility value at follow-up. The results shed light on the contexts in which these interventions are most effective and the mechanisms through which they work.