Enhancing Faculty Motivation to Advise Students: An Application of Expectancy Theory

The need persists for a model that adequately addresses faculty motivations and concerns about involvement in student academic advisement. Recently, some researchers have suggested that a version of expectancy theory may be the necessary model. Expectancy theory states that people are purposeful beings who behave in accordance with their expectations and who believe that their efforts will result in outcomes they value. According to the theory, the amount of effort an individual will exert ultimately depends on three factors: a) expectancy—a person's estimation of the likelihood of successfully performing a particular behavior; b) instrumentality—a person's estimation of the likelihood that a particular behavior will result in certain outcomes; and c) valence—the positive or negative value that a person places on each of those outcomes. Attempts to identify the educational environments conducive to the use of expectancy theory to address faculty motivation in academic advisement are presented.