Mathematics Motivation in Students With Low Cognitive Ability: A Longitudinal Study of Motivation and Relations With Effort, Self-Regulation, and Grades.
Students with intellectual disability show the same math-motivation curves as typical peers, so keep your motivation toolkit in play.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Danielle and her team followed 1,000 middle-schoolers for one full school year.
Half the kids had intellectual disability; half were typical learners.
Every few months the students filled out quick surveys about how much they expected to succeed in math and how much they valued the subject.
Teachers also rated effort, self-regulation, and term grades.
What they found
Both groups moved together.
When motivation rose or fell, it rose or fell the same way for each group.
Kids with low IQ showed the same link between motivation, effort, and grades as their typical classmates.
Ability level did not change the pattern.
How this fits with other research
McIntyre et al. (2017) saw the same parallel tracks for self-esteem in teens with and without ID.
Together the two studies suggest that basic motivational processes grow the same across cognitive levels.
Reichow (2012) shows that early ABA programs raise IQ and daily skills.
That review focused on preschoolers with autism, so the kids were younger and had a different diagnosis.
Still, the take-home lines up: expect learning capacities, not just fixed deficits.
Why it matters
You can use standard motivation tools—expectancy-value charts, self-monitoring, praise for effort—with students who have ID.
Do not drop these strategies assuming they will not work.
Start the same motivational routines you use for typical peers, then adjust pacing and supports as needed.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a quick expectancy-value check-in to your math session: ask, "How sure are you you can do this?" and "How important is it to you?" then use the answers to set the next goal.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Expectancy-value theory (EVT) is a popular framework to understand and improve students' motivation. Unfortunately, limited research has verified whether EVT predictions generalize to students with low levels of cognitive ability. This study relies on Grade 5 and 8 data from 177 students with low levels of cognitive ability and a matched sample of 177 students with average to high cognitive ability from the German "Project for the Analysis of Learning and Achievement in Mathematics." Results showed that students with low levels of cognitive ability were able to differentiate EVT components. Both groups demonstrated a similar downward developmental trend in motivation from early to middle adolescence, and similar relations between EVT components and levels of efforts, self-regulation, and mathematics class grades.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2020 · doi:10.1352/1944-7558-125.2.125