Why should we think of the mind as an investment engine?
Motivating teenagers to study
Studying is rarely a teenager’s first choice. It requires effort, often feels unrewarding, and competes with countless more appealing alternatives.
The most productive approaches to learning - such as retrieval practice - can even feel counterintuitive, making students feel as though they know less rather than more. These negative emotions, coupled with the natural human tendency to prioritise short-term rewards over long-term benefits, make studying a difficult sell.
Teachers are left with the unenviable task of tipping the balance toward productive study behaviours. To understand how this might be achieved, we can think of the mind as an investment engine: a mechanism that evaluates risks, rewards, and resources to make decisions about where to allocate effort. While this model may oversimplify the complexity of human decision-making, it offers valuable insights into why students commit to - or avoid - effortful study.
The Investment Engine Model
We take the investment engine model as a metaphor of the mind from educator Peps McCrea, who employs it to analyse the decisions students make.[i] When it comes to being assessed, students may weight five key factors:
Value
How much does the student care about the rewards of success? This could include external rewards, such as praise or grades, or internal rewards, such as a sense of accomplishment or progress.Hurdle
How difficult does the student perceive the assessment to be? A low hurdle may encourage confidence, while a high hurdle can create anxiety or disengagement.Competence Beliefs
How capable does the student feel in the subject? Students who believe they are skilled are more likely to invest effort than those who feel they are destined to fail.Productivity of Effort
Does the student believe their effort will lead to improvement? If they perceive their effort as unproductive, they are unlikely to commit time or energy.Opportunity Cost
What else could the student do with their time? Studying competes with socialising, gaming, or simply relaxing. A student who perceives alternative activities as more rewarding may choose to disengage.
Each of these factors plays a role in shaping the decisions students make about how much effort to expend.
Optimised Conditions for Effort
When these five factors align favourably, students are more likely to be motivated and productive in their study behaviours. For example:
A motivated student may value doing well in the assessment because it reinforces their identity as a successful learner or builds their confidence relative to their peers.
They may believe that success is achievable because they feel competent, confident in their ability to improve, and perceive the hurdle as surmountable.
Finally, they rationalise that the rewards of studying outweigh the benefits of alternative activities, tipping the balance toward preparation.
In contrast, students who appear disengaged or unmotivated often experience misalignments in one or more of these factors. For instance:
A student might undervalue success, believing that grades are irrelevant to their goals.
They might feel overwhelmed by the hurdle of the test or lack confidence in their ability to improve, leading to a sense of futility.
Alternatively, they might prioritise other activities, perceiving these as more rewarding in the short term.
These factors are influenced by a student’s disposition toward assessments, which in turn is shaped by their past experiences and the situational context of the assessment.
When Motivation Fails
Understanding the investment engine model also helps us make sense of why some students disengage entirely from preparation. For example:
A student who consistently receives poor feedback may develop weak competence beliefs, concluding that their effort has little impact.
A student facing an especially challenging assessment might perceive the hurdle as insurmountable, opting to avoid preparation altogether to protect their self-esteem.
A student who highly values alternative activities may rationalise that their time is better spent elsewhere, deprioritising the assessment altogether.
In each case, the student’s disengagement is not simply a matter of “laziness” but a rational (if self-defeating) calculation of the costs and benefits of effort.
The investment engine model allows us to understand the complex interplay of factors that influence student behaviour. It highlights the decisions students make about how much effort to commit and provides a framework for thinking about why some students thrive while others struggle.
For more about why motivation matters in assessment, see here.
[i] McCrea, P. (2020). Motivated teaching: Harnessing the science of motivation to boost attention and effort in the classroom. John Catt Educational.