Align reward with focus support and with SEVT value facets when designing instruction¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 4 claims (4 for) · 1 study (1 theoretical), q1 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The FoRe-Squares model offers two guiding orientations for implementing reward: aligning reward with focus support, and aligning reward techniques with the value facets of Situated Expectancy-Value Theory—intrinsic value, attainment value, utility value, and costs. Techniques such as emotional design or relevant humor may increase intrinsic value; meaningful competence feedback may enhance attainment value; credits or exam relevance may increase utility value; and choice may reduce expected costs.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Designers must assess what learners experience as rewarding, since this varies by person, timing, task, and context

Constraints¶

• The model prescribes providing rewarding experiences through instructional design rather than exactly how reward should be implemented in any specific case

Target Learners¶

• learners in technology-augmented instruction

Target Learning Goals¶

• increased task value and motivation to process instruction

Affordances¶

• Fore Squares Model

Claims¶

• Techniques yield learning gains only when they compensate for otherwise too-low focus support or reward (baseline-levels condition) [+W]
• Techniques raising both focus support and reward simultaneously are predicted to foster learning best; content-irrelevant humor is predicted not to [+W]
• Stronger reward manipulations are predicted to yield learning gains with higher likelihood (magnitude-of-change condition) [+W]
• Motivational processes are proposed to be instrumental for essential as well as generative processing [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Emphasize the Value of Learning

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Eitel, A., Kienitz, A., Krebs, M.-C., & Schöne, C. (2026). Advocating the FoRe-Squares Model of Technology-Augmented Instruction: a Reply to Mayer (2025). Educational Psychology Review, 38, 65. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10163-2