Achievement motivation theory: Balancing precision and utility

The articles in this special issue review the impressive bodies of research that have been generated from achievement motivation theories, emphasizing developments over the past 20 years. In this commentary, I first discuss some of the most noteworthy contributions that have emerged from each of the theories. I then discuss the extent to which there are commonalities across theories; I point out that whereas there is some overlap, this overlap allows for precision in research, but also at times leads to confusion for practitioners and policymakers. Finally, I discuss the degree of alignment between current motivation theory and contemporary education policy and practice. Motivation researchers are examining some important contemporary practice- and policy-related issues; nevertheless, this research has not been systematic across theories.     

The importance of emotion in theories of motivation: empirical,methodological, and theoretical considerations from a goal theory perspective

Despite its importance to educational psychology, prominent theories of motivation have mostly ignored emotion. In this paper, we review theoretical conceptions of the relation between motivation and emotion and discuss the role of emotion in understanding student motivation in classrooms. We demonstrate that emotion is one of the best indicators of the classroom goal structure as well as of students’ reports of avoidance behaviors. Furthermore, we suggest that emotional constructs should be included in comprehensive studies and theories of motivation. We conclude with a discussion of both methodological and theoretical implications of including emotion in classroom studies of motivation.     

Connecting teacher and student motivation: Student-perceived teacher need-supportive practices and student need satisfaction

According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT), teacher motivation affects student motivation indirectly via teaching practices that support the satisfaction of students’ basic psychological needs, but studies have not shown evidence of this entire sequence. We tested the complete model: teacher motivation (autonomous, controlled, and amotivation) → perceived need-supportive practices (autonomy support, structure, and involvement) → student need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) → student motivation (autonomous, controlled, and amotivation) → student academic achievement. South Korean 5th and 6th graders (N = 697) and their 35 teachers participated in this study. A multi-level structural equation model showed evidence supporting: 1) a positive link between teacher and student autonomous motivation, and, 2) its mediation by student perceived need-supportive practices and student autonomy and competence. We discussed further conceptual and empirical consideration with the results..     

Expectancy-value appraisals and achievement emotions in an online learning environment: Within- and between-person relationships

Motivation and emotion are of critical importance for students' academic learning and achievement. Drawing on Eccles and Wigfield's situated expectancy-value theory and Pekrun's control-value theory, we examined to what extent specific expectancy-value appraisals related to studentsʼ achievement emotions. We collected intensive state data of N = 95 university students over one semester in an online learning environment. Students' appraisals were analyzed on different aggregation levels in a hierarchical design, which accounts for variability within learning situations and between students. Our results corroborated theoretical assumptions that expectancy-value appraisals are positively associated with positive emotions and negatively with negative emotions. However, we found that students experienced positive emotions in learning situations of high intrinsic and utility value, but not in situations of high attainment value. Examining appraisal combinations and discrete emotions, we found that particularly studentsʼ perceived costs moderated the relationship between expectancy and frustration and boredom on the situation level.     

Transferring motivation from educational to extramural contexts: a review of the trans-contextual model

Students?? self-determined or autonomous motivation in educational contexts is associated with adaptive educational and behavioural outcomes including persistence on educational tasks and academic performance. A key question for educators is whether promoting autonomous motivation toward activities in an educational context leads to increased autonomous motivation toward related activities in extramural contexts. In this article, we present a trans-contextual model that demonstrates the processes by which autonomous motivation is transferred from educational to extramural contexts. Using an integrated, multi-theory approach including self-determination and planned behaviour theories, we propose a motivational sequence in which perceived support for autonomous motivation for a given activity leads to autonomous motivation in educational contexts but also to autonomous motivation toward activities in extramural contexts. Autonomous motivation toward the activity in extramural contexts is proposed to be associated with attitudes, perceived control, and intentions to perform the activity in future and actual behaviour. We review recent prospective and intervention research that has applied the model to explain the transfer of autonomous motivation toward physical activity from a physical education context to a leisure time context. We also outline how the model can be applied in other educational contexts such as the transfer of motivation for science and language activities in educational contexts to motivation toward assignments in these subjects in extramural contexts. The applicability of the model as a basis for educational interventions to promote motivational transfer across contexts is discussed.     

Academic motivation theories revisited: An interactive dialog between motivation scholars on recent contributions,underexplored issues,and future directions

In this article, I introduce the current special issue, which brings together leading scholars who either initiated or played subsequent central roles in the inception and development of five prominent theories of academic motivation: attribution theory, expectancy-value theory, social-cognitive theory, achievement goal theory, and self-determination theory. I begin by discussing the need for a special issue devoted to these theories and then summarize its overarching goals: (1) provide an outlet for leading theorists to update their work; (2) cast a spotlight on three underexplored and timely issues regarding motivation theory (diversity, methodology, and interventions); (3) have leading scholars discuss their recommendations for future directions; and (4) facilitate an interactive dialog between and among the theorists and three commentators who suggest alternative perspectives on the study of motivation. I conclude with an overview of the five theory articles and three commentaries included in this special issue.     

Motivation and coping with the stress of assessment: Gender differences in outcomes for university students

The main objectives of the present research were to test a conceptual model linking motivational processes involved in coping with the stress of university assessment, and to examine gender differences in these processes. Self-determined motivation was hypothesized to predict coping strategies and the response to assessment-related stress, and coping was hypothesized to play a considerable role in short- and long-term outcomes of assessment. We examined this model using multiple group path analysis. In Study 1 (N = 265), music students’ use of engagement-coping strategies led to stronger musical career intentions, while disengagement-coping strategies led to weaker intentions. In Study 2 (N = 340), students’ increased use of engagement coping, and decreased use of disengagement coping strategies led to higher grades, higher positive affect and lower negative affect. In both studies, engagement and disengagement-coping were predicted by autonomous and controlled motivation, respectively. Motivation also indirectly predicted academic outcomes through stress appraisal and coping. While women experienced higher levels of stress, men were more negatively affected by the use of disengagement-oriented coping. Gender differences were also found on the links between engagement-oriented coping and outcomes. These results fill an important gap in the literature regarding gender differences in the outcomes coping in education, as well as contributing to a better understanding of the processes linking motivation, coping and academic outcomes.     

Generalizability of achievement goal profiles across five cultural groups: More similarities than differences

Previous results have shown possible cultural differences in students’ achievement goals endorsement and in their relations with various predictors and outcomes. In this person-centered study, we sought to identify achievement goal profiles and to assess the extent to which these configurations and their associations with predictors and outcomes generalize across cultures. We used a new statistical approach to assess latent profile similarities across adolescents from five cultural backgrounds (N = 2643, including Non-Indigenous Australians, Indigenous Australians, Indigenous American, Middle Easterners, and Asians). Our results supported the cross-cultural generalizability of the profiles, their predictors, and their outcomes. Five similar profiles were identified in each cultural group, but their relative frequency differed across cultures. The results revealed advantages of exploring multidimensional goal profiles.     

Tipping the scales: overcoming obstacles to support school readiness for all in low- and middle-income countries

Despite evidence for the substantial benefits of school readiness among children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), most lack access to any pre-primary education at all, let alone high-quality preprimary education. In this article, we discuss obstacles and example of solutions to providing universal access to high-quality preprimary education in LMICs. We address (1) the need for a vision among policymakers, educators and families of what high-quality preprimary education should look like and how it could be provided in their context, and the motivation to make the vision a reality; (2) human resources, including motivated, skilled and qualified teachers as the center of a broad support system at national, regional and local levels; (3) material resources and infrastructure, including culturally appropriate play materials and child-friendly spaces; and (4) stable financing that allows for flexible adaptations of the model to different local contexts. For each element, we provide examples of these challenges and how they can be addressed, with a geographical focus on West Africa, the Middle East, Southern and Eastern Asia.     

On activities and affordances for mobile learning

Across the articles in this special issue, there is a clear and important focus on how people learn through mobility, which allows them to move across contexts as they learn. This commentary considers ways mobile technologies can support learning with a focus on understanding the affordances to of the mobile technologies develop new learning practices that could not be accomplished without this technology. With this in mind, we return to the definition of mobile learning that suggests mobile learning is learning across multiple contexts, through social interaction, using personal electronic devices that can immediately capture information about, or provide information to the user. To explore how to implement this definition in truly powerful ways, we suggest explicitly unpacking this into its four component parts, so that we can explore and discuss the unique affordances of mobile learning: (1) multiple contexts, (2) social interactions, (3) content interactions, and (4), capturing information and providing information to users in real-time. We further suggest a 5th element, which is the synergies among these different dimensions. We conclude with the challenges in doing research in mobile learning environments and the need to understand both how and what people learn in such environments.     

Unpacking FIFA play as text and action in literacy practices in and out of school

ABSTRACT

In this article, we use a model for games and literacy to explore how one FIFA gamer worked across contexts. Previously, this model has been used to address the role of computer and video games in the teaching of literacy in the subject of English. In the current article, we combine this model with a learning lives perspective, which builds on the idea of following the learner across a wide range of contexts. The findings illustrate how one learner is able to research a specific topic, build a convincing argument for it and transfer knowledge from one source to another in a critical way. The knowledge of a game and its culture and the world around the game is prevalent in a gamer’s literacy practices out of school, and this is shown when our participant draws upon this knowledge in literacy practices for specific tasks in school.     

Pre-service teachers’ desire to control bias: Implications for the endorsement of culturally affirming classroom practices

The study integrates social-psychological and educational research to examine the relations between preservice teachers’ race-related perceptions of Black students and the instructional approaches they endorse. Based on survey and race Implicit Association Test data from preservice teachers (N = 258; White = 82%) in the United States, we predicted that the association between motivation to be unprejudiced and motivation to appear unprejudiced would predict endorsement of culturally and motivationally supportive instructional practices via implicit and explicit biases about Black students. Path analyses revealed significant mediated associations among motivation to be unprejudiced and endorsed instructional approaches and practices via explicit bias, contingent on the motivation to appear unprejudiced. Furthermore, it is troubling to note that White preservice teachers, in contrast to their ethnic minority counterparts, displayed significant implicit preference for White over Black students. Implications of these findings for preparing a culturally responsive and motivational supportive teaching task-force are discussed.     

The Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions: Assumptions, Corollaries, and Implications for Educational Research and Practice

This article describes the control-value theory of achievement emotions and its implications for educational research and practice. The theory provides an integrative framework for analyzing the antecedents and effects of emotions experienced in achievement and academic settings. It is based on the premise that appraisals of control and values are central to the arousal of achievement emotions, including activity-related emotions such as enjoyment, frustration, and boredom experienced at learning, as well as outcome emotions such as joy, hope, pride, anxiety, hopelessness, shame, and anger relating to success or failure. Corollaries of the theory pertain to the multiplicity and domain specificity of achievement emotions; to their more distal individual and social antecedents, their effects on engagement and achievement, and the reciprocal linkages between emotions, antecedents and effects; to the regulation and development of these emotions; and to their relative universality across genders and cultures. Implications addressed concern the conceptual integration of emotion, motivation, and cognition, and the need to advance mixed-method paradigms. In closing, implications for educational practice are discussed.

An Exploration of the Teaching and Learning Contexts that Task-based Language Teaching is best Suited to

This essay aims at exploring the most suitable teaching and learning contexts of TBLT(task-based language teaching).At the same time, it tries to show the strengths and limitations of this method by comparing different teaching and learning contexts. To be precise, this essay attempts to discuss from three aspects: learners' levels, students' motivation and the combination of TBLT and ICT(information and communication technology). From the analysis, this essay suggests that learners of TBLT should at least have intermediate language proficiency. In addition, there is a need to further investigate the appropriate means to motivate students in task practice. Ultimately, it is also necessary to further develop and improve ICT to the requirements of TBLT.     

What if reading is easy but unimportant? How students’ patterns of affirming and undermining motivation for reading information texts predict different reading outcomes

Many affirming and undermining motivational constructs affect students as they read information texts, but few researchers have explored how these motivations are patterned within students. In this study we used cluster analysis to classify middle school students (n = 1134) based on their patterns of self-efficacy, perceived difficulty, value, and devalue for reading school information texts. We then compared how the patterns predicted students’ language arts grades, science information text comprehension, and dedication to reading school information texts. We found and validated a four-cluster solution. One cluster included a pattern of high affirming and low undermining motivations, and another included low affirming and high undermining motivations. Students with these patterns earned the highest and lowest scores, respectively, on all outcomes. A third pattern showed high self-efficacy/low difficulty with low value/high devalue, and a fourth showed moderate levels of all four motivational constructs. Students with the high efficacy and devalue pattern showed high information text comprehension but relatively low dedication. Students with the moderate pattern showed high dedication but low initial information text comprehension. Students with these two patterns earned similar grades. We discuss the implications of our findings for motivation theories and for school instruction that involves information text reading.     

The AEQ-S: A short version of the Achievement Emotions Questionnaire

The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) is a well-established instrument for measuring achievement emotions in educational research and beyond. Its popularity rests on the coverage of the component structure of various achievement emotions across different academic settings. However, this broad conceptual scope requires the administration of 6 to 12 items per scale (Mdn = 10), which limits the applicability of the AEQ in empirical studies that necessitate brief administration times. We therefore developed the AEQ-S, a short version of the AEQ, with only 4 items per scale that nevertheless maintain the conceptual scope of the instrument. We validated the AEQ-S based on a reanalysis of Pekrun, Goetz, Frenzel, Barchfeld, and Perry's (2011) dataset (N = 389 university students) and by administering them to a new and independent validation sample (N = 471 university students). Despite their brevity, the AEQ-S scales achieved satisfactory reliability and correlated substantially with the original AEQ scales. Moreover, structural relationships and intercorrelations between the scales and their relations with external measures of antecedents and outcomes of achievement emotions were highly similar for the AEQ-S and AEQ scales. These findings suggest that the AEQ-S is a suitable substitute for the AEQ when administration time is limited.     

Re-conceptualizing Emotion and Motivation to Learn in Classroom Contexts

To better inform and improve classroom teaching and learning, now more than ever before, educational researchers need to effectively and efficiently describe essential components of positive learning environments. In this article, we discuss how our research findings about motivation in classrooms have led to a closer examination of emotions. We describe how motivation theories such as Academic Risk Taking, Flow Theory, and Goal Theory have helped us better understand emotions in our classroom research. Our findings suggest that engaging students in learning requires consistently positive emotional experiences, which contribute to a classroom climate that forms the foundation for teacher–student relationships and interactions necessary for motivation to learn. We conclude that we need to integrate emotion, motivation, and cognition theoretically and methodologically to move our research forward. New theories and methods, even new forms of intellectual discourse, are required. Therefore, we end this article by beginning a discussion of new directions for conceptualizing and researching classrooms in ways that will involve examining the emotions of students and teachers.

Fear of failure, 2 × 2 achievement goal and self-handicapping: An examination of the hierarchical model of achievement motivation in physical education

In this study, the hierarchical model of achievement motivation [Elliot, A. J. (1997). Integrating the “classic” and “contemporary” approaches to achievement motivation: A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation. In P. Pintrich & M. Maehr (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement (Vol. 10, pp. 143–179). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press] is used to investigate the motivational mechanism behind the relationship between fear of failure and self-handicapping adoption. A cross-sectional design was employed. The participants were 691 college students enrolled in physical education in Taiwan. Students completed the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory (PEAI-S; Conroy, D. E., Willow, J. P., & Metzler, J. N. (2002). Multidimensional measurement of fear of failure: The performance failure appraisal inventory. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 14, 76–90), the Chinese 2 × 2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Physical Education (CAGQ-PE; Chen, L. H. (2007). Construct validity of Chinese 2 × 2 achievement goal questionnaire in physical education: Evidence from collectivistic culture. Paper presented at the 5th conference of the Asian South Pacific Association of Sport Psychology. Bangkok, Thailand) and the Self-Handicapping Scale (SHS; Wu, C. H., Wang, C. H., & Lin, Y. C. (2004). The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of self-handicap scale for sport. Journal of Higher Education in Physical Education, 6(1), 139–148). Structural equation modeling was conducted. Generally, the results showed that mastery-avoidance and performance-avoidance goals partially mediated the relationship between fear of failure and self-handicapping. The results are discussed in terms of the hierarchical model of achievement motivation, and its implications for physical education are also highlighted.     

A dynamic multilevel modeling approach to university students’ anxiety and hope regulation

Preparing for an exam entails various exam-related emotions. To ensure psychologically healthy behavior and an effective learning process, emotion regulation is highly important. In the present study, we used a dynamic multilevel modeling approach to analyse the interplay of exam-related anxiety and hope, as well as four regulation strategies over time. This study provides valuable insights into students’ emotion regulation in academic settings. Specifically, we measured students’ emotions and regulation strategies (cognitive approach, cognitive avoidance, behavioral approach, behavioral avoidance) across two weeks of measurement. In total, 217 university students answered several questionnaires via an electronic device during two different measurement periods lasting 7 days each. These measurement periods were 5 weeks (day 35–29) and one week (day 7 to 1) prior to an important exam. During their everyday life, they answered these questionnaires six times a day. We applied dynamic multilevel modeling to analyse the data. Results revealed cross-lagged relationships of exam-related emotions on regulation strategies, with the strongest cross-lagged relationship being found for hope and the cognitive approach regulation strategy. Moreover, the temporal distance to the exam affected the strength and direction of these cross-lagged relationships. This study suggests the importance of considering the mechanisms of emotion regulation on the situation level, and that strategies should be tailored to the individual situation rather than employing universal strategies. Further, the extent to which we can interpret the lagged relationships as suggestive of causal mechanisms are discussed.