The motivational paradox of feedback: teacher and student perceptions

The notion that future performance can be affected by information about previous performance is often expressed in terms of ‘closing the gap’. Feedback has long been recognised as a mechanism through which teaching and learning may be influenced. The current wave of support in the United Kingdom for assessment for learning echoes these sentiments. This paper examines the feedback strategies employed by two experienced literacy practitioners in England. Using data gathered from field observations, interviews and documentary sources, the paper presents evidence of espoused practice associated with feedback, demonstrating that whilst teachers may claim that they make effective use of some feedback strategies to support pupils’ learning and motivation, that this is not supported by empirical data. The paper also identifies that whilst some teachers aim to mark every piece of pupils’ written work for perceived motivational benefits; such a strategy can undermine pupils’ intrinsic motivation and lead to a culture of over-dependency, whereby the locus of control with regard to feedback lies solely with the teacher. The paper concludes by exploring some possible implications for practice with regard to the provision of written feedback in particular.     

Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation for Problem Solving Using Goal-Oriented Contexts and Peer Group Composition

One important factor related to ill-structured problem-solving success is intrinsic motivation, that is, students’ willingness to persist in solving the problem. Goal orientation, a motivational variable, explains reasons why students engage in the activity because they want to either learn or perform. This study investigated the relationship between these two types of goal orientations and their effects on motivation and problem solving by varying three instructional contexts designed to promote one of the two orientations. Heterogeneous and homogeneous peer grouping based on self-efficacy was also predicted to affect intrinsic motivation and problem solving. The results indicated that students in the learning-oriented context had significantly higher intrinsic motivation than those in the performance-oriented context. Students in the heterogeneous peer group had higher scores on monitoring and evaluating problem-solving subskills than those in the homogeneous peer groups. Learning-goal orientation and solution development were significantly related when students participated in the learning-oriented, heterogeneous peer grouping treatment group.     

大学生英语学习动机研究

通过对山西大学文理科385名同学的问卷调查显示,Gardner等人在二语习得条件下所提出的二分法只能部分地反映被试学生的英语学习动机.在使用教育统计软件对回收问卷进行了因素分析及动机原因平均数差异的显著性检验之后,得出如下结果有四类原因影响被试学生的动机行为,即工具型、融入型、条件型和内在型,其中工具型和条件型的影响最大,而融入型的影响也远远超出了国外学者的研究结果.     

Value orientations and motivational interference in school-leisure conflict: The case of Vietnam

The experience of motivational interference during studying and leisure in a school-leisure conflict and its relationship to pupils' value orientations were investigated in a self-report study of Vietnamese pupils (N = 346, mean age = 15 years). The results were compared with a combined sample consisting of pupils from nine other countries (N = 2155). From a cross-cultural perspective, the mean values of the variables show that Vietnamese pupils differ with regard to their values and motivational interference from pupils in other countries. Within the Vietnamese sample, modern value orientation was positively related to decision for a studying activity in a school-leisure conflict and to experience of motivational interference during a leisure activity and negatively related to interference during studying. For post-modern value orientation, the relationships were mostly reversed. Despite differences between sample means, the consistency in the relationships between the variables across the samples indicates that the pattern of relationships can be generalized.     

Academic and Social Motivational Influences on Students' Academic Performance

We discuss ways in which aspects of academic and social motivation interact to influence student's academic performance. Research on academic and social motivational constructs is reviewed, focusing on students' ability and efficacy beliefs, control beliefs, achievement values, and achievement goal orientations. Relations between academic and social motivational processes are discussed, as well as how motivational processes from both domains might interact to influence academic outcomes. We also discuss motivation from the perspective of contextual factors and school socialization processes that have the potential to influence student motivation and subsequent performance. In this regard, teachers' instructional practices and interpersonal relationships with students are highlighted as potentially powerful factors influencing student motivation and performance.     

Understanding motivational structures that differentially predict engagement and achievement in middle school science

Middle school has been documented as the period in which a drop in students’ science interest and achievement occurs. This trend indicates a lack of motivation for learning science; however, little is known about how different aspects of motivation interact with student engagement and science learning outcomes. This study examines the relationships among motivational factors, engagement, and achievement in middle school science (grades 6–8). Data were obtained from middle school students in the United States (N?=?2094). The theoretical relationships among motivational constructs, including self-efficacy, and three types of goal orientations (mastery, performance approach, and performance avoid) were tested. The results showed that motivation is best modeled as distinct intrinsic and extrinsic factors; lending evidence that external, performance based goal orientations factor separately from self-efficacy and an internal, mastery based goal orientation. Second, a model was tested to examine how engagement mediated the relationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors and science achievement. Engagement mediated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and science achievement, whereas extrinsic motivation had no relationship with engagement and science achievement. Implications for how classroom practice and educational policy emphasize different student motivations, and in turn, can support or hinder students’ science learning are discussed.     

Assessment of learning environment motivational quality from the point of view of secondary and high school learners

There is a growing interest about learning environments enhancing learning motivation. However, two questions need to be answered to improve learning environment motivational quality: how much motivational value do students attribute to each particular component of learning environments? and in what degree is such value mediated by students' motivational orientations? To answer both questions and in an effort to replicate results coming from previous studies, 630 students, 15–17 years old, from three different schools were given two questionnaires. The first included different learning environment characteristics aimed at enhancing learning motivation. Students had to declare how much motivation to learn was arisen in them by these characteristics. The second assessed students' motivational traits and orientations: Learning orientation, Outcome orientation and Avoidance orientation. Mean, correlation and multiple-regression analyses were performed to answer the questions. As in previous studies, results support predictions concerning both questions. Teaching patterns assessed and expected to enhance learning motivation do it. However, the motivational value attached to the different patterns assessed is modulated by students' motivational characteristics. Implications of these results for designing learning environments aimed at enhancing students' motivation and for teachers' motivational training are discussed.     

Promotion of students’ mastery goal orientations: does TARGET work?

Achievement goal orientations are important for students’ ongoing motivation. Students with a mastery goal orientation show the most advantageous achievement and motivational patterns. Much research has been conducted to identify classroom structures which promote students’ mastery goal orientation. The TARGET framework is one example of these efforts and provides six instructional dimensions (task, authority, recognition, grouping, evaluation, time), which should form a classroom structure that fosters a mastery goal orientation. The aim of this study was to examine the entire multi-dimensional TARGET framework and its impact on mastery goal orientation in a longitudinal study with 1680 secondary school students. CFAs confirmed the existence of one latent factor TARGET comprising the six proposed dimensions. This study also provides the first empirical evidence, based on longitudinal data, that TARGET has a positive impact on student mastery goal orientations.     

Profiles of middle school science teachers: Accounting for cognitive and motivational characteristics

Teachers play a critical role in successfully implementing science education reforms in the United States to provide high-quality science learning opportunities to all students. However, the differentiated ways in which teachers make decisions about their science teaching are not well understood. This study takes a person-centered approach by applying latent profile analysis to examine how cognitive (pedagogical content knowledge) and motivational (instructional goal orientations, self-efficacy beliefs, and reform values) characteristics combine to form science teacher profiles in middle school. Predictors of profile membership (bachelor's degree, school %FRL) and both teacher (science instructional practices) and student (science achievement, engagement, and self-efficacy) outcomes related to the teacher profiles were also examined. Five science teacher profiles were identified (severely discouraged but reform oriented, discouraged but reform oriented, conventional, confident and mastery oriented, and confident with multiple goal approaches) that represented unique configurations of cognitive and motivation characteristics. Additionally, findings showed that the teacher profiles were significantly related to three dimensions of science instructional practice including communication, discourse, and reasoning. Finally, the teacher profiles were significantly related to student science achievement and motivational outcomes. Implications for differentiated approaches to teacher professional learning and supports for science instruction are discussed.     

Education in the Field Influences Children’s Ideas and Interest toward Science

This paper explores the idea of informal science education in scientific field laboratory (The Science Field Centre). The experimental group of pupils (N = 153) was experienced with approximately 5-day lasting field trips and experiments in the Field Centre in Slovakia. After finishing the course, two different research methods were used to discover their interest and ideas toward science. Pupils from the experimental group showed significant differences from those that did not experience education in the Field Centre (control group, N = 365). In comparison to the control group, pupils of the experimental group highly preferred book titles that were related to their program in the Field Centre. There were differences between the drawings of ideal school environment from both pupils groups. In the drawings of the experimental group, we found significantly more items connected with the educational environment of the Field Centre (e.g. laboratory equipment, live animals). We suppose field science education would be one of the most effective ways to increase interest of pupils to study science and to invaluable intrinsic motivation at the expense extrinsic motivation.     

The role of autonomy supportive activities on students’ motivation and beliefs toward out-of-school activities

Physical education in elementary education usually provides children’s first contact with sports. According to the trans-contextual model of motivation, physical education teachers can positively influence children’s beliefs toward and actual leisure time physical activity behavior. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of a dance-based physical education program on motivation regarding physical education lesson participation, as well as leisure time physical activity participation. The sample consisted of 252 pupils attending Grades 5 and 6 of elementary school (M_age?=?10.48 years, SD?=?0.50 years). Participants were randomly assigned into three groups. The first group attended a physical education lesson based on various forms of dance, the second one attended lessons with Greek traditional dances only, and the third group served as active control group that attended the typical curriculum. The intervention lasted six weeks. Before and after the intervention, students completed survey-based measures of motivational climate, motivational regulations in physical education and leisure time, enjoyment, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and intentions toward leisure time physical activity. In support of the trans-contextual model, results showed that students in the dance intervention programs scored significantly higher in perceptions of motivational climate and beliefs toward leisure time physical activity. The findings of the study suggest that dancing lessons at school can bolster more positive attitudes and beliefs toward physical education and leisure time physical activity.     

Motivation across domains: Do goals and attributions change with subject matter for Grades 4 and 5 students?

This study explored a theory for motivation which included aspects of both attribution theory and goal theory. Motivational variables included beliefs about intelligence (entity or incremental), goal orientation (mastery/learning, performance-approach, performance-avoidance) and avoidant behaviours. Grades 4 and 5 students from a large, metropolitan school district were surveyed regarding these motivational variables across the academic domains of reading and mathematics. The relationships among these motivational variables were explored, as well as differences across domains. A diverse sample allowed differences across ethnic groups and socioeconomic status to be studied. Results indicate that children could have a generalised notion of motivation that becomes differentiated when students are asked to reflect on these variables within specified domains. The existence of few differences across ethnic and socioeconomic groups suggest that instructional style could be a more powerful influence than either of these variables.     

Cognitive-linguistic skills and motivation as longitudinal predictors of reading and arithmetic achievement: A follow-up study from kindergarten to grade 2

This 3-year longitudinal study examined how motivational tendencies, that is, task orientation and social dependence orientation, as well as cognitive-linguistic prerequisites of reading and math skills (i.e., phonological awareness, rapid naming, oral language comprehension skills, number sequence and basic arithmetic skills) measured in kindergarten (5–6 years), in preschool (6–7 years), and in grade 1, predict decoding, reading comprehension and arithmetic achievement in grade 2. Moreover, the motivational-developmental profiles of children with prospective learning difficulties were compared to the profiles of averagely achieving children. The participants were 139 Finnish-speaking children. Results from regression analyses showed that rapid naming was a unique longitudinal predictor of later decoding skills. Oral comprehension skills accounted for a unique variance in reading comprehension at every time point examined. Motivational orientations started to make unique contributions to subsequent decoding accuracy, reading comprehension and arithmetic from preschool onwards, over and above the effects of prior linguistic and math skills. High task orientation was beneficial for beginning reading, whereas high social dependence orientation was detrimental for reading comprehension and arithmetic. Students who fell behind of others both in reading comprehension and arithmetic experienced the most unfavourable development of motivation already during the first term in grade 1. Implications for instructional practices are discussed.     

Goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate in physical education classes among Colombian students

This study examined the relationships of achievement goal orientations and perceptions of the motivational climate in physical education classes among Colombian students, and tested gender and age differences in goal orientations and perceived motivational climate. Participants (1378 boys and 1615 girls, ranging in age from 9 to 18 yr) completed the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ), and the Learning and Performance Orientations in Physical Education Classes Questionnaire (LAPOPECQ). Bivariate and canonical correlation analysis identified conceptually consistent relationships between goal orientations and perceptions of motivational climate. Boys scored higher than girls in ego orientation and in perceptions of performance orientation. Task and ego goal orientations, and perceptions of learning or performance orientations decreased with age. Data obtained indicate that the Spanish versions of the TEOSQ and the LAPOPEQ could be useful instruments for physical education teachers, helping them to identify achievement goal orientation of their students and perceptions of the motivational climate in their education classes.     

Goal orientation towards teaching (GOTT) scale

Goal orientation theory has been widely investigated and found to affect many motivation and behavior variables in relation to student learning and work performance. However, unlike the motivational construct of self-efficacy, researchers have yet to investigate whether this theory can be applied to the field of teaching and contribute to the explanation for trends in instructional behavior and motives. The purpose of the present study was to develop an instrument to begin the exploration of teachers’ goal orientation towards teaching. From a three-phase research design consisting of scale development, score validation, and convergent/discriminant validation, results provided support for the development of, and validity of scores on, a Goal Orientation towards Teaching (GOTT) Scale. Although further validation is needed, future researchers and practitioners can use the GOTT scale to investigate how teachers’ goal orientation towards teaching can impact student learning, teaching effectiveness, pedagogical learning, and even professional morale.     

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.     

Within-year changes in children’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations: Contextual predictors and academic outcomes

The present study was designed to investigate the nature, timing, and correlates of motivational change among a large sample (N = 1051) of third- through eighth-grade students. Analyses of within-year changes in students’ motivational orientations revealed that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations decreased from fall to spring, with declines in intrinsic motivation especially pronounced for the adolescents and declines in extrinsic motivation especially pronounced for the elementary students. These changes in motivation were explained, in part, by shifts in students’ perceptions of the school goal context. Findings suggested that typical age-related declines in intrinsic motivation may be minimized by a school-wide focus on mastery goals. Finally, the potential academic consequences of students’ motivational orientations were examined with a series of hierarchical multiple regressions. Intrinsic motivation and classroom achievement appeared to influence one another in a positive and reciprocal fashion. Poor classroom performance minimally predicted higher levels of extrinsic motivation, but extrinsic motivation was not a source of low classroom grades.     

Mixed-methods exploration of students' motivation in using augmented reality in neuroanatomy education with prosected specimens

The use of augmented reality (AR) in teaching and studying neuroanatomy has been well researched. Previous research showed that AR-based learning of neuroanatomy has both alleviated cognitive load and was attractive to young learners. However, how the attractiveness of AR effects student motivation has not been discovered. Therefore, the motivational effects of AR were investigated in this research by the use of quantitative and qualitative methods. Motivation elicited by the GreyMapp-AR, an AR application, was investigated in medical and biomedical sciences students (n = 222; mean age: 19.7 ± 1.4 years) using the instructional measure of motivation survey (IMMS). Additional components (i.e., attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction) were also evaluated with motivation as measured by IMMS. Additionally, 19 students underwent audio-recorded individual interviews which were transcribed for qualitative analysis. Males regarded the relevance of AR significantly higher than females (P < 0.024). Appreciation of the GreyMapp-AR program was found to be significantly higher in students studying biomedical sciences as compared to students studying medicine (P < 0.011). Other components and scores did not show significant differences between student groups. Students expressed that AR was beneficial in increasing their motivation to study subcortical structures, and that AR could be helpful and motivating for preparing an anatomy examination. This study suggests that students are motivated to study neuroanatomy by the use of AR, although the components that make up their individual motivation can differ significantly between groups of students.     

Motivation to learn as an outcome and determining factor of learning at school

This article defines and measures interest in lifelong learning in an effort to capture motivation as an outcome of schooling. As a school-internal counterpart, motivational orientations toward learning at school in general and toward mathematics learning in particular are introduced, based on Deci and Ryan’s theory of self-determination. Analysis within the Swiss TIMSS samples in lower and upper secondary education led to the definition of five such orientations with a constant structure across grades and levels of generality. Some orientations show a concrete focus like long-term utility. The validity of these constructs is examined by analysing the relation among these motivational orientations, their relationship to interest in lifelong learning and mathematics achievement as well as age and gender differences. As hypothesised, the higher a motivational orientation’s degree of self-determination, the higher is its correlation with interest in lifelong learning and mathematics achievement. Among age and gender differences, the contrasting behaviour of intrinsic and long-term utility orientation toward mathematics is notable. For example, the gender difference in long-term utility but not in intrinsic orientation increases from grade 6 to grade 8. These findings can be understood as an expression of gender-typical vocational aspirations which define technical and scientific fields as a domain for males and not for females.