FOCUSED LITERATURE REVIEW #6: “The Relationship Between Student Motivation and Class Engagement Levels”
Nayır, F. (2017). The Relationship between Student Motivation and Class Engagement Levels. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 17 (71), 59-78.
This post is a little different than previous. EDU 811 “Motivation in Online and Blended Learning” requires weekly-ish deep reads of one article, accompanied by a 300-word annotation. The assignment is somewhat similar to EDU800’s weekly annotations, but these are focused on answering a teacher-led prompt. (Naturally, mine are regularly 600+ words… “I would have written a shorter letter but I didn’t have enough time.”) Because my writing in these have been of varied “just get it done on time” quality and posting is not required, I haven’t posted them, but I’m going to start revisiting them and will be posting as I get around to revising each.
This week’s article was particularly inspiring to me in that it made clear connections among a variety of theoretical frameworks and clarified many terms commonly used in studies of motivation. So, forgive me, but this entry is kind of list-heavy. For a reason: It helped me organize my thoughts.
Motivation, engagement, and learning are discrete concepts, yet in an educational setting they are mutually interdependent. Motivation is the driving force that spurs students to act; engagement is the observable, behavioral evidence of that motivation,[1] and learning is directly correlated with engagement. The equation is straightforward: To increase learning, increase engagement, and to increase engagement, increase motivation. But how—especially with teens?
An abundance of research indicates that as students advance to higher grades, they become less engaged in school. A 2018 Gallup poll discovered that by high school the number of “engaged” students shrinks to 33% from 74% in fifth grade (Parrish, 2017), and the research presented in this focused literature review, “The Relationship between Student Motivation and Class Engagement Levels” confirms this (Nayir, 2017). Nayir’s findings suggest that it is particularly important for high school educators to focus on motivational factors in order to engage students and thus improve learning outcomes.
Nayir’s study involved 500 students in a random sample from public high schools across Ankara, the capital of Turkey. The study set out to determine the relationship between student engagement and motivation using the theoretical framework of Self-Determination Theory (Desi & Ryan, 2000) and student engagement levels as defined by Schlecty (2001). Through a relational study using the Pattern Adaptive Learning Scale developed by Midgeley et al (2000), the study found that mastery-oriented learning (intrinsic motivation focused on mastering a topic) predicts all levels of classroom engagement, that vocational students are affected more by motivational factors, and that motivation level declines as grade level rises.
Most interesting to me in this study was the author’s theoretical framework setup, which served as a very helpful overview of the connections between motivation and engagement. The author cites research that shows that the more students are engaged in academic activities, the more successful they are.
Engagement has been categorized into three dimensions: emotional, behavioral, and cognitive (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris, 2004).
- Emotional. Positive and negative reactions to classmates, student attitude, perception of the value of learning, interest and enjoyment, happiness, sense of belonging at school.
- Behavioral. Participation, presence, compliance with rules, effort, persistence, concentration, involvement.
- Cognitive. Learning by choice, investment, self-regulation, goal setting, thoughtfulness, mastery orientation, resiliency, persistence, self-efficacy.
Within each of these categories, the student assigns a value to this engagement, which also can be hierarchically stratified (Schlecty, 2001):
- Authentic engagement: Students find personal meaning in activities.
- Ritual engagement: Students do what is required.
- Passive compliance: Students expend minimum effort to avoid punishment.
- Retreatism: Students reject learning activities and emotionally disengage.
- Rebellion: Students reject class activities and substitute them with their own objectives, which may be disruptive.
According to Deci & Ryan (2009), the founders of the widely-cited Self-Determination Theory (SDT), motivation is a prerequisite of student engagement in the learning process. According to SDT, motivation emanates from three universal dimensions of human need: competence (the desire to be good at something or adaptive to the environment), autonomy (choice in the matter and self-direction), and relatedness (a feeling of connection and belonging). Motivation can be measured along a hierarchical continuum from amotivation to extrinsic to intrinsic.
- Amotivation: No value is attributed to actions.
- Extrinsic: External influences or reward-driven actions.
- Intrinsic: Enjoyment or interest-driven actions.
These levels of motivation correlate with the five levels of engagement:
- Intrinsically motivated students show the highest level of engagement, authentic engagement.
- Extrinsic motivation manifests as ritual engagement, passive compliance, and retreatism.
- Amotivation typically leads to rebellion.
What these frameworks reveal is, again, that the best way to increase learning is to seek ways to increase intrinsic motivation. Ryan and Deci (2002)’s work suggests that attributing meaning to learning is Job 1 for motivation, and thus engagement, and thus learning. They further suggest that goal orientation is critical toward this end, confirmed in research from Midgeley et al (2000), who studied goal orientation and described three kinds:
- Mastery goal orientation. Individuals have self-efficacy, are aware of their strengths, and believe in their ability to succeed… and they want to.
- Personal performance-approach goal orientation. These individuals compare themselves to others and are motivated by competition.
- Personal performance-avoidance goal orientation. Individuals try to hide their failures, fear mistakes, and expect very little success.
Not surprisingly, much research supports a strong connection between intrinsic motivation and mastery goal orientation. Nayir’s study and the research it cites show that offering mechanisms to spur intrinsic motivation is job #1 to improve learning, especially with high school students.
Citations:
The article cites many excellent resources on the topics of motivation and engagement. The list below indicates the most significant among them to this particular focused literature review.
Fredricks. A., Blumenfeld P.C., & Paris A. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74, 59-109.
Midgley, C., Maehr, M., Hruda, L., Anderman, E., Anderman, L., & Freeman, K., et al. (2000). Manual for the patterns of adaptive learning scales. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.
Parrish, N. (2017, November 2022. To Increase Student Engagement, Focus on Motivation. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/to-increase-student-engagement-focus-on-motivation
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/ceps.1999.1020
Ryan, R.M & Deci, E.L. (2009). Promoting self-determined school engagement: Motivation, learning and well-being, In Wentzel, K.R & Wigfield, A. (Eds), Handbook on motivation at school. New York: Routledge, 171-196.
Schlechty, P. C. (2001) Okulu yeniden kurmak, (Çev. Özden, Y., 2012) Ankara: Nobel Yayıncılık.
Schlechty P.C. (2002). Working on the work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
[1]Schlecty’s research would indicate otherwise.
Susan Gedutis Lindsay 