Theories of motivation: Attributional theories
Discuss about the Motivation Engagement And Self-Efficacy.
Academic success can indicate different things to different people and success is not readymade but that it needs to be inculcated to witness the results. Although success among individual students is perceived according to their unique biographies and social context, it cannot be denied that an individual student can harness success when they receive motivation and are taught to become self-sufficient (Christenson, Reschly & Wylie, 2012). The scope of the current review of literature is to highlight that motivation and self-efficacy are truly important in facilitating the success rate of students also documenting measures of these two characteristics. The criteria employed for selecting the additional sources are articles that were concerned with self-efficacy, motivation and engagement for academic success and the time range selected was between 2010 and 2018. The database through which the articles were selected are google scholar and proquest. The paper has been organized to understand the importance of motivation and self-efficacy in engagement of students, methods for measuring the same, role of motivation and self-efficacy in learning of foreign language and the role of the parents in motivation.
Theories of motivation: Attributional theories
According to Weiner (2000), there are two related attributional theories of motivation one is the intrapersonal theory that is related to the self-directed thoughts and the other is the self-directed emotions (pride, shame and guilt). The interpersonal theory connotes to the beliefs about the responsibility of different people and the other-directed that impinges on the anger and sympathy. These two theories of motivation are informed by the metaphors. Attributional theory in the classroom can lead to the student addressing the aspects of guilt, shame and pride in a better manner. Attrribution al theory enables in the self-evaluation of the student. In addition, it enables in the predicting the failure and success of the student.
In case of online learning, it has been found that there is a high rate of attrition that is being considered as a pressing issue. According to Chung Chen and Jang (2010), it is important to investigate about the online learner motivation that includes the antecedents and the various outcomes. Results from the structural equation modeling have given evidence about the mediating effects of the requirement for satisfaction between self-determination and contextual support. Online students perceive satisfaction, autonomy and relatedness that positively affect the online students in the pursuit of their learning.
Motivation and self-efficacy in online learning
Busse & Walter (2013), argues about the first-year foreign languages students who are enrolled in the German degree course at two of the major universities in United Kingdom. The paper is committed in understanding the experiences of the students from the perspective of motivation. The authors deployed a longitudinal research design and within it they adopted a mixed-method approach to respond to the time and context-sensitive motivational disposition of the motivational attributes. The results of the study are that students over the period have demonstrated increasing proficiency in spoken German language and in addition have shown their efforts in engaging with the German language. However, this interest and motivation decreased over the period. This change in the motivation of the students have been said to occur in consonance with the decrease in changes and the contextual factors that are important for higher education. The authors recommend pedagogical strategies to neutralize the effects of decreasing motivation of learning foreign language among the native students.
Theory of self-efficacy
The community of Inquiry Framework is considered as an important model that can be enhanced for creating fuller participation of the responsibilities and roles of the online learners. There exists a positive relationship between the elements of the COI framework and the elements of the nascent theoretical construct that is labelled as the learning presence. It is stated that self-efficacy is related to the behavioural, motivational and the cognitive constructs that is supportive of the regulation of the online leaner. As argued by Shea and Bidjerano (2010), online learners have the potential to contribute the thoreogh and in-depth account of knowledge.
Researchers who have been working in the field of educational settings are directing attention to the role of the students, their beliefs and thoughts in the process of learning. Self-efficacy has been understood as a key element to the social cognitive that is an important variable as it has implications on the learning and motivation of the students. According to Dinther, Dochy and Segers (2011), educational programmes are meant at improving the self-efficacy of the students and there are educational programmes that are premised on social cognitive theory that can be successful. There are different factors that influence the self-efficacy of the students and provided evidence for the potency for the central sources of self-efficacy.
Importance of student engagement
It has been found that student motivation is considered as an important factor in the learning and achievement of the students in higher education. Student engagement can be understood as a psychosocial process influenced by the factors of institutional and personal and this is embedded within the social context that weaves the socio-cultural perspective with the behavioural and psychological views. Scholars like Zepke have advocated for the adoption of the complexity tool for comprehending the student engagement for a dynamic and non-hierarchical framework that does not incorporate the possible antecedents. The student will respond to the enthusiastic teaching pedagogy of the teacher based on their expectations. The different dimensions of the student engagement are dependent on one another.
Role of motivation and self-efficacy in learning foreign language
Researchers have been concerned with some of the challenges faced by teachers and students in the contemporary context. Some of the problems that have been faced by the teachers are the underachievement of the students as well as their behavioural, ;earning and the emotional challenges that culminate to high drop-out rate among the students. Drop-out of students from the school is related to their disengagement. There has been growing awareness about the engagement of students in higher education in the outcomes of learning and achievement. Scholars have discussed about the phenomenological framework of understanding of high-involvement of students in the classroom. Engagement of students towards higher education may be related to the perceive control and instruction. Instructional relevance plays an important role in engaging students to be more authentic with their academic work that is concerned with the meaningful inquiry to resolve real life problems in the classroom and beyond the space of classroom. Engagement of students in the classroom is further related to the way students perceive their learning activities and the role of positive emotions in the classroom.
Kim, Park, Huynh and Schuermann, (2017) in their paper investigated about the ways the high-performers and the low performer have distinction in terms of their engagement and motivation in the large format general education geography. Around one hundred students participated in the study. However, the study shows that this difference between the high and low level performances is pertained to motivation and not engagement. The low performer group demonstrated a decrease in the attention whereas in case of the high-performance group they were quite attentive in the classroom. It was further reported that the satisfaction and confidence of the low performer group plummeted as there was no evident change in case of the high-performance group.
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be stated that motivation, self-efficacy and student engagement are all important aspects of learning and achievement in students.
Conclusion
Scholars have noted that it is important to understand the role of motivation, engagement and self-efficacy of the students in securing success in education. I agree that parents and school have a greater role to play in motivation, self-efficacy and engagement of students in higher education. However, I feel the above discussed literature do not take into account the lifeworld and unique biographies of children that can impede learning and demoralize students from pursuing education.
References
Bakker, A. B., & Bal, M. P. (2010). Weekly work engagement and performance: A study among starting teachers. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(1), 189-206.
Busse, V., & Walter, C. (2013). Foreign language learning motivation in higher education: A longitudinal study of motivational changes and their causes. The Modern Language Journal, 97(2), 435-456.
Chen, K. C., & Jang, S. J. (2010). Motivation in online learning: Testing a model of self-determination theory. Computers in Human Behavior, 26(4), 741-752.
Christenson, S. L., Reschly, A. L., & Wylie, C. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of research on student engagement. Springer Science & Business Media.
Fan, W., & Williams, C. M. (2010). The effects of parental involvement on students’ academic self?efficacy, engagement and intrinsic motivation. Educational psychology, 30(1), 53-74.
Kahu, E. R. (2013). Framing student engagement in higher education. Studies in higher education, 38(5), 758-773.
Kim, C., Park, S. W., Huynh, N., & Schuermann, R. T. (2017). University students’ motivation, engagement and performance in a large lecture-format general education course. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 41(2), 201-214.
Mills, N., Pajares, F., & Herron, C. (2007). Self?efficacy of college intermediate French students: Relation to achievement and motivation. Language learning, 57(3), 417-442.
Shea, P., & Bidjerano, T. (2010). Learning presence: Towards a theory of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and the development of a communities of inquiry in online and blended learning environments. Computers & Education, 55(4), 1721-1731.
Siu, O. L., Bakker, A. B., & Jiang, X. (2014). Psychological capital among university students: Relationships with study engagement and intrinsic motivation. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15(4), 979-994.
Stewart, M., Stott, T., & Nuttall, A. M. (2016). Study goals and procrastination tendencies at different stages of the undergraduate degree. Studies in Higher Education, 41(11), 2028-2043.
van Dinther, M., Dochy, F., & Segers, M. (2011). Factors affecting students’ self-efficacy in higher education. Educational research review, 6(2), 95-108.
Weiner, B. (2010). The development of an attribution-based theory of motivation: A history of ideas. Educational psychologist, 45(1), 28-36.
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