research paper on students' motivation

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

How students’ motivation and learning experience affect their service-learning outcomes: a structural equation modeling analysis.

• 1 Service-Learning and Leadership Office, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
• 2 Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China

Guided by the expectancy-value theory of motivation in learning, we explored the causal relationship between students’ learning experiences, motivation, and cognitive learning outcome in academic service-learning. Based on a sample of 2,056 college students from a university in Hong Kong, the findings affirm that learning experiences and motivation are key factors determining cognitive learning outcome, affording a better understanding of student learning behavior and the impact in service-learning. This research provides an insight into the impact of motivation and learning experiences on students’ cognitive learning outcome while engaging in academic service-learning. This not only can discover the intermediate factors of the learning process but also provides insights to educators on how to enhance their teaching pedagogy.

Introduction

The application of motivation theories in learning has been much discussed in the past decades ( Credé and Phillips, 2011 ; Gopalan et al., 2017 ) and applied in different types of context areas and target populations, such as vocational training students ( Expósito-López et al., 2021 ), middle school students ( Hayenga and Corpus, 2010 ) and pedagogies, including experiential learning and service learning ( Li et al., 2016 ). Motivation is defined in learning as an internal condition to arouse, direct and maintain people’s learning behaviors ( Woolfolk, 2019 ). Based on the self-determination theory, motivation is categorized as intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation ( Ryan and Deci, 2017 ). Intrinsically motivated learners are those who can always “reach within themselves” to find a motive and intensity to accomplish even highly challenging tasks without the need for incentives or pressure. In contrast, extrinsically motivated behaviors are motivated by external expectation other than their inherent satisfactions ( Ryan and Deci, 2020 ). To conceptualize student motivation, Eccles et al. (1983) proposed the expectancy-value model of motivation with two components: (a) expectancy, which captures students’ beliefs about their ability to complete the task and their perception that they are responsible for their own performance, and (b) value, which captures students’ beliefs about their interest in and perceived importance of the task. In general, research suggests that students who believe they are capable of completing the task (expectancy) and find the associated activities meaningful or interesting (value) are more likely to persist at a task and have better academic performance ( Fincham and Cain, 1986 ; Paris and Okab, 1986 ; Kaplan and Maehr, 1999 ).

Since then, expectancy-value theory has focused on understanding and enhancing student motivation, especially in core academic subjects ( Wigfield and Eccles, 2000 ; Liem and Chua, 2013 ). Many empirical studies demonstrate that the expectancy-value theory helps understand achievement-related behaviors and performance in key academic subjects in the school curriculum. Studies report that the expectancy and value components are positively related to students’ academic performance. For example Joo et al. (2015) conducted a study on 963 college students enrolled in a computer application course and found that the expectancy component and value component had statistically significant direct effects on academic achievement. Puzziferro (2008) found significant positive correlations between students’ self-efficacy for online technologies and self-regulated learning with the final grade and level of satisfaction in online undergraduate-level courses. Trautwein et al. (2012) conducted a study for 2,508 German high-school students and found that self-efficacy, intrinsic value, utility value and cost can predict academic performance in Mathematics and English. Schnettler et al. (2020) applied expectancy-value theory to study the relationship between motivation and dropout intention. A total of 326 undergraduate students of law and mathematics were studied, and findings showed that low intrinsic and attainment value was substantially related to high dropout intention. These studies argue that the expectancy component, value component and other student experiential variables such as self-regulated learning may positively relate to academic achievement. Recently, this theory has been applied to experiential learning, such as civic education ( Liem and Chua, 2013 ; Li et al., 2016 ). Results showed that higher expectancy and value beliefs could enhance students’ appreciation and engagement in civic activities, and finally promote the development of targeted civic qualities. This suggests that if expectancy-value theory is applied to service-learning, it would be expected that if students perceive that they are capable of completing the service project (expectancy component) or find the project meaningful (value component), they have higher motivation to engage in the project, and therefore, attain higher learning outcomes.

Students’ motivation in learning can be affected by different factors. These include their emotional, expressive and affective experiences ( Pintrich and De Groot, 1990 ; Deci, 2014 ), previous learning experiences and culturally rooted socialization, such as gender and ethnic identity ( Wigfield and Eccles, 2000 ). For example, Yair (2000) conducted a study to investigate the effects of instructions on students’ learning experiences. The result showed that structured instructions are better able to improve the learning experiences, which leads to higher motivation of the students. In short, research suggests that students’ motivation affect the academic performance, and motivation itself is impacted by other factors.

Despite all these studies, there has been limited work that applies the expectancy-value theory to study the learning process and understand how the different variables affect students’ motivation and learning outcomes, especially in service-learning. Service-learning is a type of experiential learning that provides a rich set of learning outcomes through applying academic knowledge to engage in community activities that address human and community needs and structured reflection ( Jacoby, 1996 ). Bringle and Hatcher defined academic service-learning as:

a credit bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and reflect on the service activity to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility ( Bringle and Hatcher, 1996 , p. 5).

This pedagogy helps students translate theory into practice, understand issues facing their communities, and enhance personal development ( Eyler and Giles, 1999 ; Hardy and Schaen, 2000 ). Previous studies on the benefit of service-learning showed that service-learning could be an effective pedagogy to achieve a wide range of cognitive and affective outcomes, especially on their academic ( Giles and Eyler, 1994 ; Lundy, 2007 ), social ( Weber and Glyptis, 2000 ), personal ( Yates and Youniss, 1996 ; Billig and Furco, 2002 ), and civic outcomes ( Bringle et al., 2011 ; Mann et al., 2015 ). Service-learning is recognized as a high-impact educational practice ( Anderson et al., 2019 ) and it promote positive educational results for students from widely varying backgrounds ( Kuh and Schneider, 2008 ). It is increasingly adopted in universities across the world ( Furco et al., 2016 ; Wang et al., 2020 ; Sotelino-Losada et al., 2021 ) and has received significant attention from both academics and researchers in different academic disciplines ( Yorio and Ye, 2012 ; Geller et al., 2016 ; Rutti et al., 2016 ), and an increasing number of institutions have formally designated service-learning courses as part of the curriculum ( Nejmeh, 2012 ; Campus Compact, 2016 ).

Academic service-learning requires students to learn an academic content that is related to a social issue, and then apply their classroom-learned knowledge and skills in a service project that serves the community. In other words, students’ cognitive and intellectual learning is augmented via a mechanism that allows them practice of said knowledge and skills ( Novak et al., 2007 ). An example would be learning about energy poverty and solar electricity, and then conduct a service project installing green energy solutions for rural communities in developing countries. Another example is learning about the impact of eye health on academic study, and conducting eye screenings for primary school students. To prepare the students, lectures and training workshops teach students about the academic concepts to equip them with the necessary skills to deal with complex issues in the service setting, and prepare them to reflect on their experience to develop their empathy and build up a strong sense of civic responsibility. The objective is to develop socially responsible and civic-minded professionals and citizens. Therefore, the linkage between academic content, students’ learning and meaningful service activity is critical, as the classroom theory, in a sense, is experienced, practiced and tested in a real-world setting.

Yorio and Ye (2012) suggest that tackling real-life community problems in service-learning leads to increased motivation that can also result in increased cognitive development. However, similar to other educational areas, not much effort has been paid to the “process” by these learning gains are imparted to students. To reveal the mechanism of the learning behavior and provide suggestions for improving the effectiveness of students’ learning, researchers need to investigate the dynamic processes and the influencing factors on how students learn during service-learning. Students do not automatically learn from just engaging in service-learning activities. Instead, how and what students learn depends on different factors. Fitch et al. (2012) suggested using structural equation modeling to develop a predictive model to investigate how students’ initial levels of cognitive processes and intellectual development may interact with the quality of service-learning experiences, and therefore predict cognitive outcomes and self-regulated learning.

Since then, a few studies have been conducted to discover the factors that affect the learning outcomes in service-learning, such as the quality of students’ learning experiences ( Ngai et al., 2018 ), students’ motivation ( Li et al., 2016 ) and students’ disciplinary backgrounds ( Lo et al., 2019 ). Also, Moely and Ilustre (2014) found that the academic learning outcomes were strongly predicted by the perceived value of the service. If students have a clear understanding of the value of the service and acknowledge the benefits to the community, their motivation will increase, which ultimately improves their cognitive learning.

Despite the accumulating evidence suggesting that students’ motivation is an important factor affecting study outcomes, and other research showing that service-learning has positive impacts on students, several research gaps are present. First, there has not been much research using the expectancy-value theory of motivation in service-learning to examine how motivation affects students’ learning from service-learning. Li et al. (2016) explored the effect of subjective task value on student engagement during service-learning and found that the subjective task value of the service played an essential role in their engagement and, therefore, affected their learning. However, this study only focused on the value component of motivation and how this dimension affected students’ engagement, which is correlated to student learning outcomes, but it did not directly study the impact on the learning outcomes. Service-learning, being an experiential learning pedagogy, requires students to actively engage in and reflect on the learning experiences and community needs, then plan and conduct a service project by applying their knowledge ( Kolb, 1984 ). During the project, students interact with the service recipients and instructors to reflect on the assumptions, identifying connections or inconsistencies between their experiences and prior knowledge. This clarification of values and assumptions generate new understandings of the issue, which may lead to changes in the design and execution of the service project. This learning cycle involves a very different set of learning experiences compared to conventional classroom teaching, and thus may impact students differently. This leads us to the second point. As researchers and educators, we must ask how learning occurs and what conditions foster the development. In other words, it is important to examine not only if , but also how , service-learning affects students’ academic outcomes. Although studies have been conducted to understand the factors influencing students’ learning outcomes, results are far from conclusive.

This study aims to fill in these gaps. Grounded on the expectancy-value theory of motivation in learning, the research question would be, “How do students’ learning experiences and motivation affect their cognitive learning outcomes from service-learning?” The hypothesized model is presented in Figure 1 , which includes four elements (i) initial level of cognitive knowledge, (ii) the learning experiences, (iii) students’ motivation on the service-learning course, and (iv) the cognitive learning outcome. It posits that students’ cognitive learning outcomes from service-learning are affected by their initial ability, the learning experience, and also mediated by their motivational beliefs about the expectancy component and value component in completing the service-learning tasks. In the service-learning context, if a student perceives that the service project has a high chance of success (expectancy component) and they do find the associated activities meaningful or interesting (value component), then they have higher motivation to engage in the project and thus achieve a higher cognitive learning outcome. In addition, the model hypothesizes that students’ motivation is affected by their learning experiences and their initial level of cognitive knowledge.

Figure 1. Hypothesized model.

To answer the research question, three hypotheses are defined:

1. Based on the preceding literature review, we hypothesize that students’ motivation, both the expectancy and value components, can be impacted by their learning experiences. Also, the initial level of cognitive knowledge of students may have an impact on the motivation (Hypothesis 1).

2. Based on the theoretical framework of the expectancy-value theory of motivation in learning, we expect that students’ motivation, both the expectancy and value components, can positively predict the learning outcomes (Hypothesis 2).

3. Based on the existing literature, we hypothesize that both the students’ learning experiences and their motivation, both the expectancy and value components, directly affect students’ cognitive learning outcome, and motivation can further act as a mediating factor between learning experiences and cognitive outcomes (Hypothesis 3).

Methodology

The study was conducted at a university in Hong Kong in which service-learning is a mandatory graduation requirement for all full-time undergraduate students. Students have choices over when and which subject to take to meet the requirement. Most of the courses are open-to-all general education type courses, while others are discipline-related subjects restricted to students from particular disciplinary backgrounds or major students. Our study covers 132 of these service-learning subjects offered by 30 academic departments during the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 academic years. All of the academic service-learning subjects involved in this study carried three credits and followed an overall framework with common learning outcomes standardized by the university, which includes (a) applying classroom-learned knowledge and skills to deal with complex issues in the service setting; (b) reflecting on the role and responsibilities both as a professional and as a responsible citizen; (c) demonstrating empathy for people in need and a strong sense of civic responsibility; and (d) demonstrating an understanding of the linkage between service-learning and the academic content of the subject. All subjects required roughly 130 h of student study effort and were standardized to three main components: (a) 60 h of classroom teaching and project preparation; (b) a supervised and assessed service project comprising of at least 40 h of direct services to the community and which is closely linked to the academic focus of the subject, and (c) 30 h of structured reflective activities. Students’ performance and learning were assessed according to a letter-grade system. The nature of the service projects varied, including language and STEM instruction, public health promotion, vision screening, speech therapy and engineering infrastructure construction. Those projects also covered a diverse range of service beneficiaries, including primary and secondary school children, elderly, households in urban deprived areas, ethnic minorities, and rural communities. Approval for this study was granted by the university’s “Human Subjects Ethics Sub-Committee.”

The study employed several quantitative self-report measures to assess students’ learning experiences, learning outcomes, and motivation as described below and shown in Supplementary Appendix 1 . Also, hypothesized model with measures was present in Figure 2 .

Figure 2. Hypothesized model with measures.

(1) Students’ learning experiences was measured by their self-reported experiences regarding the (a) pedagogical features of the course, and (b) design features of the service-learning project. A 13-item instrument was developed in the same university under a rigorous scale development procedure, and students were asked to indicate their experiences after completing the service-learning subject, on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 4 = neutral; 7 = strongly agree). All items were written and reviewed by a panel of experts, then a large-scale validation through EFA and CFA was undertaken.

The Pedagogical Features dimension included seven items to measure the extent to which students perceived how well they are facilitated and supported in their learning process. This relates to the teachers’ skills in preparing the students for the services, nurturing the team dynamic and assisting the students in reflecting upon the service activities.

The Project Design Features dimension included six items to measure to the extent to which students perceived positive experiences during the service project, which is a unique and necessary component of academic service-learning. These features are designed and positioned by the teaching team. Examples include the level of collaboration with the NGO/service recipients and the opportunities for the students to try new things. These experiences are all part of the project design, which, as it is linked to the academic concept covered in the classroom, is controlled by the teacher.

In terms of the construct validity, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted with a sample of 11,185 students who completed the service-learning subjects between 2014/2015 and 2018/2019, which yielded a two-factor structure with an 0.81 average factor loading for both aspects without cross-loading at the threshold of 0.30. The reported Cronbach’s α value was 0.90 and 0.89 for pedagogical features and project design features, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted in this study, and the results showed a good model fit for the two-factor model of learning experiences (χ 2 = 232.33, df = 52, CFI = 0.96, NFI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.08).

(2) Students’ motivation was measured by items taken from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire ( Pintrich and De Groot, 1990 ), which included 44 items measuring two main dimensions, (a) Motivational Beliefs (22 items) and (b) Self-Regulated Learning Strategies (22 items). Under motivational beliefs, three sub-dimensions were defined, including intrinsic value, self-efficacy, and text anxiety. Intrinsic value and self-efficacy were corresponding to the value component and expectancy component, respectively, under the expectancy-value model of motivation proposed by Eccles et al. (1983) . To align with the institutional service-learning context, an expert review was conducted to select and modify the items. Test anxiety was removed since tests or examinations were not part of the assessment criteria in the service-learning context. One item, “I often choose paper topics I will learn something from even if they require more work,” under the intrinsic value sub-dimension was removed, as the service-learning courses that we are studying require direct services which are connected to tangible community needs and “paper topics” would not be encountered in our context. Wordings from five items were modified to specifically refer to the context for better understanding of students. For example, “class” was changed to “service-learning class” and “class work” was changed to “service project.” The self-regulated learning strategies construct was not included as this study focuses on the causal relationship between learning experiences, students’ motivation, and cognitive learning outcome for engaging in academic service-learning.

After modification, 17 items were selected with eight items from the intrinsic value sub-dimension (value component) to measure the subjective task value of the service-learning subject to the students and nine items from the self-efficacy sub-dimension (expectancy component) to measure the competence belief or expectancy for success in completing the project. Pintrich and De Groot (1990) reported a reliability coefficient of 0.87 and 0.89 for the intrinsic value and self-efficacy, respectively. In this study, a CFA was conducted to ensure the construct validity and a good model fit for the two-factor structure of motivation was found (χ 2 = 329.05, df = 88, CFI = 0.97, NFI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.08). The average factor loading of intrinsic value was 0.77 and self-efficacy was 0.73.

(3) Cognitive Learning outcomes from service-learning was measured by a four-item scale adopted by the Service-Learning Outcomes Measurement Scale instrument (S-LOMS) developed by Snell and Lau (2019) . This scale was developed and validated under a cross-institutional research project in Hong Kong. With the localization of the items, the scale contains four dimensions with 11 sub-domains. Students are required to respond to the items on a 10-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 10 (strongly agree).

Knowledge application is one of the dimensions that comprise a single cognominal domain to measures the extent to which students are able to understand the knowledge learnt in the service-learning course and apply it to real-life situations. Following the standard approach employed in academic research, the instrument was first developed through review by a panel of experts and focus groups of students. Then, the psychometric properties, including underlying dimensionality and internal consistency, were tested via EFA and CFA with a sample of 400 university students from four Hong Kong institutions ( Snell and Lau, 2020 ), reporting a strong internal consistency with a Cronbach’s α value of 0.96. Then, the scale was validated again with another group of students, this time from Singapore ( Lau and Snell, 2021 ). To ensure the construct validity could be maintained, an EFA was conducted for both pre-experience and post-experience data, and the results confirmed a single-factor model with factor loadings over 0.82.

Participants and Administration

Our survey was administered to all students enrolled in any credit-bearing service-learning subject offered by the institution of study during the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 academic years. Students were asked to complete a survey both at the beginning and end of the subject. This generally corresponds to the beginning and end of the semester; some subjects ran over multiple semesters. The pre-experience survey was comprised of the cognitive learning outcome (knowledge application) scale while the post-experience survey consisted of items related to their leaning experiences (pedagogical features and project design features), motivation (intrinsic value and self-efficacy) and cognitive learning outcome (knowledge application). Only the pre-experience survey in the fall semester of 2019/2020 was administered via paper-based questionnaires. For the rest of the offerings, both pre-experience and post-experience surveys were administered via the university online survey platform. To conduct the survey in pen-and-paper format, the course instructors or teaching assistants visited the class to distribute the questionnaires within the first 4 weeks of the semester. For the electronic format, the pre-experience survey was sent to the students by the lecturers within the first 4 weeks of the semester and the post-experience survey was conducted at the end of the subject. For both surveys, email invitations were sent at least twice to follow up with non-respondents to urge them to complete the questionnaire. The collated data was analyzed with the statistical analysis software programs IBM SPSS Statistics (Version 26) and IBM AMOS (Version 26).

Data Analysis Method

Our data analysis went through the following steps to examine the relationship between students’ learning experiences, motivation and learning outcomes in service-learning, and established the causal effect of the exogenous and endogenous variables.

Means and standard deviations were computed for the data obtained. The reliability of the measures was estimated by the Cronbach’s α values ( Cronbach, 1951 ). Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to describe the linear association between students’ learning experiences, motivation and learning outcome.

Path analysis in structural equation modeling (SEM) was then employed to examine the effect of initial level of cognitive knowledge, learning experiences and students’ motivation toward learning outcomes using SPSS AMOS 26. SEM is a collection of tools for analyzing connections between various factors and developing a model by empirical data to describe a phenomenon ( Afthanorhan and Ahmad, 2014 ). Path analysis is a special problem in SEM where its model describes causal relations among measured variables in the form of multiple linear regressions. The hypothesized model studied the direct or indirect effects of students’ learning experiences and motivation on their learning outcome. Therefore, the dependent variable was the cognitive learning outcome from service-learning, and the independent variables were their motivation (intrinsic value and self-efficacy) and learning experiences (pedagogical features and projects design features).

The path analysis was conducted through the following steps:

1. Multivariate kurtosis value was computed to confirm the multivariate normality ( Kline, 2015 );

2. Mahalanobis distances were calculated to determine the outliners ( Westfall and Henning, 2013 );

3. Goodness of fit of the hypothesized model was tested ( Shek and Yu, 2014 );

4. R-square ( R 2 ) were computed to illustrate the explained variation; and

5. Standard estimate coefficients (β) of the significant paths were calculated to quantify the “magnitude” of the effect of one variable on another.

The survey was administered to 8,271 students in the 132 credit-bear service-learning subjects offered during 2019/2020 and 2020/2021. A total of 5,216 and 3,102 responses were received in the pre and post-experience surveys, respectively, making up a response rate of 63.06 and 37.50%. For the paper-based responses, casewise deletion was applied for handling the missing value. For the electronic-based responses, the survey platform would ensures there would not be any missing values. 2,116 (25.58%) valid matched-pair responses were finally obtained and included in the study. A detailed analysis of the respondents’ demographic information reveals that 883 (41.73%) were female and 1,233 (58.28%) were male. Almost half of the students, 988 (46.69%), were from junior years, while 1,128 (53.31%) were from senior years. In terms of the disciplinary background, 608 (28.73%) were from engineering, 530 (25.05%) students from business and hotel management, 475 (22.45%) were studying health sciences, 254 (12.00%) were in hard sciences, and the remaining 249 (11.77%) were in humanities, social sciences, or design. Of the 132 subjects, 46 (34.85%) were from the discipline of health sciences, 31 (23.48%) were from engineering, 27 (20.45%) from humanities and social sciences, 14 (10.61%) from hard sciences, and the remaining 14 subjects (10.61%) were from the business, hotel or design disciplines.

Descriptive Statistics and Reliability of the Measures

The scale scores were computed by taking the arithmetic mean of the items purported to be measuring the respective constructs. Table 1 presented the minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation for each measure.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and reliabilities.

Generally, students gave medium to high scores on their learning experiences and motivation. The mean scores on their learning experiences with respect to the project design and pedagogical features were 5.49 and 5.53, respectively. For their motivation measures, the means and standard deviations were 5.42 and 0.85 for intrinsic value and 5.34 and 0.86 for self-efficacy. For the knowledge application learning outcome, students reported mean scores of 6.95 and 7.48, respectively, in the pre- and post-experience survey.

Cronbach’s α estimates were computed for the six measures included in the study to check for internal consistency. The results were also shown in Table 1 . The alpha values for the scales on learning outcomes and motivation were over 0.93, which would be classified as having excellent reliability ( Kline, 2000 ). On the other hand, the alpha values of the learning experience measures were 0.88 and 0.91, suggesting good to excellent reliability of these two scales.

Correlations

The Pearson’s product-moment correlations between the measures were presented in Table 2 . All correlations were positive at the 0.01 level, which indicated that the measures change in the same direction: when one increased, the others also tended to increase. In other words, students’ motivation and cognitive learning outcome increased when they had a better learning experience. In general, all scales had a medium to strong association except for the initial cognitive learning scale, which had weak to medium associations with other scales.

Table 2. Correlation between motivation, learning experiences, and learning outcomes.

Students’ ratings on the project design features were significantly related to the two motivational belief measures, with r = 0.74 and 0.64 for intrinsic value and self-efficacy, respectively. Their ratings on the project design features were also significantly related to their initial level of cognitive knowledge ( r = 0.30) and post-cognitive learning outcome ( r = 0.64) measures. Similar results were observed for the pedagogical features, where the correlation coefficient with the post-experience cognitive outcome score was 0.65, suggesting a highly correlated relationship. However, the correlation coefficient with the pre-experience score was 0.32, suggesting a rather medium level of association between the two. Significant correlations were found between pedagogical features and intrinsic value ( r = 0.76) and self-efficacy ( r = 0.61).

Regarding the correlations between motivation and learning outcomes, a medium association was found between motivation and the initial level of cognitive knowledge with reported correlation coefficients of 0.35 (intrinsic value) and 0.36 (self-efficacy). Significant and high correlations were found between motivation and post-experience cognitive learning outcome, with coefficients of 0.68 (intrinsic value) and 0.61 (self-efficacy).

Path Analysis in Structural Equation Modeling

A path analysis was conducted to determine the causal effects among learning experiences, students’ motivation and learning outcomes. The models were tested using the maximum likelihood method, which required multivariate normality.

Multivariate kurtosis value of the observed variables was examined with results ranging from 0.15 to 1.22, suggesting that the variables had a multivariate normal distribution ( Kline, 2015 ). Then, Mahalanobis distances were calculated in AMOS to determine the outliers ( Westfall and Henning, 2013 ), and 60 responses were identified as outliers with a significance level at p < 0.001. These responses were therefore excluded from the data. As a result, only 2,056 data points were included in the path analysis. The resulting model was shown in Figure 3 , which was consistent with our original conceptual model from Figure 1 . The paths shown in the figure were statistically significant at the 0.001 level, and the standardized regression coefficients (β) and explained variation ( R 2 ) were also presented. A chi-square test showed that the estimated model has an acceptable level of goodness of fit [χ 2 (2, N = 2,056) = 225.05, p < 0.001]. Table 3 showed the values of goodness-of-fit indices. The CFI, NFI, and GFI values all met the respective criterion for goodness of fit.

Figure 3. Path diagram between the initial level of cognitive knowledge, learning experiences, students’ motivation, and the cognitive learning outcome.

Table 3. Outliers and goodness-of-fit statistics.

The results of the path analysis were consistent with our hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Students’ learning experience and previous cognitive knowledge had a direct effect on motivation. Intrinsic value was positively predicted by the initial level of cognitive knowledge (β = 0.12, p < 0.001), the project design (β = 0.36, p < 0.001), and pedagogical (β = 0.45, p < 0.001) features of the service-learning subjects as experienced by the students, with a 60% of variation explained. Similarly, self-efficacy was positively affected by the initial level of cognitive knowledge (β = 0.15, p < 0.001), the project design (β = 0.39, p < 0.001), and pedagogical (β = 0.27, p < 0.001) features. These factors explained 42% of the variation of self-efficacy. However, the direct effect of the initial level of cognitive knowledge was much less than the direct effect of the two dimensions of learning experiences.

Hypothesis 2: Students’ motivation had a positive direct effect on their learning outcome. Students’ post-experience knowledge application ability is positively predicted by their ratings on intrinsic value (β = 0.25, p < 0.001) and self-efficacy (β = 0.18, p < 0.001) in completing the service-learning subject.

Hypothesis 3: Students’ learning experience had a direct effect and an indirect effect mediated by motivation on their learning outcomes. The total effect (E Total = E Direct + E Indirect ) of the project design features on cognitive learning outcome was 0.32, with a direct effect (β) of 0.16 and an indirect effect of 0.16 through intrinsic value (E Indirect = 0.09) and self-efficacy (E Indirect = 0.07). For pedagogical features, the total effect was 0.33 with a direct effect (β) of 0.17 and an indirect effect of 0.16 through intrinsic value (E Indirect = 0.11) and self-efficacy (E Indirect = 0.05). In total, 50% of the variation in students’ cognitive learning outcomes could be explained by their previous level of knowledge, learning experiences and motivation.

Previous research in academic service-learning in higher education tend to focus on its benefits and impact to students. A number of studies have shown that service-learning is an effective pedagogy for improving cognitive learning outcomes; however, most of these studies were outcome-based rather than process-based ( Li et al., 2016 ). Since the outcome of service-learning has been established, we argue that it is now necessary to examine the dynamic processes and understand the underlying factors that produce these positive learning outcomes. These insights not only provide suggestions for improving the effectiveness of service-learning, but also complete the theoretical framework for understanding the learning behavior in service-learning. Levering on the theoretical support of the expectancy-value theory in motivation, we hypothesized that the expectancy component and value component of students’ motivation play an important role in affecting the cognitive outcome and act as a mediator between the learning experiences and academic outcome.

In line with the research focus, this study aimed to explore the causal relationship between learning experiences, learning motivation, and learning outcomes in the context of academic service-learning. Using a validated, quantitative instrument and analyzing the responses with structural equation modeling showed that in the context of academic service-learning, significant direct and indirect effects were found between initial level of cognitive knowledge, students’ learning experience, motivation and cognitive learning outcomes.

According to the expectancy-value theory introduced by Eccles et al. (1983) , motivation is affected by multi-layered factors, including individuals’ perceptions of their own previous experiences, culturally rooted socialization (i.e., gender roles or ethnic identity), and self-schemata (i.e., self-concept of one’s ability or perceptions of task demands). Recent research also found that students’ motivation increases when they gain insight into their values and goals ( Brody and Wright, 2004 ; Duffy and Raque-Bogdan, 2010 ). This has also been found to be the case in academic service-learning ( Darby et al., 2013 ). Our results demonstrated similar findings in which students’ learning experiences in academic service-learning were a significant determinant of their learning motivation.

From the path analysis, significant direct effects to students’ motivation were identified from students’ initial level of cognitive knowledge and both aspects of learning experiences. These factors positively associated to intrinsic value and self-efficacy, explaining 60 and 42% of the variation, respectively. The effect of the learning experiences were much higher than the effect of the initial level of cognitive knowledge. This indicated that students who had positive learning experiences, regardless of whether the experiences were project- or pedagogically related, were more motivated to learn and were more likely to believe they had the ability to complete the subject. Also, pedagogically related experiences had a slightly larger effect than project design-related experiences on both motivation measures, which implied that preparation and feedback from teachers were more critical with respect to improving students’ motivation than the design of the service project.

Our results suggest that “student motivation” is not static, but could be learned and improved, and the learning experiences played an important role. If educators want better-motivated students, they need to have good interaction with the students, offer necessary support and provide insightful feedback in reflective activities. In the context of academic service-learning, the subject teachers or teaching assistants would achieve best results by working side-by-side with the students throughout the course, including the service project, instead of delegating this component to outside agencies. During the lectures, instructors have to prepare the students appropriately, such as guiding students to understand the linkage between the academic concept and service objective and equipping the students with necessary professional or technical skills. Educators should also regularly conduct reflective activities to cover different aspects of the service-learning course, such as team dynamics, service preparation, community impacts, or personal learning.

On the other hand, even if slightly less critical, the project design features also played an important part. The service project should be designed to be challenging and allow students to have ample direct interaction with the community. Well-prepared students would be more likely to feel competent and confident of success in their project, and challenging but valuable projects that benefit the community and gain the appreciation of the service targets convince students that what they were doing was important and had value. Taking the example of an engineering service project, teachers should allow a certain level of autonomy to the students and challenge them to interact with the collaborating agency or service recipients, understand the needs, and design a tailored solution, rather than asking students to simply replicate a previously designed solution, which may discourage students from engaging in the services, which then leads to a decrease in motivation.

In terms of cognitive outcome, the results of the path analysis indicated that the outcome was affected in three ways, (i) directly through the learning experiences; (ii) directly through the students’ motivation, and (iii) indirectly through the learning experiences with motivation as a mediating factor.

Academic service-learning programs are intentionally designed to have a strong linkage between academic content and service activities. It is known that students do not automatically learn from engaging in service-learning activities. Instead, how and what students learn depends on the quality of their learning experiences ( Ngai et al., 2018 ). Other research has highlighted the importance of the learning experience ( Billig, 2007 ; Taylor and Mark Pancer, 2007 ; Chan et al., 2019 ), and showed that they are positively correlated with the learning outcomes ( Eyler and Giles, 1999 ; Joo et al., 2015 ).

Results of the path analyses showed that the both the pedagogical and project design aspects of the learning experience have similar direct effects and total effects on the cognitive learning outcome, as well as an indirect effect on the outcome through motivation. These findings were consistent with prior studies ( Liem and Chua, 2013 ; Li et al., 2016 ; Lo et al., 2019 ) and illustrate the causal relationship between learning experiences, motivations and learning outcomes, which demonstrated the cognitive processes of learning. The standardized beta coefficients further show that the magnitude of the indirect effect was slightly larger than the direct effect, suggesting that the larger impact from the learning experiences is via motivation as a mediating factor.

These findings have implications on service-learning practice. One of the differences between academic service-learning and traditional classroom learning is that in service-learning, students need to step outside the classroom and conduct a project to meet identified community needs in real life. Some service projects are delinked from the course material. Sometimes, students are sent out to do piece-meal service or charity work without preparation. Some service projects are over-conceptualized or over-abstracted, for example, having students work primarily on data analysis or reporting. Service-learning teachers should note that both pedagogical and project experiences are equally important. Students needed to understand and relate to the community and individuals they serve, including their needs and their challenges, and to build relationship and empathy with them. Students need also to be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills for designing and implementing the service, which needs to meet genuine identified needs of the community. Only then do they learn. For example, if students are tackling a challenging project, but they perceive the values and benefits of the services and are well prepared and supported by teachers, and feel connected to and appreciated by the community, they are more likely to recognize the importance of their efforts (value component) and believe that they have the ability to complete the project (expectancy component). This strengthens their engagement and thus they are better able to reflect on their experience and performance. This process positively affects their understanding of the academic content, and therefore, increases their ability to apply knowledge and skills to tackle social issues in real-life service settings.

We study the causal relationship between learning experiences, students’ motivation, and the cognitive learning outcome in academic service-learning. Decades of research have demonstrated the positive impacts of service-learning on students’ learning, but there has been limited efforts on studying the process and understanding the intermediate factors. Our findings highlight the fact that learning experiences and motivation are key determining factors toward the learning outcome. Motivation in particular is dependent upon the learning experiences, which have not only a direct effect on the outcomes but also indirect influence through motivation as a mediating factor. By applying the expectancy-value theory, this study makes a unique contribution to understanding students’ learning behaviors in academic service-learning. Results show that positive learning experiences can increase the level of expectancy for success and increase the personal value of the project. These can enhance the students’ motivation and engagement in the learning activities, and finally, promote the development of academic learning outcomes.

There are some implications for teachers and practitioners of service-learning. First, students’ motivation can and does change. Second, the learning experience has a strong impact on students’ motivation. Hence, effort should be paid to designing the service project and pedagogical elements. In terms of project design, students need to be intentionally educated, via interactions with service recipients and other means of observing or evaluating the impact brought about by their project, the contribution and value of their project to the community. It is also important to expand students’ boundaries with challenging service activities that allow a certain level of autonomy. For example, students conducting public health tests can be tasked with studying the income level and dietary availabilities within the community, and to design some healthy eating menus to share with their community recipients in addition to going through the standardized health test protocol. This challenges students to consolidate and apply their knowledge and allows them some degree of self-directing the design of the projects. In terms of the pedagogical features, teachers and practitioners need to schedule regular – and structured – reflection activities, and make space for good quality interactions with students and ensure that they receive help and support when needed.

It should be stressed that the subjective task-value and expectancy of success are important factors and should be treated with respect. Educators should intentionally design classroom or project activities to highlight these aspects, such as guiding students to reflect on what service-learning and positive citizenship means to them, and how their efforts can contribute to the lives of the underserved in community. These can increase students’ efforts, attention, and persistence in service-learning tasks, which eventually improves their motivation, which can bring positive effects to the learning outcome.

Limitations and Future Studies

This study has applied expectancy-value theory in understanding the effect of students’ motivation and learning experiences in academic service-learning and shed light on the role of expectancy and value beliefs in the learning outcomes. However, several potential limitations need to be considered when interpreting findings. They also provide directions for future research.

First, the data analyzed in this study were mainly derived from self-report surveys. Although the use of the self-report method may affect the strength of inter-factor relationships examined in this study, we minimize this potential method bias by applying the structural equation analytic technique with a large sample size that purges the measurement of its errors. In future research, additional data sources should be utilized, such as observation from teachers and structured reflective essays, and using different methodological paradigms such as structured interviews or observation. Second, all the data came from one single university in Hong Kong, and the students were enrolled in credit-bearing service-learning subjects within the same curricular framework. The cross-sectional nature of the study is also a limitation. Hence, generalizability of the findings should be viewed with caution. Additionally, after showing that learning experiences are significant predictors to motivation, it would be helpful to understand what particular learning experiences have a larger effect on motivation, and whether there are other factors that influence it. Therefore, a future research direction might expand the dimensions of learning experiences to look for causal relationships with students’ motivation. We will also consider other potential variables, such as student demographic data, learning style, personality, or service nature, to enrich our model.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Human Subjects Ethics Sub-Committee, Research and Innovation Office (RIO) The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

KL performed the data collection, statistical analysis, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the conception and design of the study and manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

This project was partially financially supported by Grant 15600219 from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.825902/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords : motivation, learning outcome, learning experience, service-learning, SEM

Citation: Lo KWK, Ngai G, Chan SCF and Kwan K-p (2022) How Students’ Motivation and Learning Experience Affect Their Service-Learning Outcomes: A Structural Equation Modeling Analysis. Front. Psychol. 13:825902. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.825902

Received: 30 November 2021; Accepted: 08 March 2022; Published: 18 April 2022.

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Copyright © 2022 Lo, Ngai, Chan and Kwan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Kenneth W. K. Lo, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Student Academic Performance: The Role of Motivation, Strategies, and Perceived Factors Hindering Liberian Junior and Senior High School Students Learning

Corresponding Author

Charles Gbollie

• [email protected]
• orcid.org/0000-0003-1249-2914

Foundation for Research, Education and Empowerment (FREE) Liberia, Monrovia, Liberia

Harriett Pearl Keamu

The nature of motivation and learning strategy use is vital to improving student learning outcomes. This study was intended to explore the motivational beliefs and learning strategy use by Liberian junior and senior high school students in connection with their academic performance. It also solicited students’ self-reports about presumed factors hindering their learning. Utilizing a cross-sectional quantitative research design, 323 participants took part in the study from 2 counties. Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was adapted and 12 potential learning hindrances were identified and used as instruments. Data analyses were conducted using SPSS 17.0. The results showed the motivational belief component of extrinsic goal orientation as the most preferred belief and test anxiety was the least possessed belief. Rehearsal strategies were found to be the most frequently used, while help seeking was reported to be the least strategy considered. The result also showed significant relationships between the two constructs. In addition, the study found some learning hindrances. A number of conclusions as well as some practical recommendations for action relative to the improvement of student performance have been advanced.

1. Introduction

Liberia’s education sector is undergoing reform. The sector, like many others, was seriously affected as a result of years of civil unrests, resulting in the destruction of learning facilities and lack of qualified teachers as well as libraries and laboratories to promote smooth teaching and learning in Liberia. In addition, the issues of access, quality, governance, and management need to be enhanced for better educational service delivery for improved student learning outcomes. Consequently, the Government of Liberia (GoL) through the Ministry of Education (MoE), partners and donors, have been tackling Liberia’s educational challenges for more than a decade now under the current political sphere. For instance, the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) in 2010 awarded a US$40 million dollar grant to support Liberia in implementing its education sector plan [ 1 ]. The grant provided resources for strengthening the management capacity and accountability in the education sector. Under the grant 189 classrooms were built or rehabilitated; more than one million textbooks and 20,000 teachers’ guides distributed to 2,489 schools, approximately 1 million supplementary reading books, 1.4 million supplementary pieces of instructional materials procured, and school grants disbursed to 2,579 schools following their reopening after the Ebola crisis [ 1 ]. The funding phased out in June, 2016. Partner organizations like USAID, UNICEF, OSIWA, EU, Save the Children, and Plan International, among others, have also invested and continue to invest millions into different programs in the sector including teacher training and provision of teaching and learning materials.

As a responsibility bearer to educate its citizens, the Liberian government on an annual basis gives budgetary support to the Ministry of Education to run the education sector. This is in support of GoL’s constitutional obligation to provide all Liberians equal access to educational opportunities and facilities to ensure the social, economic, and political wellbeing of Liberia [ 2 ]. Accordingly, the Liberian Education Law requires for Basic Education of the country, which comprises grades 1–9, to be free and compulsory [ 3 ], though the compulsion part is not being fully implemented due to limited access to learning facilities, among other constraints. In compliance with Global Standards, Liberia Ministry of Education is working with its partners and relevant stakeholders to align the Sustainable Development Goal 4, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, with the Ministry’s Getting to Best Strategies and Education Sector Plan. This further justifies the need for government and partners to continue their support to the sector.

Emphatically, the support being provided by the Liberian government and donors has triggered some achievements including the provision of textbooks, learning materials, teachers’ guides, the construction and renovation of schools, and education facilities around the country and the successful implementation of capacity development programs targeting school administrators, teachers, and Parent-Teacher Associations [ 4 ]. Despite educational inputs provided to date, the overall academic performance of Liberian students has not been impressive. This is indicative of the incessant drops in the passing marks of 9th and 12th graders in the regional exams, administered by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) Liberia office [ 5 , 6 ]. In 2013, no candidate passed in the division one category, and of a total of 27,651 candidates who sat May/June, 2014, senior high school certificate exams only 13,349 or 48.26% pass, respectively [ 5 ]. For 2016, 22,671 out of 46,927 students who registered for the exams failed, which constitutes nearly half (48.46%) of the total number of students registered [ 6 ]. At junior high level, a total of 30,824 students made a successful pass out of the 49,771 that sat for the exams [ 6 ].

As a consequence of the deteriorating student performance, the education sector has received serious backlashes from a cross-section of Liberians including President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who had called for its total overhaul, stressing the need for concerted efforts to address the situation. As an affirmation, Liberian education sector stakeholders at 2015 Joint Education Sector Review (JESR) in Grand Bassa County (one of Liberia’s 15 counties) acknowledged the predicament and carved a joint resolution, declaring Liberia’s education as a state of national emergency. In their wisdom, extraordinary actions were needed to redeem the sector, reemphasizing the necessity for collectivism to mend the sector. In an apparent response, the Liberian Ministry of Education has set out a number of priorities in this direction; the most paramount among them relates to dealing with underperformance of students by endeavouring to enhance students learning outcomes [ 4 ]. However, there is no proven tested model that guarantees that the implementation of the priorities would fully yield the much anticipated improved learning outcomes as they are not empirically driven.

With the numerous inputs invested in Liberia’s education up to this point, many Liberians had envisaged substantial improvement in student learning outcomes. On the contrary, this has not materialized. Therefore, this necessitates taking a deeper step forward through empirical means, which may lead to a paradigm shift from the conventional approach of making interventions to evidence-based programming that would rekindle the required holistic positive change the sector continues to desperately yearn for.

Since students are at the core of learning process, a study tailored to their motivations and strategies and factors hindering their learning is imperative as students themselves play pivotal roles in shifting their own learning and acquiring enhanced academic achievement. Accordingly, Pintrich [ 7 ] acknowledged that research on student motivation is central to research in learning and teaching settings. Pintrich et al. [ 8 ] have demonstrated that positive motivational beliefs positively related to higher levels of self-regulated learning. This study is critical because it delves into Liberian students’ motivations and strategies as well as factors hampering their learning. Cognizant of this, Zimmerman [ 9 ] stresses that there is a growing pedagogical need to comprehend how students develop the capability and motivation to regulate their own learning. Zimmerman believes that when students monitor their responding and attribute outcomes to their strategies, their learning becomes self-regulated, and they exhibit increased self-efficacy, greater intrinsic motivation, and higher academic achievement. Gasco et al. [ 10 ] noted that motivation plays an important role in learning because it greatly explains academic performance. Students are supposedly capable of instigating, modifying, and sustaining information. Further, research showed that students’ motivations and strategy use have some impact on student performance [ 11 ]. According to Schunk [ 12 ], Pintrich thinks students must monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and behavior as part of self-regulated learning. According to Pintrich [ 7 ], Zimmerman has revealed that students who are self-regulating, who set goals or plans, and who try to monitor and control their own cognition, motivation, and behavior predicated upon these goals are more likely to do much better in school.

Motivation is a fundamental recipe for academic success. It involves internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to job, role, or subject, or to make an effort to attain a goal. Dornyei [ 13 ] argued that motivation explains why people decide to do something, how hard they are going to pursue it, and how long they are willing to sustain the activity. In order words, “motivation is what gets you going, keeps you going, and determines where you’re trying to go” [ 14 , p-317]. Alderman [ 15 ] indicates that those students who have optimum motivation have an edge because they have adaptive attitudes and strategies, such as maintaining intrinsic interest, goal setting, and self-monitoring. Besides, motivational variables interact with cognitive, behavioral, and contextual factors to upset self-regulation [ 16 ].

Furthermore, motivational beliefs are very essential to the academic achievement of students because they help to determine the extent to which students will consider, value, put in effort, and show interest in the task [ 17 – 19 ]. For example, self-efficacy influences how learners feel, think, motivate themselves, and behave [ 17 ]. This has been manifested by research, indicating students’ problem solving performance significantly relates to their self-efficacy beliefs [ 20 ]. According to Zimmerman [ 21 ], Collins found highly efficacious students to be quickly capable of rejecting faulty strategies, solving more problems, and reworking more previously difficult problems than their less efficacious counterparts. Further, Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons [ 22 ] noted that students who displayed greater perceptions of efficacy and used learning strategies progress well in school. Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons added that students’ belief about their academic efficacy can provide an essential window for understanding individual differences in learning and motivation. The general expectancy-value model of motivation characterizes motivation into three components: value components that include goal orientation and task value; expectancy components that include self-efficacy and control beliefs; and the effective construct of test anxiety [ 18 ], all of which are considered in this study.

On the other hand, learning strategies have to do with steps taken by students to enhance their learning competencies. In the words of Zimmerman [ 21 ], self-regulated learning strategies are actions and processes directed at acquiring information or skill that involve agency, purpose, and instrumentality perceptions by learners. Some learning strategy uses include rehearsal, organization, critical thinking, time and study environment management, effort regulation, peer learning, and help seeking [ 23 ]. There is a growing evidence about the importance of these strategies due to their bearings on academic performance [ 21 ]. This is because research shows that students who use cognitive strategies such as elaboration and organization engage the contents at deeper level and are likely to remember information and retrieve it later [ 8 ]. In a study of 404 college students, Al Khatib [ 11 ] found that four of the independent variables (intrinsic goal orientation, self-efficacy, test anxiety, and meta-cognitive self-regulated learning) are significant predictors of college students’ performance. On the other hand, students who report higher level of test anxiety were less likely to be self-regulating [ 8 ].

Cognizant of the fact that these concepts (students’ motivations and learning strategies) are teachable, this study was very beneficial because it established Liberian junior and senior school students motivational beliefs and learning strategy use to learn various subjects. It also identified potential hindrances to students learning and proffered suggestions for enhanced academic performance in Liberia. It is foreseen that this research findings would provide better and clearer comprehensibility of Liberian students’ motivation and use of learning strategies to help students, administrators, and policymakers improve teaching and learning through the development or alignment of policies and programs in the interest of nation building.

What motivational beliefs are held by Liberian junior and senior high school students to learn?

Which strategies do Liberian students prefer in their quest to learn?

Does there exist relationship between students’ motivations and strategy use?

What factors do Liberian students think are hindering their learning?

Hypothesis. From the literature reviewed, we can generally hypothesize that the types of motivations and strategy use are responsible for the decline in Liberian students’ academic performance, particularly for takers of WAEC exams. Our specific hypotheses include the following.

R.Q.1. Liberian junior and senior high school students were less self-efficacious and would be extrinsically motivated to learn.

R.Q.2. Students preferred rehearsal and organization strategies most, while critical thinking and effort regulation were least preferred strategies.

R.Q.3. Students’ motivational belief components showed relationship with strategy use components in learning expedition.

R.Q.4. Poor learning facilities and social media will be the most reported challenges hindering students learning, while worrying about life challenges and distance to and from school are the least factors hampering students learning.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. participants.

Utilizing a cross-sectional quantitative research design, 323 participants took part in this study. Of the population, 162 were male and 161 female. They were drawn from eight public schools, comprising 182 (56.3%), and 7 private schools with 141 (41.3%) participants from Montserrado and Margibi counties. The schools were selected in consideration with different characteristics of students enrolled. Participants were randomly selected with the participation of exclusively grades 8–12, at most 10 students per class. On purpose, majority of the participants (86.7%) were 9, 10, and 11 grade students between ages 13 to 24 years and above in consideration with their reading comprehension to meticulously and objectively respond to research questions, and time left before they complete high school.

2.2. Research Instruments

The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) [ 23 ], which seems to represent a useful, reliable, and valid means for assessing students’ motivation and the use of learning strategies [ 24 ], was adapted and used to establish the motivational component (22 items) and strategy use component (30 items), each using a 7-point scale anchored by “not at all true of me” (1) and “very true of me” (7) . Scale scores were obtained by computing the average of the item scores within a scale. The internal consistency reliability coefficients for the whole and subdimensions scale range from .55 to .92. Besides, 12 widely presumed issues were punctiliously identified which could possibly hamper students learning. Participants were required to rank on the scale of 1 to 12 in order of effect on their schooling, what is/are hampering them the most—1 means very serious effect and 12 not very serious effect.

2.3. Research Procedure

Liberian junior and senior high school students were allowed to participate in the study before the climax of 2nd semester of academic 2015/2016 which made it nearly full academic year. By this time, it was expected that they possessed some motivational beliefs as well as using strategies aimed at enabling them to possibly progress to the next grade level or fail. At this time, they could scrupulously report on factors that impeded their learning. Consultations were made at national and school levels. The Ministry of Education was consulted on the rationale and purpose of the study; the Ministry indorsed the study and provided a letter of authorization, seeking school authorities’ cooperation. The school administrators and teachers were consulted by FREE Liberia , informing them about the purpose of the study and soliciting their acquiescence to allow their students to participate in the research. Students’ participation was completely voluntary even though they were assured of the highest degree of confidentiality.

The questionnaire contains clearly written questions on motivational beliefs, learning strategy use, and factors hampering their learning. Data collectors (staff of FREE Liberia) were trained on basic ethics of research and data collection techniques to enhance their skills to perform the task effectively. The questionnaire was pretested. Participants completed the questionnaire within 20 to 30 minutes.

2.4. Data Analysis

To analyze the data, a number of statistical techniques were employed. As it relates to the motivational beliefs and learning strategies of participants, one-way repeated-measures ANOVA was used. Independent samples t -test was used to examine if gender differences existed, while correlation analysis was considered to determine the relationship between students’ motivational beliefs and learning strategy use. This part of the analyses was conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS), version 17.0. The factors hindering students’ learning were analyzed based on frequency of reports by respondents.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. results, 3.1.1. motivational beliefs of liberian students for learning.

The means and standard deviations of each of the components were found. Table 1 presents descriptive statistical results on the coefficient alphas, means, and standard deviations of each belief component. Extrinsic goal orientation got the highest mean (M = 5.81, SD = 1.42) and Test Anxiety (M = 4.21, SD = 1.55) obtained the least mean.

3.1.2. Learning Strategies of Liberian Students

Descriptive statistics indicating the means and standard deviations were run, which showed mean differences. Rehearsal strategies have the highest mean (M = 3.84, SD = .85) and affective strategies obtained the lowest mean (M = 3.10, SD = .64). At this point, making straightforward generalized statements about these mean differences seems unrealistic. This is because it remains unclear as to whether the differences reached statistical significance. On this basis, one-way repeated-measures ANOVA was introduced, which confirmed that the strategy components differ significantly as [ F (6,191) = 52.245, p > 0.001]. Table 2 presents detailed results of coefficient alphas, means, standard deviations, and the pairwise comparisons of various strategy components.

• Note . α is the mean differences between two means;   ∗∗∗ p < 0.001;   ∗∗ p < 0.01.
• T & S Env. Mgmt means time and study environment management.

From Table 2 results, it must be noted that, at the point of significance level, the component with the higher mean, for instance, rehearsal strategies and effort regulation strategies , the significance was in favor of rehearsal strategies . In addition, it can be clearly pointed out that rehearsal strategies were preferred over effort regulation strategies by participants of the study and this was statistically significant. The significance of the main preferred strategy use (rehearsal) cut across all the components investigated in this study.

The results also pointed out that organization strategies are the second most favored strategies by participants and they have significant mean differences with all other components, except critical thinking strategies (M = 3.69, SD = .61), and organization strategies (M = 3.70, SD = .79), p = −0.004, and peer learning strategies (M = 3.68, SD = .91) and organization strategies (M = 3.70, SD = .79), p = 0.023.

3.1.3. Relationship between Students’ Motivational Beliefs and Learning Strategy Use

Results from the correlation analysis confirmed the existence of both positive relationship (i.e., as one variable increases in value, the other increases also) and negative relationship (i.e., one variable increases in value, the other decreases). Table 3 presents SPSS output on the correlational relationships between motivational beliefs and learning strategy use by Liberian students.

• Note .   ∗∗∗ p < 0.001;   ∗∗ p < 0.01;   ∗ p < 0.05.

From Table 3 , the most reported motivational belief positively correlated significantly with organization, effort regulation , and help seeking strategies but correlated negatively with peer learning strategies of Liberian junior and senior high school students. Intrinsic goal orientation and self-efficacy for learning and performance were all positively correlated with organization, critical thinking, time and study environment management, and peer learning and help seeking strategies . On the other hand, test anxiety negatively correlated with rehearsal, organization, critical thinking time, and study environment management and peer learning , but it was only statistically significant with effort regulation and help seeking strategies .

3.1.4. Gender Differences for Motivational Beliefs and Learning Strategy Use

Table 4 displays descriptive and independent samples t -test statistical results of participants’ motivational beliefs and learning strategy use in relation to their gender. Female participants obtained higher means for extrinsic goal orientation and rehearsal , the most preferred motivational belief and strategy use in this study, respectively. However, there were slight mean differences for both genders in other beliefs and strategies.

• Note .   ∗∗∗ p < 0.001;   ∗ p < 0.05.

As it can be noticed from Table 4 , female participants reported greater extrinsic, control for learning beliefs, self-efficacy, and test anxiety motivational beliefs . Male students had higher mean differences in intrinsic goal orientation and task value . However, the differences did not reach significance for all motivational belief components.

For strategy use, the descriptive statistics on the mean differences showed slight variations in various strategy use. Unlike motivations, two strategy use components showed statistically significant differences, female participants getting the higher mean for the effort regulation strategies (mean = 3.40, SD = .74) than their male counterparts (mean = 3.02, SD = .90) t (323) = −4.445, p (2-tailed) = 0.001, and with male participants getting higher mean on peer learning (mean = 3.79, SD = .95) than their female counterparts (mean = 3.58, SD = .86) t (323) = 2.064, p (2-tailed) = 0.040.

3.1.5. Learning Hindrances of Students

To further deepen our understanding of Liberian junior and senior high school students apart from their motivational beliefs and learning strategy use, this study sought to generate students’ self-reports about factors hindering their learning. From a list of 12 potential factors, students were required to choose, in order of effect, perceived learning hindrances. Results from frequency analyses showed worrying about life challenges (poverty) with 57.9% and access to school (distance to and from school) with 48.9% as the most critical factors affecting students learning. The least reported were peer pressure (going out friends) and video clubs/games with little over 17%. Figure 1 presents the reported hindrances to learning by Liberian junior and senior high school students.

3.1.6. Gender versus Learning Hindrances

When gender was plotted as a variable relative to these hindrances, female students reported higher effect on their learning for most of the factors in comparison with their male counterparts. Table 5 shows descriptive and independent samples t -test statistical results of participants in line with gender.

From Table 5 , female students showed significant differences for worrying about life challenges (poverty) (female: mean = 2.02, SD = .98 and male: mean = 1.52, SD = .86) t (323) = −4.831, p (2-tailed) = 0.001. Additionally, it portrayed significant differences for selling/hustling for daily bread, poor learning environments, none academic related punishments, and distance to and from school in favor of females, indicating that the problems have more adverse effects on their learning as compared to males. However, there was statistically significant difference when it comes to games (phone, computer, and PlayStations) as follows: male (mean = 2.57, SD = .80) and female (mean = 2.18, SD = .99) t (323) = 3.78, p (2-tailed) = 0.001.

3.2. Discussion

Academic performance of Liberian students has not been satisfactory to many for nearly a decade now. A sizable number of education stakeholders believes inputs in the sector do not commensurate with student attainment in regional exams. Though their judgement might tend to be subjective and relies exclusively on 9th and 12 graders performance in the WAEC exams, it seems apparently logical. As an old age yardstick for assessing students’ performance in Liberia, unremitting falloffs despite increased number of trained teachers with better incentive, built or renovated learning facilities, update-to-date textbooks, and so on in comparison with those of early 2000s are a matter of serious concern. Even though several challenges remain visible in Liberia’s education sector, which might still be hampering quality education delivery, much has not been done to delve empirically into underlining factors for the downward trend in Liberian students’ academic performance level. FREE Liberia sought to commence a process by understanding the nature of motivation and use of learning strategies to help students, administrators, and policymakers improve learning. As Gasco et al. [ 10 ] propounded motivation plays a key role in learning; it largely explains academic performance as it is a construct that integrates both thoughts and feelings. Additionally, the study solicited Liberian junior and senior high school students self-reports regarding factors hindering their learning to inform policy-making and evidence-based programing.

Capitalizing on the decline of students’ performance, the study anticipated that Liberian junior and senior high school students would be less self-efficacious and would utilize more rehearsal and organization strategies. They were also hypothesized to show limited use of critical thinking and effort regulation strategies. Further, students’ motivational belief components were expected to show relationship with strategy use components as well as gender differences in both constructs. Finally, this research projected several factors deeply hampering students’ chances to do well in their academics. The findings of this study, no doubt, provide salient insights into the motivation and strategy use of Liberian students as well as factors hindering their learning and their implications for better student learning outcomes.

The anticipated low self-efficacy for learning and performance hypothesized in this study was confirmed, which was our first aim. Students are found to be more extrinsically motivated, even though they value tasks. This signifies that Liberian students’ quest to acquire education is being influenced by external forces. In other words, it can be explained that their devotion to learning different subjects is because of their desires for rewards and fear of penalty from teachers and parents, and not based on their inner aspirations. This result is inconsistent with a study by Marcou and Philippou [ 20 ] who found self-efficacy for learning and performance as the most significant belief for learners.

Possibly, the high extrinsic motivation of students is triggered by their conception of education. Going to school might be viewed as a matter of satisfying parents and avoiding negative chastisements from the community. In some instances, parents are constrained to compel compliance for the younger ones to go to school, giving them negative impression that learning is meant to satisfy them. Even though this is done in good faith, it is not enough to guarantee students’ success. Total involvement of parents is highly necessary. This study posits that there is disconnection between parents quest for their children to attain quality education and their corresponding involvement into children academics, which could be attributed to high illiteracy rate and purported busy schedules of educated parents. Many parents are not fully involved in their children’s learning and see it as a responsibility of the school. This is evident through their nonparticipation in some parent-teacher association activities including meetings. Another factor for students reporting more extrinsic motivation could be as a result of high emphasis being placed on grades. Teachers often consider results from quizzes and tests as the only criterion for judging students’ mastery of contents and their abilities to perform better in academic and nonacademic environments. Consequently, students are more interested in getting better test scores because they consider these scores to be the best rewards and a show of academic fulfilment, which in the long run adversely affects their disposition to perform well. As noted by Pintrich [ 7 ], Bandura advises students to believe that they are able and that they can and will do well in order to have better changes of remaining motivated in terms of effort, persistence, and behavior. Thus, quality teachers are critical in shifting students learning in a better direction [ 25 ] and they need to consider learners’ motivation and cognition [ 8 ].

Despite high extrinsic motivation displayed, participants showed seemingly high task value and low test anxiety, which are healthy for improved learning outcomes. This means, Liberian students current performance is not as despicable as it may be perceived because they used a variety of motivational beliefs as well. Hence, there are good prospects and big room for improvement.

The second aim of this study was to determine the strategy use by Liberian junior and senior high school students. As hypothesized, students preferred rehearsal and organization strategies. Meaning, participants are mostly interested in repeating the words over and over to themselves to help in the recall of information (rehearsal) [ 26 ] and they make much effort to organize learning, for instance, outlining and creating tables, which fall in the category of cognitive learning strategies [ 23 ]. This finding is consistent with the extrinsic motivation of students displayed because they tend to memorize notes to pass exams. In addition to the extrapolations, wide use of rehearsal strategies might be influenced by teaching strategies employed in the classrooms. If teachers are not adequately contextualizing and simplifying complex information from abstract to concrete, students may resolve to memorizing and reproducing during exams. On the other hand, this study also finds students help seeking strategies to be the least utilized as they insignificantly report seeking help from peers or instructors when needed, not focusing much on the use of others in learning. Such thing might be hampering their chances of progressing deeply in their learning pursuits as it is necessary ingredient for academic success. Accordingly, students must be motivated to muster courage to solicit assistance whenever necessary.

Moreover, the relationship between motivation and strategy use by participants was confirmed with both positive and negative correlations (see Table 4 ), indicating how vital motivation is to the kind of strategies used by learners. This is supportive of exposition that the presence of motivation prompts the use of different types of strategies by learners [ 27 ]. This finding is overwhelmingly supported by a number of previous studies [ 27 – 29 ] and increases our comprehensibility of motivational beliefs and strategy use. Based on the way motivational beliefs influence or show relationship with strategy use in this research, coupled with the available literature, it is argued that motivational beliefs and strategy use are “inseparable academic twins.” In this context, the two constructs cannot be separated or one completely goes without the other as students get involved in academic rituals. Motivation can be equated to being a bridge, and strategy use entails walking on the bridge. Therefore, motivation and strategy use relationship must be considered by teachers and school administrators and actions must be employed to suit them. Because when the motivation of students is detrimentally affected, it would have reciprocal effect on students and their learning outcomes.

Relative to gender roles, female participants reported greater extrinsic, control for learning beliefs, self-efficacy, and test anxiety, while male participants had edge when it comes to intrinsic goal orientation and task value. But these differences are infinitesimal as they failed to reach statistical significance for all motivational belief components. We can postulate that motivational beliefs are not ultimately determined by gender. However, this contravenes previous studies that male and female students have significant differences in test anxiety, self-efficacy, and self-regulated learning [ 10 , 11 ]. The trend of motivation was taken by strategy use, but with a slight difference as two strategy use components (effort regulation and peer learning) were statistically significant in juxtaposition with gender in favor of female participants. Accordingly, females exhibited persisting in the face of difficult or boring tasks (effort regulation) as well as appreciating more learning and using a study group or friends to help learn (peer learning) as compared to their male counterparts. This result is captivating and it is a testament of enormous efforts being put in by education stakeholders to promote enrolment, retention, and completion rates of females aimed at closing gender disparity in Liberia’s education sector.

One of the most fascinating findings of this study reveals worrying about life challenges (poverty) and access to school (distance to and from school) as the most perilous factors confronting Liberian junior and senior high school students’ learning. This rejects our hypothesis that poor learning facilities and harassment were going to top the list of learning hindrances. Although the finding seems puzzling, it obviously conforms to entrenched high rate of poverty among the Liberian populace. BTI [ 22 ] reports that over two-thirds of the population live in extreme poverty, defined as less than $USD 1.25 per day. This conceivably indicates that some students go to school hungry and without small cash for recess. Besides, some students have to cater for themselves, including paying some associated costs of education. The perceived uncertainty about the future might also be a source of reported worries by participants. Because of high harmful nature of worries (poverty) to academic performance, Capra [ 30 ] urged authorities to “treat poverty, a condition that erodes our future and impedes any attempts at educational reform.” According to Capra, eradicating poverty and improving education are inextricably connected. Hence, education must be blended with strengthening and giving of hope to students. Liberian parents, school administrators, policymakers, and partners must work out modalities to quench the level of divulged worries among students. Appertaining access (distance to and from school), the finding of this study is consistent with one of the challenges identified by the Ministry of Education to be impeding efforts to have every child in school, according to Gbollie et al. [ 31 ]. Although the study particularly concentrated on the urban areas of Montserrado and Margibi counties, access is still a challenge as disclosed by participants. Contrary to presupposition that peer pressure (going out with friends) and video clubs/games are somehow responsible for the underperformance of students, which resulted in some government restrictions, the study establishes that little over 17% of the participants think it is an issue (see Figure 1 ).

Since gender remains an important phenomenon in Liberia’s education sector, factors affecting students learning were examined in line with gender. Somewhat surprisingly, females reported that nine out of 12 factors have serious negative impact on their learning. This was even statistically significant for worrying about life challenges (poverty) and others (see Table 5 ), in comparison with male counterparts. Harassment in schools, which is said to be an issue, was among hindrances highly identified by females. Unexpectedly, harassment as a hindrance to learning did not reach significance level for both genders. It is assumed that this is because harassment in this study was treated generally, and it was not limited to sexual harassment, which could be experienced by male students as well. Cognizant of the fact these learning hindrances have more serious consequences for girls’ education, addressing these challenges would go a long way in increasing girls’ chances for enrolment, retention, and completion. For instance, addressing poor learning conditions, including ensuring good water and sanitation in schools, is strongly needed to heighten girls’ chances of staying in school.

4. Conclusion

Liberian junior and senior high school students possess various motivational beliefs in their quest to acquire education. But they are extrinsically motivated, focusing on rewards and penalties, despite valuing their tasks and being less anxious.

Rehearsal and organization strategies are of priority to students as they make strides to progress through the academic ladder of high school. Nevertheless, help seeking strategies for asking for assistance from peers or instructors when needed remain the least strategy component considered.

Liberian students with good level of motivational beliefs are capable of using numerous learning strategies. This is, however, contingent on the sort of beliefs they hold. Learners with greater amount of beliefs such as extrinsic and task value are more likely to use strategies including rehearsal and organization.

Being a male or a female does not give any Liberian junior or senior high school student outright advantage. Both males and females can possess different types of beliefs and strategies for learning. Such equitability does augur well towards curbing gender disparity, especially at senior high school level in Liberia.

In spite of efforts being made, students are confronted with serious challenges that might be affecting their academic achievement levels. Students are worried about life challenges (poverty) and future uncertainties. Getting to and from school remains a paramount challenge. Contrary to presumptions, peer pressure (going out with friends) and video clubs/games have less significant effect on students’ learning.

Learning hindrances are having more negative blunts on female students. Alleviating these challenges including poor learning facilities would foster increased girls’ enrolment, retention, and completion rates in the Liberian school system.

Based on the significant role of motivation recognized in this study, teachers need to focus keen attention on motivating their students to promote their self-efficacies, always urging students to believe in their abilities to do well, and they (teachers) must also believe in their students. They must also ensure that students learn to ask for assistance whenever necessary. The implication is that if learners are not motivated to enable them to believe in themselves and ask for help, it could affect their dispositions for lifelong learning and their capacities to succeed in various difficult life situations.

Teachers must be trained to integrate the essence of motivational beliefs and the need for students to use all kinds of strategies during instructions. In addition, teachers should assist their students to clearly understand the need for them to build up beliefs like task value, self-efficacy for learning and performance, intrinsic goal orientation, and control for learning beliefs as well as use of critical thinking, effort regulation, and peer and help seeking strategies to enhance their learning process. For instance, teachers can promote students’ task value for lessons by stressing the value of education to students’ future.

Student evaluation must be meticulous and holistic. Emphasis must not only be placed on grades or rewards as the surest way to academic success, but it must also consider other skills and talents of students. Pupils must be repeatedly reminded to learn for their own good and the good of the society; hence, there is no need for bribery and other academic malpractice to get higher scores. Abolition of fire list in schools is recommended.

Liberian government through the Ministry of Education and partners must intensify efforts to alleviate various problems confronting students including worries about life challenges (poverty), access, poor learning facilities, and harassment in schools. Recreational, school feeding, transportation, continual improvement of schools, and stringent measures against harassment must be assertively supported.

Government through the Ministry of Education should make efforts to train and employ more school counsellors and psychologists to motivate, guide, and mentor students to remain focused and purposeful in their academic pursuits.

Parents must desist from using children as breadwinners; National Government is recommended to compel compliance. Besides, parents must limit workloads given to school going age children and provide sufficient time for them to study their lessons. Effort must be made by both educated and uneducated parents to make time to support their children’s learning at home.

There is a glaring need for the Liberian government (Ministry of Education) and partners to undertake or fund systematic research projects (research commissions) to promote better understanding of Liberia’s education challenges and prospects. Not-for-profit Liberian research institutions like FREE Liberia, higher education entities, and scholars should be supported morally or financially to routinely conduct empirical research projects in the country and disseminate findings thereof.

Interventions in the education sector must be backed by empirical evidence to enhance possibilities of programs success. Policy-making and programs must be informed by these research findings, and not by mere intuitions or presuppositions.

Finally, despite budgetary constraints, the Liberian government must annually endeavour to augment its education budget to enable the Ministry of Education to transcend from just paying education staff at central and decentralized levels to funding meaningful education programs that stimulate quality teaching and learning in schools.

4.1. Limitations and Future Research

Since this study only focused on Liberian junior and senior high school students from two counties (Montserrado and Margibi), results cannot be generalized to other counties. Similar further study is recommended, taking into consideration students from a number of counties with increased sample size preferably focusing on the most vulnerable counties in Southeastern Liberia. Furthermore, this research did not consider all strategy use components by students. There is a need for a study that considers all strategies including metacognitive strategies. Furthermore, this study was unable to get test/exam scores of participants in order to correlate their self-reports with their academic achievements. This could have led to making more generalized and conclusive statements about beliefs and strategies in relation to academic performance of Liberian students. Therefore, future study must consider such combination of both students self-reports and their academic achievements.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors hereby wish to declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Acknowledgments

This research project was funded by the Foundation for Research, Education and Empowerment (FREE), Liberia, in support of quality education in Liberia. FREE Liberia is a registered and duly accredited not-for-profit NGO aimed at improving lives through quality research, education, and empowerment. The authors’ sincere thanks and appreciation are due to FREE Liberia’s Board members, especially Dr. Michael P. Slawon, Atty. Ramses T. Kumbuyah, and Dr. Rosemarie Terez-Santos, and staff of the organization including Coretta Kialen, Joseph Bernard, M. Freeman Dorker, Mulbah Saywala, David Tagbailee, and Faith K. Kialen for their kind support of, dedication to, and commitment in making this initiative a resounding success . They are also grateful to Mr. Flemmings Fishani Ngwira and other colleagues for their inputs to the final product of this article.

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Teaching and Researching Motivation

Yongkang yuan.

1 School of Languages and Culture, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, China

Hongjie Zhen

2 Department of Maritime, Hebei Jiaotong Vocational & Technical College, Shijiazhuang, China

The third edition of Teaching and Researching Motivation offers newly-updated and extended coverage of motivation research and pedagogical practice. As in the 2001 and 2011 editions, the text provides comprehensive insights into motivation research and teaching. However, the current edition, as in the authors' words, is “not so much a revised version as a newly written book that has the same authors, the same title and the same structure as the previous one” (Dörnyei and Ushioda, 2021 , p. x). It reflects the dramatic changes in the field of motivation research and examines how theoretical insights can be used in everyday teaching practice.

The monograph comprises four parts. Part I, “What is Motivation?”, consists of four chapters. The first chapter pertains to the complex meaning of the term “motivation” and summarizes the key challenges of theorizing motivation. Appealing to us in this chapter is that the authors put a stronger emphasis on understanding motivation in relation to learning LOTEs (languages other than English) and in relation to individual multilingualism. It is altogether fitting and proper for them to hold this belief since the world is becoming more diversified in terms of multilingualism. Chapter 2 offers a historical overview of the most influential cognitive motivation theories. In the new edition, social cultural factors impacting students' motivation are elaborated in more detail. Chapter 3 presents a historical overview of theories of L2 motivation. Drawing on insights from L2 research and psychology, Dörnyei and Ushioda articulate nine interrelated conditions for the motivating capacity of future L2 self-image. With a focus on the L2 Motivation Self System theory, Chapter 4 also critically examines other new theoretical approaches emerged in the field of L2 motivation over the past decade. Finally, it highlights two new perspectives: a focus on L2 learner engagement and “small lens” approaches.

Part II, “Motivation and Language Teaching,” includes three chapters on issues related to the relation between motivation and language teaching. Chapter 5 explores the extent to which theoretical and research insights can lead to practical recommendations for motivating the students in and outside of the language classroom. Based on this principle, it presents instructive approaches to motivating language learners. It also eloquently holds that motivational self-regulation and learner autonomy are two potent energizers which will have a lasing impact beyond the classroom. Chapter 6, “Motivation in Context,” deals with the “dark side” of motivation, “demotivation.” It argues that focused interventions can have significant positive outcomes and help counteract demotivation and facilitate remotivation within second language acquisition (SLA). The last chapter in this part is of special interest as it explores the relationship between language teacher and learner motivation, highlighting possible self theory (exploring conceptual change in language teachers). As a Chinese idiom goes, teaching benefits teachers and students alike. The same is true of language teacher motivation. It argues that teachers' passion and enthusiasm facilitate their teaching and enhance students' learning; and vice versa.

Important and of significance is how to do research so that it can facilitate teaching. Part III, “Researching Motivation,” includes two chapters on issues related to primary, data-based motivation research. Chapter 8 covers the unique characteristics, challenges and research strategies that are specific to the empirical study of language learning motivation. An outstanding contribution of this chapter is that four insightful principles of designing L2 motivation studies are proposed. Followed up on an overview of the most useful methods in this field in the past, Chapter 9 examines two new research initiatives: adopting a complex dynamic system approach and researching unconscious motivation, which will hold particular promise for the future.

Part IV, “Resources and Further Information” is informative and inspiring. In Chapter 10, the authors judiciously remark that particular aspects and context of L2 learning as well as multilingual communication should be focused in the future after further elaborating the interdisciplinary nature and challenge of L2 motivation research. The last chapter contains lists of key sources and resources on motivation such as relevant journals and latest valuable collections, database, discussion groups, and networks. What is of particular value is key scholars of L2 language motivation research, as well as useful tools and measures for researching motivation.

This monograph is a thought-provoking book. Firstly, this new edition reflects the latest research advancement, providing the language teachers and researchers with insights into cultivating motivation. In terms of theoretical paradigm, the L2 Motivation Self System (L2MSS) introduces a holistic approach exploring the combined and interactive operation of a number of different factors in relation to L2 motivation rather than the traditional cause-effect relation between isolated variables. Two recent motivational paradigms originate in L2MSS: directed motivational currents and long-term motivation , focusing on not only what generates language learning motivation but also on what can sustain motivation long enough. In terms of research method, integration of quantitative and qualitative method (e.g., questionnaire + interview ) has almost become a new trend in the L2 motivation field.

Secondly, Dörnyei and Ushioda provide ideas for theoretical and empirical research by reviewing studies made by them and other researchers. Although a great deal of knowledge has been accumulated, Dörnyei and Ushioda particularly point out two under-explored topics: unconscious motivation and language learner engagement. They also recommend two cutting-edge approaches: “small lens” approaches (actual cognitive process in the mastery of an L2) and complex dynamic systems approach.

Lastly, it is a valuable guide for L2 teachers and researchers. Chapter 5 presents strategies and approaches to motivating language learners such as promoting student engagement and applying technology. Particularly, the up-to-date and rich selection of empirical studies in Chapter 9 are vivid illustration of the research methods, showing language teachers templates of doing research by teaching. The research interests of important scholars listed in Chapter 11 allow language teachers and researchers to follow the current significant research areas on L2 motivation.

Nevertheless, there are still some aspects for this book to be improved in the next edition. First, readers may hope to find a detailed discussion of the social cultural factors impacting teachers' motivation. Second, the key researchers listed in Chapter 11 are mainly in the English world. Had the authors included more key researchers in the non-English world, it would have been more insightful.

All in all, with this new edition, Dörnyei and Ushioda make a very important contribution to our radically new understanding of teaching and researching motivation. As a clear and comprehensive theory-driven account of motivation, this volume can be applied in many different ways. It can be used as a reference book for teachers and/or researchers to review and reflect on motivation teaching and research practice. In addition, it is also of significance in pre-service and in-service teacher education programme. Graduates in applied linguistics, education and psychology can gain plenty of insights from the research findings and additional information offered in this volume. Therefore, this volume is an invaluable resource for teachers and researchers alike.

Author Contributions

YY: drafts and revision. HZ: revision and supervision. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This opinion was supported by the Project of Teaching Reform at Tianjin University of Technology (Grant No: KG20-08).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• Dörnyei Z., Ushioda E. (2021). Teaching and Researching Motivation . London: Taylor and Francis. [ Google Scholar ]

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