Motivation as Joint Accomplishment: Narrative and Content

• In Event: Rounding the Sociocultural Turn in Research on Classroom Motivation

Abstract

This paper we presents an account of student motivation as an interplay between narrative and mathematical engagement. We consider motivation in terms of student action in context; rather than focusing on student cognition, we highlight student participation as an indication of motivation (Gresalfi, 2009; Hickey, 2003; Nolen, Ward, & Horn, 2011; Turner & Patrick, 2008). Specifically, we operationalize motivation by considering student engagement— the ways that students talk about and work on a particular task. We conceptualize engagement as an interaction between the affordances of a task and students’ effectivities for realizing the affordances of that task. Affordances refer to the set of actions that are offered by a particular object; effectivities refer to an individual’s ability to realize those affordances (Gibson, 1979; Greeno, 1991). Thus, understanding what happens in a particular moment requires unpacking what was afforded and how those affordances were recognized and realized.

We share findings from a week-long implementation of a problem-based mathematics activity, set in the context of an online immersive videogame called Quest Atlantis. The unit was designed to parallel a well-researched mathematics unit from the Adventures of Jasper Woodbury called “Rescue at Boone’s Meadow.” Embedding this activity in the context of a videogame allowed for two key affordances: First, students were participants in the narrative such that they (the game-based version of themselves) became the protagonist whose job was to save an eagle who had been shot in a remote field. Second, students were able to experience the consequences of their decisions through the game (they were able to carry out their plan to save the eagle—and experience either its success or failure based on their mathematical work). In this way, the narrative of the experience was salient and inseparable from the mathematics required to solve the problem.

Methods of discourse analysis and emergent coding were used to analyze students’ conversations, focusing on conversations in a central space that was established as a discussion space to review rescue plans. This participation structure was designed by the teacher, and at some point all students settled in this central space. Our analysis considered not only the content of students’ conversation, but also attended to interactions between the affordances of the task (when students explicitly referenced a fact or experience from the narrative).

Findings reveal how contexts can push back on and enhance students’ disciplinary engagement as their narrative discussions create a shared space through which to interrogate the reasonableness of their mathematical reasoning. Over the breadth of our data, we saw this phenomena emerge in almost all groups, although the explicitness of students’ mathematical discussion varied from references to the need to revise their thinking to explicit discussions about the accuracy of mathematical thinking. The significance lies in both its theoretical and pragmatic contributions. Theoretically, this work contributes to an emerging reconceptualization of motivation as a measure of engaged participation. Pragmatically, this analysis contributes to our understanding of how particular aspects of task and activity design can contribute to students’ disciplinary engagement and understanding.

Authors

• Melissa Sommefeld Gresalfi, Vanderbilt University

• Jacqueline Barnes, Indiana University