Motivation as an Integrated, Complex, Dynamic System

• In Event: 25.024 - Synergies in Studies of Motivation and Learning: An Interactive Workshop

Abstract

Several decades of research highlight the benefits of various motivational beliefs (e.g., perceived competence, achievement goals, task value) in supporting students’ learning and engagement. Much of this research utilizes a variable-focused approach, examining how different forms of motivation uniquely and independently predict educational outcomes. In contrast, a person-oriented approach allows one to examine how motivational processes combine to shape academic engagement and achievement. Person-oriented approaches are especially promising in that they allow one to simultaneously consider variations in several motivational indicators to better understand the multiple ways that students utilize motivational resources to support engagement and achievement. Thus, we take an integrative, person-oriented approach to studying student motivation. Specifically, the approach (1) draws from multiple theoretical perspectives to operationalize motivation, and (2) utilizes person-oriented analyses to model how motivational components combine to shape learning and engagement. We argue that this approach is especially fruitful in terms of framing motivation as a complex, dynamic system and highlight the potential benefits of moving beyond traditional approaches to motivational research in an attempt to capture the complexity of motivation as it functions within individuals and within complex contexts.

Our work connects with several other papers in this session. We will make specific ties to the work in Chapter 23, which also utilizes a person-oriented approach for studying the complex ways in which students may endorse multiple achievement goals and how these patterns or profiles of goals relate to various outcomes. We also consider the implications of this approach for educational practice, connecting with recent work within expectancy-value theory that targets expectancies and/or values (see Chapter 24 as well as Chapter 25). In particular, we will consider the implications of our integrated, synergistic view of motivation for educational interventions that target a single dimension (utility value) versus multiple dimensions and the implications for studying motivation as a complex system. We will also make ties to the developmental approach for supporting interest development described in Chapter 13, which uses qualitative research to highlight the complexity of social supports for interest development.

Authors

• Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, Michigan State University

• Stephanie V. Wormington, University of Virginia