Examining the Situated Nature of Academic Press in Middle School Small-Group Interactions

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

Abstract

Theoretical Framework. Motivational theorists have considered psychological features of the environment, including academic press, or the quality of demand, as contributing to motivated behavior (Blumenfeld, 1992). Press has been conceptualized as a student’s perception of teacher behavior and attitude or as the actions of the teacher on the student through instructional practices such as questioning, prompting and scaffolding.

Motivational constructs such as press can be viewed through sociocultural perspectives (Hickey, 2003; Nolen & Ward, 2008) in relation to activity instead of separate qualities of environment and individual. As such, demands are mutually constituted within a community of learners acting in service of common goals. When learners with variable expertise work together on a common goal, known as joint productive activity, a common experience of motivation and assistance may emerge (Tharp, 1993), allowing for academic achievement and problem solving among a community of learners (e.g., Petrosino, 1998, Rogoff, Turkanis & Bartlett, 2002).

Objective/purpose. By identifying episodes of JPA, we question how learners co-construct demands or press in the service of the goals of their activity.

Methods and data source. We collected videotape data of whole class and small group interactions during a four-month curriculum unit in a seventh grade social studies classroom. Data analysis merged methods from Tharp (2005) and Barab et al. (Barab, Barnett, & Yamagata-Lynch, 2002; Barab, Hay, & Yamagata-Lynch, 2001). We began analysis with the Activity Setting Observation System (Tharp, 2005) to isolate and transcribe episodes of joint productive activity, resulting in 12 focal episodes ranging from 0:1:19 to 0:37:56 in length. We then followed Barab et al.’s (2001) method of isolating and coding nodes, ranging from several words within one speech turn, to a multiparty exchange over several turns. Node boundaries were marked by identifying changes in an issue at hand, practices, participants, or artifacts. Inter-coder reliability on test transcripts was 82%.

Results. Our examination of episodes of joint productive activity led to conclusions about the situated nature of press within classroom activity. We observed press as participation in activity, including but not limited to individual acts or teacher-student interaction. Next, press occurred when students did not have agreement about the object of an activity. These dilemmas over object were related not only to academic content but also to social situations and to the tools that children use to solve problems.

Significance. Our study continues a conceptual shift from motivation as property of the individual to a situative view revealing how elements of learning activities, beyond teacher-student interaction, are constitutive of press. Primarily, press emerges as dilemmas about the agreement of the object of activity, a kind of interobjectivity (Matusov, 2001). Agency in promoting motivation is related not only to individual qualities or the interaction of a teacher with a student but also to processes of engagement with the objects and tools of historically formed activity. Although teachers and students may have different objects of activity in the classroom, the teacher may establish practical activities that allow for the achievement of greater common goals (Roth, 2011).

Authors

• Michael J. Middleton, University of New Hampshire

• Jayson Seaman, University of New Hampshire

• Alison Rheingold, University of New Hampshire

• Judy H. Tang, Westat