Motivation for Learning Science and Mathematics: Identifying Personal and Environmental Factors

Several theories in motivation research aim at explaining or predicting the emotional experiences and behavior of students in academic situations as well as the quality of learning outcomes. However, there are still ambiguities regarding the mechanisms of motivation, how motivation can be influenced, and what effects motivation has on learning. As a first step to examine the role of situational and personal variables involved in some of the most influential motivation theories, their relative ability to predict student behavior, emotional experiences and learning outcomes were investigated by PLS analysis of questionnaire data from 658 upper secondary school students. As to outcomes, results show that experiences of anxiety, on one hand, are orthogonal to perceived degree of learning, enjoyment, and motivated behavior, on the other. Major predictors of anxiety emotions were; Attributions, pertaining to the perceived degree of control over outcomes; the nature of relations to peers; and whether the students perceived that the goal of the lesson was understanding or ‘production’. The degree of learning, motivated behavior, and enjoyment were, in descending order, predicted by students’ achievement goals and motivation type, the teacher’s engagement, character of feedback, autonomy support and the level of teacher demands on students. To some extent, students’ epistemological beliefs regarding the complexity of knowledge also predicted these types of outcomes