Adaptive Motivation and Emotion in Education

Abstract

Students frequently experience various types of motivation and emotion that contribute to their engagement and learning. However, translating research on motivation and emotion into educational practice and policy has so far been limited. To facilitate greater synergy among research, practice, and policy, this overview addresses educationally relevant motivation and emotion. This summary discusses different forms of motivation or emotion, their relevant theoretical basis, evidence on how they relate to academic engagement and learning, and potential classroom supports for adaptive motivation and emotion. The article concludes with five instructional design principles that can guide educators and policymakers in promoting adaptive student motivation and emotion: (a) support students’ feelings of competence, (b) enhance autonomy, (c) use personally relevant and active tasks, (d) emphasize learning and de-emphasize social comparison, and (e) encourage feelings of belonging.

Science identity development trajectories in a gateway college chemistry course: Predictors and relations to achievement and STEM pursuit

“…Although further experimental research is needed to examine whether interventions can effectively shift these beliefs in introductory science courses, our results indicated that helping to ensure that students begin the semester with high competence beliefs may be a promising avenue for promoting science identity development throughout the semester. For example, instructors might prioritize providing opportunities for success early on and helping students hone their learning strategies in an effort to boost competence beliefs and subsequent science identity stability or growth (Linnenbrink-Garcia, Patall, & Pekrun, 2016). While only a small proportion of students exhibited declines in science identity throughout the semester, interventions may be most effective when used to boost initial levels of science identity, potentially mitigating the less adaptive outcomes associated with membership in the Moderate-and-Slightly-Increasing class, which consisted of almost half of the sample.…”

Emodash: A dashboard supporting retrospective awareness of emotions in online learning

“…Emotion awareness refers to the ability to perceive, identify, and understand emotions (Boden and Thompson, 2015). Emotional information can provide insights to enhance student learning (Linnenbrink-Garcia et al, 2016). D'Mello (2017) further argues that "given the central role of emotions in learning, attempts to analyze (or data mine) learning without considering emotion will be incomplete".…”

“…Emotional information may support tutors in identifying successes and failures in their interactions with learners and provide surface explanations on difficulties they encounter. Awareness of learners' emotions could also lead tutors to adapt their feedback to learners, i.e by reassuring or motivating them (Linnenbrink-Garcia et al, 2016), or by integrating affective language. In our study, we examine the impact of emotion awareness on tutors' feedback.…”

Enhancing Our Understanding of Teachers' Personal Responsibility for Student Motivation: A Mixed Methods Study

“…For example, the study of motivation is increasingly recognizing the complex and dynamic nature of motivation (Kaplan et al, 2012). Regularly researchers tackle these issues of complexity either by simplifying and remaining consistent with a single approach to motivation such as Attribution Theory (Weiner, 1985) or Self-determination Theory (Ryan and Weinstein, 2009) or by applying crosstheoretical reasoning (e.g., Linnenbrink-Garcia et al, 2016). It seems that teachers' personal responsibility for student motivation is also complex and thus theory and research in this area needs to heed the same calls as the field of motivation more generally.…”