Abstract
Motivation cannot be measured directly but has to be evaluated through other indirect measurements, of which questionnaires are the most common. This chapter presents the results from the development and use of a model to approach motivation in the science classroom from multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives. The model emerged from the hierarchical model of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by Vallerand and the process model of motivation by Dörnyei. The chapter focusses on the relationship between students’ motivation, engagement and experiences when performing a novel science task. The results suggest that the students in two of the classrooms were better able to overcome challenges and complete the task than students in the third classroom. Further, no patterns were found between students’ contextual motivation and their actions or experiences. The multi-perspective model was a useful tool to align motivation as measured with questionnaires with motivation as seen through students’ actions in the classroom. The results show that more research on motivation from a situational perspective is needed; thereby we can learn more about relationships between motivation and actions and between what happens in the classroom and students’ long-term motivation for science. This knowledge has potential to lead to improved practices in science teaching.
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Hellgren, J.M. (2019). Using Theoretical and Methodological Triangulation to Study Motivation in the Science Classroom. In: McLoughlin, E., Finlayson, O.E., Erduran, S., Childs, P.E. (eds) Bridging Research and Practice in Science Education. Contributions from Science Education Research, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17219-0_7
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