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STUDENTS'EXPERIENCES WHENNOT INITIALLYMOTIVATED FORLITERACY LEARNINGPenny OldfatherPublished online: 07 Jan 2011.

To cite this article: Penny Oldfather (2002) STUDENTS' EXPERIENCESWHEN NOT INITIALLY MOTIVATED FOR LITERACY LEARNING, Reading &Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 18:3, 231-256, DOI:10.1080/07487630290061809

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STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES WHEN NOT INITIALLYMOTIVATED FOR LITERACY LEARNING

Penny OldfatherUniversity of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA

This report of an intepretive case study, conducted in a 5th/ 6th grade wholelanguage classroom, provides (1) insights about students’ thoughts, feelings,and actions when not initially motivated for literacy tasks, and (2) ways inwhich some of those students were able to become intrinsically interested. Stu-dents participated as co-researchers and reported their subjective experiences inthree different motivational situations. Students in Situation I were initially notmotivated but became so by combining empowering ways of thinking (e.g.,searching for worthwhileness or self-regulating attention) with the completionof an activity. Students in Situation II lacked motivation throughout the par-ticular activities but managed to complete the activity. That group focused onexternal purpose, and did not use metacognitive strategies. Their primary desirewas to ’’get it over with.’’ Students in Situation III lacked motivation, usedavoidance strategies, and/ or felt paralyzed, and did not complete the tasks.

Marcel, a �fth grader who participated in an interpretive study of studentmotivation, described how he felt when he was not able to do an assignment.

Just my whole body feels like I want to throw up or something, if I don’t likesomething. . . I can’t do it at all. . . : I feel like sick, and I feel so sick. . . My body

feels completely wrong.

The work reported herein was supported in part by a project grant from the NationalReading Research Center (NRRC) of the University of Georgia and the University of Maryland.The National Reading Research Center was funded by the Office of Educational Research andImprovement of the U. S. Department of Education. The findings and opinions expressed heredo not necessarily reflect the position or policies of the National Reading Research Center,OERI, or the U. S. Department of Education. This article is adapted from a research reportpublished by the NRRC.

I appreciate the helpful comments of the reviewers as well as the insights from colleaguesGeorge Stanic and Sally Hudson Ross on previous drafts of this manuscript. I am also indebtedto the students who participated as co-researchers in this study, and to their teacher, SallyThomas, for vital contributions to this inquiry.

Address correspondence to Penny Oldfather, University of Georgia, 427 Aderhold Hall,Athens, GA 30605. E-mail: poldfath@coe.uga.edu

Reading & Writing Quarterly, 18: 2317256, 2002Copyright # 2002 Taylor & Francis1057-3569 /02 $12.00 + .00DOI: 10.1080/0748763029006180 9

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This article offers perspectives of Marcel and his classmates on their ex-periences when they did not feel intrinsically motivated for academic tasks.Their views provide insights about the social, affective, and cognitive pro-cesses that enable some children to become engaged in literacy activitiesand prevent others from even beginning. These indicators are derived froman analysis of students’ responses when they did not initially feel in-trinsically motivated for literacy learning in differently evolving situations.The situations include intersections of the following two axes: 1) doing ornot doing a particular activity, and 2) becoming motivated or not becomingmotivated in the process. The elements analyzed include students’ reportedthinking processes, actions, and their focus on intrinsic or extrinsic goals(see Table 1).

Although Marcel was experiencing motivational problems in the parti-cular situation described above, he and his fellow classmates generallyperceived that their classroom experiences supported their intrinsic in-terest in learning (see Oldfather, 1993; Oldfather and McLaughlin, 1993, forreports on the larger study). Students often found that even when they didnot initially feel motivated for an activity, they were sometimes—thoughnot always—able to become engaged in their learning.

The �ndings reported in this article are part of a study exploring stu-dents’ reasons for being or not being involved in learning activities (Old-father, 1993, 1995; Oldfather and McLaughlin, 1993; Oldfather & Thomas,1998; Oldfather et al., 1999; Thomas & Oldfather, 1997). The larger studyhas given speci�c attention to literacy activities. The purpose of this reportis to address the �ndings of the research that relate to students’ experi-ences when they were not initially feeling motivated for literacy learning.The term literacy is used broadly and refers to all literate activity. Ex-amples are drawn not only from reading and writing, but from science,social studies, and mathematics (for purposes of illustrating a particularteacher7student interaction). In the next two sections, the theoreticalframework that constitutes both the focus and methodology of this re-search will be presented. This framework is based on a social constructivistview of learning that includes a Vygotskian perspective of adaptive learningand students’ responses to school failure. A premise is that emic or ’’in-sider’’ views of classroom culture may provide important clues to under-standing students’ motivation for literacy learning.

THE ROLE OF CLASSROOM CULTURE IN MOTIVATIONFOR LITERACY

An underlying assumption of this study is that literacy is a social accom-plishment (Bloome, 1986; Dyson, 1992; Santa Barbara Discourse Group,

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1992). Central to the theoretical frame are Vygotskian (1978) views thatemphasize the interactive processes among learners within the socialcontext of learning and the role of more knowledgeable others in facil-itating learning (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). Language is at the heart ofthe process of becoming literate. Participants in classroom cultures colla-boratively construct understandings about the nature of literacy, the valuesof literate activity, and ways that individuals and groups enact the literacycurriculum. Reciprocally, individual students construct a sense of self asreaders, writers, and thinkers within the culture of each particular class-room. These self-constructions are salient to students’ development ofmotivation for literacy learning (Johnston, 1992). Intrinsic motivation forliteracy learning, as conceptualized in this research, is inextricably boundup with the students’ processes of meaning construction (see Oldfather &Dahl, 1994). In sum, I suggest that if literacy is a social accomplishment,the roots of motivation for literate activity are deeply embedded in thesociocultural contexts of literacy learning and the transactive processesoccurring in those particular contexts. Research aimed at a holistic un-derstanding of classroom motivation for literacy learning and students’adaptive learning processes needs to take these sociocultural processesinto account.1

Rohrkemper (1989) proposed a Vygotskian perspective of adaptivelearning that emphasizes the role of classroom interactions. Rohrkemperde�ned adaptive learning as ’’the ability to take charge of frustration andmaintain the intention to learn while enacting effective task strategies inthe face of uncertainty—taking charge of one’s motivation, emotion, andthinking’’ (1989, p. 143). Her research emphasized the importance of in-teractions with others and with tasks in working through problems withdif�cult learning. Rohrkemper and Corno (1988) found that children canlearn important adaptive strategies for those times when they are con-fronted with stressful situations, and argued that these adaptive strategiescan and should be deliberately promoted within classrooms. As studentslearn to cope with stress and boredom and respond �exibly to new situa-tions, they become able to take control of their own learning.

Cullen (1985) identi�ed four types of responses in students reacting toschool failure: 1) strategy-oriented, 2) action-oriented, 3) anxiety-oriented,and 4) anger-oriented. Parallels to Cullen’s four types were found in thestudents’ responses to motivational struggles reported in this article. Cullen(1981) also found that the negative emotions children felt when they failedin their �rst attempts to complete a task interfered with their ability to usemetacognitive strategies.

1I must emphasize that this study is limited to consideration of the classroom context, anddoes not address the powerful influences of family or community.

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THE ROLE OF PERCEPTION IN MOTIVATION

A social constructivist understanding of motivation for literacy learningencompasses not only the cultural domain of the classroom but also in-cludes the interpersonal and intrapersonal elements of students’ con-structions about literacy processes. Research literature in motivationre�ects the centrality of the individual’s perceptions in motivational re-sponses. This strand is found in White’s (1959) effectance motivation,Weiner’s (1972) attribution theory, deCharm’s (1984) theory of personalcausation, Glasser’s (1986) control theory, and the theories of cognitiveevaluation and organismic integration of Deci and Ryan (1987). Dweck(1975) demonstrated the salience of perception in relation to issues oflearned helplessness, �nding that students’ tendencies to attribute failureto lack of effort (rather than to luck, ability, or other variables) may alle-viate learned helplessness. Within each of these motivational constructs,the subjective reality (i.e., the perception of the student) is central to thenature of his/her response to particular situations.

Eccles (1983) suggested that in some situations an individual’s inter-pretations of events shape his/her actions more powerfully than the eventsthemselves. Weinstein (1989) emphasized the importance of student per-ceptions as a ’’missing link’’ in understanding students’ motivation andachievement. ’’It is only recently that we have come to appreciate thatchildren are active interpreters of the classroom reality, as of any socialreality, and not simply passive recipients of instruction’’ (Weinstein, 1989,p. 190).

We cannot assume that adult or ’’outsider’’ perceptions will coincide withthose of students within classroom cultures. In fact, ethnological analysis ofinterpretive studies that focus on children’s experiences in school indicatesthat what students view as signi�cant in the classroom is likely to be quitedifferent from what adults see (LeCompte & Preissle, 1992). Although agreat deal of attention has been paid to students’ perceptions by educa-tional researchers (particularly by motivation researchers) , there has beenscant in-depth interpretive research conducted on student motivation forliteracy learning with a focus of understanding students’ subjective ex-periences or their emic or ’’insider’’ views of classroom culture. In theirreview of the literature, Erickson and Shultz (1992, p. 467) found that’’virtually no research has been done that places experience at the center ofattention.’’ However, a few studies representing students’ emic perspec-tives that are relevant to literacy motivation are emerging (See Allen, Mi-chaelove & Shockley, 1993; Collins & Green, 1992; Dahl & Freppon, 1995;Marshall and Weinstein, 1986; Myers, 1992; Nicholls & Hazzard, 1993;Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1999; Weinstein, 1983, 1989).

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Gaining access to these subjective perspectives (children’s realities) isan essential aspect of efforts to understand the cognitive mediation in-volved in children’s motivational processes (Deci & Ryan, 1987; McCombs,1991; Weinstein, 1989). As Bruner (1990) asserted,

A culturally sensitive psychology is and must be based not only upon whatpeople actually do, but what they say they do and what they say caused themto do what they did. It is also concerned with what people say others did andwhy. And above all, it is concerned with what people say their worlds are like.(p. 16)

In contrast to many studies on motivation, it was not the intent of thisstudy to measure motivation or achievement . Rather, I have attempted tounderstand and represent students’ experiences as fully and fairly aspossible and to report ’’what they say their worlds are like.’’ As in all re-search, these �ndings are interpreted �rst through the lens of the re-searcher, and then by that of the reader. In spite of the limitations of ourconstructed understandings, it is important that we attempt, as Beekman(1986) suggests, to see students’ motivational struggles and the world ofclassroom literacy from a ’’common horizon’’ with students.

CONTEXT OF THE STUDY

The research reported here was conducted over an eight-month periodin a whole language elementary classroom in Southern California(Oldfather, 1993). ’’Willow’’2 has a century-old tradition as a student-centered, experiential, and humanistic learning environment, as well as areputation for developing self-directed, engaged learners. The schoolserves a diverse community with about 30% minority students, which in-cluded African American, Mexican American, and European Americanchildren. Students came from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, in-cluding low income, middle income, and upper income families. Willow issituated in an academic community in which there are several colleges, andsome of the students are children of college professors. The district hasopen enrollment, with half of the students coming from areas outside of theregular attendance area.

2Willow is a pseudonym for the school. Although we had planned to use pseudonyms forthe students, they wanted to have their actual names used, so permission was requested andobtained by students, parents, and the school district. Sally Thomas is the teacher’s actualname.

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The Teacher and the Classroom

Sally Thomas, the teacher of this combination �fth and sixth grade classof 31 students, was a highly dedicated professional, respected by stu-dents, parents, and administrators for her teaching and for her leadershipat local and state levels in whole language practices and alternative as-sessment strategies. The classroom was chosen as an appropriate site fora study of student motivation because this was a setting in which it waswidely agreed that students were highly engaged in literacy learning. Sallydescribed herself as a social constructivist and reported that she had aholistic approach to curriculum development. Data analysis of students’views of their teacher revealed that they valued the following qualitiesin her: supporting, caring, understanding, sharing mutual trust andrespect, listening to and respecting diverse opinions, explaining things,not telling all the answers, being fun, humorous, enthusiastic, sharinginterests, holding high expectations, giving speci�c feedback, and beingaccessible.

Sally often articulated to the students her reasons for offering parti-cular activities, topics, or learning processes. For example, when prepar-ing for a cooperative learning jigsaw activity in which students wereresponsible for ’’becoming experts’’ on certain social studies readings inorder to teach their peers, she mentioned that researchers have foundthat more learning takes place when we know we will be responsible forteaching the material to others. After the jigsaw, students examined theirlearning experience in that light. Sally asked students to critique the valueof what they were learning, using questions like, ’’Is this a valuable topicto understand? Why or why not?’’; ’’Have you ever needed to know how todo this in the ’real world’? How might this skill be useful to you in thefuture?’’; and ’’Why might the writers of this curriculum believe that thisshould be included? Do you agree or disagree with their decision?’’ Thefocus was on valuing learning rather than on extrinsic rewards, �ttingMarshall’s (1990) description of a learning oriented classroom. Thislearning orientation was made clear, for example, by one student whodescribed his school:

Instead of not wanting to read, they’ll read. Instead of not wanting to write,they’ll write. They want to write. One of the things I love in school is thatwe’re trying to learn—not just get the right answer. That’s really good. Youwant to get the right answer but you still learn. You do better becauselearning is more important than getting the right answer.

This classroom was a caring community of learners in which the con-tribution of ideas from every member was encouraged and responded to.For example, sixth grade Nicki described the class discussions:

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I love it when we have big discussions, ’cause I know if you’re on a differentside you can see the opinions of the other side and may learn to accept thatthey have a point there or something. But that’s neat to listen to the otherside and I know I convinced a lot of people about what I believed in . . .[Teachers at Willow] feel it’s very important to know the opinions of otherpeople and not try to teach them opinions to think of because you can’t teachan opinion. It’s important that you know how other kids feel and theiropinions.

Risk taking was explicitly encouraged by Sally as an important part oflearning. She and the students participated together as learners and asteachers. As the comment above illustrates, through seeking andresponding to the ideas and feelings of each member of the classroomculture, Sally was able to convey to her students a sense that their ideasand their own construction of meaning were important, valuable, andworthy of being taken seriously. Students and teacher �gured things outtogether in ways described by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule(1986) as connected knowing. Sally shared the ’’ownership of knowing’’and the students felt that they could know, they could think, that theycould make sense of things (Oldfather, 1992).

The students’ desks were arranged in groups of four or �ve. The roomwas �lled with samples of creative work: illustrated poems, stories writtenon the computer and placed in hand-made illustrated books, art projects,and works in progress that included projects in clay, papier-maÃche, andother graphic arts. The classroom contained hundreds of books, many re-lated to the thematic unit being studied.

The curriculum was developed thematically, incorporating students’ in-terests and suggestions. Topics were based on large concepts (e.g., sur-

vival) and often included large issues that related to current events (e.g., acensorship debate) or environmental concerns. Students read self-selectedbooks and books from the core curriculum. They kept dialogue journals andreading logs. Writing was the favorite school activity of most students in theclass. The schoolwide practice was to give no grades; report cards were innarrative form. The students’ dominant experience in this classroom was ofinterest and engagement in learning (see Oldfather, 1993; Oldfather &McLaughlin, 1993, for elaboration of classroom context).

METHOD

Engaging Students as Co-Researchers

In this study, instead of viewing the student participants as subjects, I in-vited them to be engaged as co-researchers (Oldfather, 1995). The

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students’ roles as co-researchers were not identical to mine. The studentsdid not pose the original question, conduct interviews, or analyze the data.They did provide insights about the subsequent evolving questions for ourinquiry. They provided elaboration and veri�cation of data as they parti-cipated in follow-up interviews. They have participated in sharing the�ndings through writings and presentations at many scholarly meetings(e.g., Garcia, Kilgore, Rodriguez, & Thomas, 1995; Oldfather, Thomas,Grannis, Banks, Kilgore, Rodriguez, & Schwimmer, 1991).3 As our colla-boration has developed, they have become increasingly involved in a vari-ety of aspects of the research, including making methodologicalrecommendations and theoretical assertions for the study (see Oldfatherand Thomas, 1999 for a thorough description of the ways in which studentsparticipated as researchers). The students have applied interviewing skillsgained through our research by conducting taped interviews with youngerstudents to obtain data for a self-study by their former elementary schoolas part of a California school restructuring grant application.

Engaging the students as co-researchers is consistent with social con-structivist epistemology (Gergen, 1985; Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Oldfather,West, White, & Willmarth, 1999; Wertsch, 1991). This interpretive studywas based on the interactions that have taken place among the studentsand myself as we have constructed understandings about our researchquestions. The co-researchers were the experts in relation to their ownlives and perceptions and are the ’’only authentic chroniclers of their ownexperience’’ (Delpit, 1988, p. 297). In presenting myself primarily as alearner, interested in understanding their ideas, I communicated to themthat we were ’’all in this together, trying to �gure things out.’’ I also hopedthat the students’ participation in the research process would be personallyvaluable for them.

The students reported that our explicitly collaborative relationship inthe inquiry increased their sense of ownership and involvement and led togreater depth in our �ndings. The students’ roles as co-researchers may notappear to outsiders to be very different from those of research participantsin other studies. In the end, the critical difference lies in the perceptions ofthe co-researchers about their participation and how those perceptionshave affected the processes and outcomes of the research. As one studentexplained, ’’If I wasn’t a co-researcher, I wouldn’t really understand whatyou are doing, so I wouldn’t take this so seriously. I might not be telling youmuch about how I really feel.’’ They also believe that their active roles as

3The students have participated for six years as co-researchers in what became alongitudinal study. Beginning in the fall of 1994, they assumed increased responsibility,conducting participatory research on motivation for literacy learning with teachers and peersin their high school through interviews, dialogical journals, and electronic mail.

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co-researchers have facilitated their understanding of themselves as lit-eracy learners. For example, John explained,

I never really realized what I liked. I realized what I didn’t like, but I didn’trealize what I liked. And when I sat down and thought about it and talkedabout it, I realized what I like. So it’s kind of fun.

The values of the process for students engaged as co-researchers aremuch the same as those for teachers engaged in research. They gain voiceand ownership of their agendas, and are enriched and empowered by thenew knowledge constructed in the process (Duckworth, 1987; Goswami &Stillman, 1987; Kincheloe, 1991; Oldfather, 1993). They believe that theirown motivation for learning has been enhanced through their researchparticipation. For example, Nicki explained:

I �nd myself in class sometimes now, saying, ’’This is what I was talking about[in our research]. This is what we should be doing better.’’ I feel like we’velooked into it so much, we’ve talked about it so much, that I’ve used itpositively towards my work and how I feel about school.

Selection of Interviewees

The study employed purposive sampling to select information-rich cases(Patton, 1990). The sample of students selected for interviews includedeight males and six females, representing a diversity of gender, degrees ofinternal versus external motivational orientation, and achievement levels.In Willow, every effort was made to avoid labeling students. The studentsample included students who, in other school settings, would have beenconsidered slow learners or learning disabled. The sample also includedvery bright students, a student who had a serious hearing impairment, andtwo students for whom English was a second language.

The assessment of motivational orientation was based on the teacher’sprofessional judgment. At my request, she created a scattergram thatplaced all 31 members of the class across a chart. One axis represented herassessment of the students’ achievement standing in the class. The otheraxis represented her assessment of the student’s dominant motivationalorientation (intrinsic or extrinsic). The range of degrees of motivation werejudged in relation to the classroom context. Some who were seen as havingextrinsic motivational orientations might have been assessed quitedifferently in other settings where extrinsic rewards were emphasized andmeaning construction was de-emphasized. The teacher knew many of thestudents very well, having taught a number of them the previous year, andwas able to offer a credible professional judgment.

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Data Collection and Analysis

As participant/observer, I conducted 48 classroom observations (95 hours)that included a series of 41 in-depth interviews over the eight-monthperiod. This report draws from the data of the larger study that wererelevant to students’ experiences when they were not motivated for lit-eracy learning. Rather than testing a particular hypothesis (or pursuing ahunch), the question posed was open-ended, and the grounded �ndingsemerged from the data gathered. This was necessary in order to gain anemic understanding of the context.

In order to gain a representative perspective on the classroom processesand interactions, I observed at various times of the school day (during dif-ferent periods of academic work time, recess, lunch, P.E., and computer labtime) and attended various special events and �eld trips. Fieldnotes includeda thick description of the students, the teacher, and their multidirectionalinteractions. Also included were accounts of my actions, thoughts, andconversations, as well as theoretical notes and methodological notes.

The open-ended individual interviews were usually conducted in an out-door courtyard at picnic tables. Questions were based on my classroom ob-servations or developed from previous interviews, often in response tostudents’ comments. The students themselves frequently suggested issuesand topics. Questions explored students’ experiences when not feeling mo-tivated: ’’Do you remember a time when you were supposed to do some work(or an activity) in school, and you really didn’t feel like doing it? What wasit? Did you do it? Why or why not? How did you feel when this happened?’’

The constant comparative method of data analysis (Bogdan & Biklen,1982; Glaser & Strauss, 1967) provided a feedback loop to shape both themethodological and analytical facets of the study. To illustrate, before thefollow-up interviews with each co-researcher, I analyzed the content of theprior interviews and prepared questions for clari�cation, correction, andelaboration of the student’s ideas to �nd out ’’if I got it right’’(Geertz, 1973).I also conducted theoretical sampling (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982; Strauss &Corbin, 1990) during those interviews, checking the perceptions of eachstudent about categories that were emerging from the study. For example,early in the data collection, a few co-researchers described their experi-ences of being able to take charge of attitudes about work, that is, to’’choose a positive attitude’’ and therefore overcome their lack of motiva-tion about a particular task. Subsequently, speci�c questions about thisissue were posed to other students, and properties emerged. Thus, our on-going analysis of the interviews helped shape our understanding of im-portant issues to be explored more fully in subsequent interviews.

Categories and properties were inductively generated (Bogdan & Biklen,1982; Erickson, 1986). The �eldnotes were cut into segments according to

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identi�ed units of meaning based on relationships to particular categoriesand properties. The units of meaning ranged in length from a single phraseto a couple of paragraphs. For example, Paul’s comment—’’I see math assomething that we have to do and something that I want to get off my chestso I can do something else’’—was sorted into the category of Lacking

Motivation , and given the property of Getting It Over With.These segments were placed on hundreds of index cards and sorted into

piles by categories and properties. The categories were formed throughanalysis across students. The 14 �nal categories were analyzed to identifyways in which they related to each other. Frequencies of responses werecounted, and patterns for individual student pro�les were analyzed in re-lation to particular categories and properties. There was much diversity inthe experiences described by the students in this research, but a few�ndings were representative of all students. For example, all studentspreferred being motivated to being unmotivated for learning activities.Individual properties within categories sometimes re�ected the uniqueperspective of a single student (e.g., Marcel’s feeling paralyzed, which wasreported in the opening vignette).

Validity checks on the coding processes were conducted by two ex-perienced qualitative researchers who coded randomly selected sections ofthe �eldnotes and compared these with my coding. A high degree of initialconsensus was found, and any discrepancies were negotiated until thecoders were satis�ed. Co-researchers also provided veri�cation, correction,clari�cation, and elaboration during subsequent individual interviews, andthrough focus groups and whole class discussions.

In order to conduct further theoretical sampling of the categories andproperties, I held a series of small group sessions in which all students inthe class participated. In focus groups of about eight members (Patton,1990), students expressed and tape-recorded their ideas on questionscentral to the study. Data analysis processes and tentative �ndings wereshared in a whole class meeting that was followed by a videotaped in-depthdiscussion in which essentially no new ideas emerged, thus providingstrong indication that the categories were saturated.

This research establishes a basis of comparison (LeCompte & Preissle,1993) to be used by researchers and practitioners in studying other con-texts and students. As a case study, I do not claim generalizability of the�ndings, though they have elements in common with the work of others,such as Cullen (1985). The purpose here was not simply to identifyconvergence of the perceptions of the participants in the study, but tounderstand their multiple and unique experiences regarding their motiva-tional struggles. Judgments concerning the relevance of these �ndings forother students and/or educational settings must rest with the reader.Students’ experiences in family and community contexts are likely to have

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signi�cant impact on their motivation for literacy learning, and those ele-ments are not encompassed by this study. Further research is needed inother contexts with students of different ages and varying cultural andsocioeconomic backgrounds and in classrooms where teachers have dif-ferent educational philosophies, teaching styles, and personal attributes.

FINDINGS/DISCUSSION

Analysis of students’ responses revealed three different patterns of en-gagement (or lack thereof) . These are represented in the three differentSituations in Table 1 in which students’ purposes and ways of thinking anddoing are compared and contrasted within each Situation.

Situation I: Cases of evolving positive motivation. Students lacked initialintrinsic motivation; but ultimately gained motivation for the tasks andcompleted them;

Situation II: Cases of negative motivation. Students lacked initial moti-vation and did not gain intrinsic motivation, but completed the tasks;

Situation III: Cases of non-motivation. Students lacked initial motiva-tion, did not become motivated, and either avoided or felt unable tocomplete the activity.

There were undoubtedly cases in which students felt motivated and didnot complete tasks (potentially Situation IV). However, as this report fo-cuses on ways in which students managed when they did not feel moti-vated, Situation IV was not explored. It should be noted that mostparticipants experienced each of the three situations upon different oc-casions in the classroom.

There was unanimity among students in relation to two issues. First, allof the fourteen co-researchers occasionally experienced lack of motivationeven in this class, which they generally found interesting and engaging.Secondly, all the co-researchers preferred to be interested and involved,rather than bored or uninvolved, in their reading and writing. Althoughcertain students felt stalled in their work occasionally, most found ways towork through the discomfort when they lacked motivation.

Situation I: Lacking Initial Motivation, Doing the Activity,and Becoming Motivated

Students used a variety of approaches when attempting to become moremotivated for an activity. Those who became motivated after initially beingunmotivated for an activity were interested in �nding intrinsic meaning inthe activity. They combined empowering ways of thinking with the doing

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of an activity. These empowering ways of thinking were often self-reg-ulatory and metacognitive in nature, such as choosing a positive attitude,searching for worthwhileness in a task, observing classmates’ interest, justbeginning an activity, and self-regulating attention to their work. Onestudent reported ’’learning from boredom,’’ through which he found himselfsearching for meaningful and creative activities in which to engage. Thefollowing are examples from the data analysis of various approaches thathelped students become more intrinsically engaged in their literacylearning.

TABLE 1 Comparison of Students’ Thoughts and Actions When not InitiallyMotivated in Three Evolving Situations.

Becoming motivatedfor an activity

Not becoming motivatedfor an activity

Doing the activity SITUATION I:Cases of evolvingpositive motivation

SITUATION II:Cases of negative motivation

Thinking Thinking

° Choosing a positive attitude ° Wanting to ’’get it over with’’° Searching for worthwhileness ° Meeting requirements and

expectations° Self-regulating attention ° Remembering the classroom

accountability system

Doing Doing

° Observing classmates’ interest ° Not doing my best: ’’If it’swrong, it’s wrong.’’

° Starting an activity ° Just doing the activity

Purposes Purposes

° Intrinsic ° Extrinsic

Not doing the activity SITUATION III:Cases of non-motivationThinking: Avoidance Case

° I’ll just ’’huff and puff andsay I didn’t have time.’’

° ’’I’ll hide my homework.’’

Thinking: Paralysis Case

° ’’I can’t do this.’’° ’’I feel sick.’’

Doing

° Not applicable

Purposes

° No purpose

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Choosing a Positive AttitudeSuki explained that her reading for the science project might be a little

boring at �rst, but ’’I have to think of it as important, because if you thoughtit wasn’t important, you wouldn’t do anything about it.’’ Similarly, Briancommented, ’’If you say ’I don’t like science’ to start out with, you’re reallynot going to pay a lot of attention. You’re not going to be reading all thescience things.’’ Several students demonstrated metacognitive awarenessand attempted to ’’take charge’’ of their attitudes in positive ways. Thestrategies appeared similar to those described by Manning (1990) as part oftheir inner language.

Searching for WorthwhilenessIn remembering his initial reactions when asked to write a poetry dia-

logue, Andrew reported, ’’If I come into something open-minded and I don’tknow what the purpose is, but I think it might be worthwhile, I probably willget to like it.’’ When Andrew could maintain an open attitude about thepossible value of reading and writing poetry, he found he might have in-creased willingness to be involved. The teacher’s frequent articulation ofpurposes and students’ regular consideration of the value of what theywere learning seem to have promoted the students’ sense of worthwhile-ness of learning activities.

Observing Classmates’ InterestBrian described his feelings about a science project: ’’It seems kind of

like ’Oh, no! I have to do this!’ But when you look at all the others’ [ideas],it’s kind of interesting.’’ Andrew also indicated that observing peers whowere interested and involved and seeing how others approached the taskhelped him overcome his own resistance (Ames & Ames, 1984): ’’Seeingthat everybody else likes it in there, I must like it too, once I �gure it out.’’The prospect of competence (Csikszentmihalyi, 1978; Deci & Ryan, 1987)seemed to help motivate Andrew to get started on the tasks. His statementillustrates his experience in a supportive community of learners thatencouraged him to be open to possibilities of being interested in andenjoying learning (Ames & Ames, 1984; Deci & Ryan, 1990; Johnson &Johnson, 1991).

Self-regulating AttentionLily used self-regulation, speci�cally, self-correction (Manning, 1990,

1991) in describing her approach to a task: ’’I kind of daze along with it. I doit, but I don’t do it that well. And later on I catch myself [not doing the task],and I do it.’’ Consciously regulating her attention process, Lily was able tofocus on doing the literacy activity and reported increased subsequentengagement.

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Learning from BoredomJohn had a unique view of boredom, which he used in a constructive

manner:

John: My favorite thing is to write. It’s just from boredom. You think ofboredom as nothingness but sometimes it really gets something.Penny: What do you mean by that?John: Well, sometimes people think boredom is really boring. And it is, but itteaches you things. It teaches you how to play by yourself, how to write, howto learn other things, and just, it teaches you. Like, it’ll teach you while you’reat home alone and it’s just something that you can learn from.

John sought engagement in activities as a relief from boredom. Yet, he alsorecognized that boredom precipitated learning and creative activities as hesought to make life more interesting.

Just Starting an ActivityLily often experienced a change in attitude after initial resistance to

reading or writing: ’’Sometimes I’m feeling like I’m stuck with something.But if I can just start to do it, I may get really into it and start to put moreeffort into it. I don’t like having to sit down, but once I get there, I getinvolved.’’ Lily’s statement re�ects interest generated through interactionwith a task. Most of Lily’s classmates experienced this emergent motivationin the classroom (Csikszentmihalyi, 1978).

Students in Situation I who were able to become intrinsically motivatedfor an activity usually did so when they began a task. But beginning was notenough (as is illustrated by those in Situation II, who did not becomemotivated when doing a task). Those who became motivated also kept anopen mind. They looked to their peers for inspiration, encouragement , andapproval for doing well. They respected and trusted the teacher’s fre-quently held dialogues about what kinds of learning might be valuable andinteresting. They experienced a sense of control about their learning, notonly in terms of making choices about what and how they learned, but alsoin relation to how they thought about their learning, being able to monitorattention to a task, or choosing a positive attitude.

Situation II: Lacking Motivation, Doing the Activity,Not Becoming Motivated

Students in Situation II were not able to become intrinsically motivated butmanaged to complete the required tasks. Although they took action, theydid not appear to use metacognitive strategies to become more intrinsicallyengaged, and they sometimes experienced anger and anxiety in connection

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with having to do the activity. In the view of the students, this situation hadan impact on their performance: ten students made unsolicited statementsthat they did not do their best work when lacking motivation. Their primarydesire was ’’to get it over with.’’ Nicki did what she considered unpleasantassignments, ’’Just to get the work done, you know. Just to get it done.’’Lauren honestly explained, ’’I’ll do it, and if it’s wrong, it’s wrong.’’

When asked why they did these tasks if they did not want to do them,students identi�ed reasons or purposes that were extrinsic to the task.They frequently referred to the classroom accountability system, Superkid.The system provided that those who had completed all their weekly as-signments were allowed to choose an activity during free time, or weregiven other incentives. Those who had not completed all assignments wererequired to work on them. Parents were informed weekly of whether stu-dents were up-to-date on assignments. Paul analyzed his own reactions toSuperkid.

Doing Superkid . . . it’s not like the goal of my life. But I guess it’s something inyour subconscious that wants you to do it still. I don’t know why . . . You see, ifI don’t do Superkid, I’m not going to get punished or anything. So I think it’skind of dumb, but I thing something in your subconscious says ’’go do it.’’ So Ialways do everything.

All of the students reported being in�uenced at least occasionally to par-ticipate in some learning activities for extrinsic rewards. The Superkidprogram appeared to play an important role, particularly for those in Si-tuation II, although it had quite different meanings for different students. Insome instances, the extrinsic rewards were seen as indicators of self-competence. In other cases, it appeared that rewards were valued forthemselves. It appeared that Superkid served as a ’’motivational safety net’’or a ’’purpose of last resort’’ for students in Situation II who did not valuethe activity for intrinsic purposes. The accountability system obviously didnot work for those in Situation III, as they did not do the activity.

Situation III: Lacking Motivation, Avoiding Tasks orFeeling Paralyzed

When children did not do an activity because of motivational problems,avoidance or perceived helplessness was involved. These motivationalresponses were occasionally found in this classroom, particularly for two ofthe students. Overall, however, these responses were not common.

The avoidance situation was described by Lauren, who explainedfrankly, ’’Sometimes I’ll just huff and puff and say I didn’t get around to it.’’The more serious state of perceived helplessness was experienced by

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Marcel, who remarked poignantly, ’’My body feels completely wrong.’’Marcel felt ’’homework can be pure torture for kids.’’ Both students vo-lunteered that they had attempted to conceal from the teacher and parentsthe fact that their homework was not �nished.

Analysis of the Three Situations

As indicated in Table 1, there were clear differences in how students in thethree situations though about their relationship to literacy learning activ-ities. Students in Situation I not only did the activities, they combined thedoing with thinking about the possible interest and value of the task. Theyfocused on learning, rather than extrinsic purposes. Their thinking wasoften metacognitive (e.g., ’’choosing a positive attitude’’ or monitoring at-tention). Those in Situation II who did the activity without becoming in-trinsically motivated relied on the classroom accountability system(extrinsic purpose), rather than personal interest or valuing the activity(intrinsic purpose). Although students in Situations I and II all did the task,those in Situation II often reported that they did not put forth their besteffort (’’If it’s wrong, it’s wrong’’). When students in Situation I becameintrinsically motivated for an activity, they had a greater sense of self-de-termination. Some students in Situation III who avoided an activity mayalso have experienced self-determination, by virtue of having evaded therequirement. In contrast, Marcel (’’My body feels completely wrong’’), whowas also in Situation III, experienced helplessness rather than self-determination. As we have seen, the four types of responses identi�ed byCullen (1985) for students reacting to school failure have parallels with theparticipants’ experiences described here. They encompass strategy-or-iented, action-oriented, anxiety-oriented, and anger-oriented responses.

Students’ Feelings When Lacking Motivation

When students were struggling with motivation they experienced a rangeof negative feelings, including anger, rebellion, anxiety, frustration, andhelplessness. As indicated by representative comments below, studentswere clear about their desire for autonomy under these circumstances.Some students emphasized the relationship between competence and levelof motivation.

Feeling Anger and RebellionAnger and rebellion were common reactions when students felt un-

motivated. Andy explained, ’’Teachers kind of get on your back and ev-erything. I get really mad. I want to tell them to go away.’’ Brian reported,’’You begin and you’ve gotta do a geography map or something. Then you

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get real mad, because you don’t want to do it. But then you have to.’’Feelings of anger appeared to be associated with students’ feeling that theywere denied opportunity for self-determination.

Wanting to have AutonomyWhen students felt unmotivated to do required tasks, they became

aware of their desire for autonomy. For example, John described his re-action to a required science project. ’’I want to want to do a scienceproject. But I can’t want to do a science project if they say you have to do ascience project.’’ John explained:

I want to be myself. I want to imagine what I want. I want to like what I want. Iwant to enjoy what I want. I want to be me.

Feeling Anxious and Less than CompetentStudents reported lacking motivation in situations in which they felt less

than competent and/or highly anxious. Marcel explained that he did notoften want to do math, especially when he did not understand it. WhenMarcel found that other students completed a timed math test before hedid, he expressed discouragement:

I just don’t really liked being timed. It doesn’t feel good when you see someother people get ahead of you, and you hear somebody say ’’Oh yeah, good,I’m �nished.’’ It just makes me feel like I’m so terrible at it.

Some students who felt anxious and less than competent also experiencedextreme physical symptoms, as described in the following section.

Children’s Physical Responses and Needs

Physical responses and needs were primary concerns in relation to somestudents’ engagement with learning. Their concerns in the physical domainwere a) coping with feeling physically ill when reacting to motivationalproblems, b) feeling the need for energy release, c) wanting freedom ofmovement as an aspect of choice and autonomy, and d) valuing hands-onactivities as a key to increased engagement in learning.

Feeling Physically IllAs mentioned previously, Marcel, whose body felt ’’completely wrong,’’

had a severe physical reaction when he felt unable to do a required task.Marcel’s experiences can be understood from a variety of perspectives.Anxiety has been recognized as negatively related to intrinsic moti-vation (Gottfried, 1982). Physical symptoms such as headaches may be

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experienced by individuals who perceive a lack of control over outcomes(Pennebaker, Burnam, Schaeffener, & Harper, 1977). Lack of perceivedcontrol can lead to a sense of helplessness that impairs learning and per-formance (Hiroto & Seligman, 1975). Miller and Ross (1975) suggest thatattribution of failure to a physical problem may be a self-serving bias thatpreserves the individual’s ego.

All explanations aside, Marcel’s strong physical reaction virtually pa-ralyzed his participation. Marcel’s �rst remedy was to ’’wait until it’s timeto do something else. It’s like when you eat too much of something youfeel full for that, but sometimes you can eat something else.’’ Marcelexplained that he felt better when he could go outside and ’’get his en-ergy out’’ or read a book he liked. Marcel’s teacher was able to recognizehis condition and to provide some support and relief. When Marcel voicedhis feelings of anxiety about timed tests, the teacher’s empowering re-sponse was to make participation in timed tests optional and use untimedassessments instead.

Needing to MoveAndy, who said he liked to read, described what he experienced at

Hebrew School:

Andy: I have so much energy, I have to keep moving. Sometimes I get reallynervous and my hands start shaking and I can’t read, so I just stop.Researcher: How do you feel when you have to sit still?Andy: Well, sometimes I just wiggle my toes.

As Andy’s experience in Hebrew School illustrates, some students had tostruggle to carry through their reading activities when they were requiredto sit still or to remain in their seats for long periods of time. If the childrenwere not allowed to move about and release energy, they had dif�cultysustaining engagement with learning. The common disciplinary practice ofdepriving students of recess must create problems for students like Andy.The ’’sometimes-I-just-wiggle-my-toes’’ strategies may not provide for anadequate energy release suf�cient to allow the student to re-connect withthe work.

CLASSROOM IMPLICATIONS

What can educators do to help support student struggling with motivationalproblems in literacy learning? There are a number of practical steps thatteachers can take toward these ends. The recommendations below con-verge with �ndings from my previous work as well as those of othermotivation researchers (e.g., Brophy, 1998; Csikszentmihalyi, 1978; Cullen,

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1985; deCharms, 1984; Deci & Ryan, 1987; Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000;Nicholls, 1989; Thorkildsen & Nicholls, 2002; Thorkildsen, Nolan, & Four-nier, 1994). Below we consider these steps in terms of the three Situationsdescribed in the analysis of our data.

Implications for Situation I

In this study, we have seen that in Situation I, when students employedempowering ways of thinking while doing an activity, they were often ableto �nd intrinsic interest in the activity. These empowering ways of thinkingwere often self-regulatory and metacognitive in nature. This �nding hasimportant implications for classrooms. For example, students who are notinitially motivated for particular classroom activities need to be encouragedto be aware of their own power to become intentionally more engaged(Manning, 1990). Teachers can encourage students to monitor their ownexperiences in such situations and to practice some of the strategies usedby students in Situation I. These include choosing a positive attitude,searching for worthwhileness in a task, observing classmates’ interest, justbeginning an activity, and self-regulating attention to their work. They canbe encouraged to re�ect metacognitively through class discussion, personalconferences, or in journal writing about how and whether particular stra-tegies might aid them in becoming more engaged in learner activities.

Teachers can explicitly assist students in searching for the worth-whileness of a task by asking them to examine the intrinsic interest andpersonal relevance of learning (see Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992;Alexander, Kulikowich, & Jetton, 1994; and Guthrie et al., 1996; regardingthe importance of intrinsic interest in learning). Teachers can provide in-teresting books, technologies, human resources, interactions, and realworld and hands-on opportunities that students �nd relevant to their ownlives. They can involve them in regular re�ection about how they can takecharge of their motivational processes to use empowering strategies ofthought and action to enhance their engagement in learning.

Teachers can draw on the students’ interests by occasionally employingforms of pop culture in their teaching methods (Alvermann, Moon, &Hagood, 1999). They can de-emphasize extrinsic rewards (Kohn, 1993)and �nd ways to promote students’ sense of autonomy and choice. Pro-viding choices can enable students to work at more optimal challenge levelsso that they feel a sense of their own abilities and experience minimalboredom or failure. Supportive social structures within the classroom helpfacilitate students’ engaged interactions and positive peer in�uences for�nding ’’worthwhileness’’ in reading and writing. Being part of the ’’literacyclub’’ (Smith, 1988) is another important key for students’ intrinsicengagement in learning.

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Implications for Situation II

We have seen that in Situation II, students who did the activities withoutbecoming engaged in their learning relied on the classroom accountabilitysystem and other intrinsic purposes, rather than on seeking some’’worthwhileness’’ or intrinsic interest. One implication for teachers hereis that the classroom accountability system is important for some stu-dents who otherwise might not carry through with an activity. Even so,since a number of students admitted that they did not put forth their bestwork, we see the importance of not being satis�ed with simple com-pliance—and a need to work toward supporting intrinsic interest in lit-erate activity.

Implications for Situation III

Some of the most dif�cult aspects of Situation III has to do with issues ofteacher7student relationships. Dif�cult adversarial dynamics may resultwhen students either refuse to do their work or are unable to do so. Suchdynamics set up conditions in which control issues become the primaryagenda between teachers and students. It is crucial that teacher7studentcommunication be open enough that teachers can have access to infor-mation about students’ emotional struggles, physical experiences (e.g., offeeling ill), or needing to move. It is not always easy for teachers to givestudents room to talk about their struggles with learning and particularly toexpress their negative feelings about classroom processes or assignments.When teachers are able to provide students a means for constructivecommunication about such matters, they may be able to diffuse anger andanxiety. They may be able to gain access to information about children’sperspectives and subjective experiences that enable responsiveness tochildren’s educational, social, affective, and physical needs (Dewey, 1904;Erickson & Shultz, 1992; Oldfather, 1993, Weinstein, 1989). For example,when Marcel—who said, ’’My body feels completely wrong’’—was essen-tially paralyzed, his teacher might not have understood his problem. Shemight have punished him or treated him as a lazy or rebellious child. Shemight have taken action that would have exacerbated Marcel’s frustrations,undermined his sense of competence and self-esteem, and established anadversarial relationship. Instead, his teacher recognized what Marcel wasexperiencing, talked with him, and eased his anxiety. She was able to gainaccess to important information about Marcel’s needs through her re-ceptive posture. Taking action based on that information, she negotiatedsome of the conditions and requirements of learning activities and re-sponded to his learning and affective needs, which are inevitably inter-twined.

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Concerns about students’ motivational struggles are based not only onconcern for students learning and achievement , but because it is vitallyimportant to create nurturing classroom environments that maintain andenhance caring (Belenky et al., 1986; Deci & Ryan, 1990; Gilligan, 1982;Grumet, 1988; Noddings, 1984). Noddings (1984, p. 20) makes a criticaldistinction between instructional goals and educational goals, asserting that’’the student is in�nitely more important than the subject.’’ She proposes:

The primary aim of every educational institution and of every educationaleffort must be the maintenance and enhancement of caring. . . . I am drawingattention to priorities. I certainly do not intend to abandon intellectual andaesthetic aims . . . If what we do instructionally achieves the instructionalend—A learns X—we have succeeded instructionally , but if A hates X andhis teacher as a result, we have failed educationally [italics added]. (p. 174)

Noddings’ statement puts into perspective the broader outcomes ofeducation and emphasizes affective goals as integral to learning, self-es-teem, and caring. If, as Noddings suggests, we view the student as in�nitelymore important than the subject, we will be more likely to respond tochildren’s motivational struggles in ways that support their learning andempower and motivate them, rather than in ways that make them feelpowerless and alienated.

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