The study investigated the use of self-regulatory processes by preservice teachers to regulate the way they learn to activate and sustain their students’ motivation within practicum. Data was collected from 79 trainees who posted a message describing a motivation problem in electronic discussion forums and from 15 trainees who were prompted to describe in stimulated recall interviews a classroom situation where they learned to activate and sustain their students’ motivation. Twelve self-regulatory processes were found in interviews and nine in forums. A detailed description of the processes will be presented. Positive correlations were found among phases of self-regulation, and between the number of different self-regulatory processes used by trainees within forums and the number of motivational practices they proposed. Trainees who used more self-regulatory processes generated more motivational strategies.

INTRODUCTION

Given the growing body of evidence reflecting the benefits of developing self-regulatory skills on academic performances, concerns have been expressed regarding the development of self-regulatory processes by teachers and preservice teachers (Butler, Novak, & Beckingham, 2001; Kremer-Hayon & Tillema, 1999, 2001).

Teacher education programs should focus more on the development of self-regulation to give preservice teachers a greater control over their knowledge acquisition within the context of life-long professional development. However, to our knowledge, no study has reviewed the self-regulatory processes used by preservice teachers within their practicum to learn a complex task such as activating and sustaining students’ motivation.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the study are: 1) to identify and describe the self-regulatory processes used by preservice teachers to learn how to activate and sustain students’ motivation within practicum and 2) to examine the relation between the trainees’ use of self-regulatory processes and their capacity to propose motivational practices.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

According to the social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), self-regulation is a process whereby students activate and sustain cognition, behavior and affects that are involved in the successful completion of learning tasks. Self-regulation consists of three successive and cyclical phases: forethought, performance and self-reflection. The forethought phase sets the stage for the efforts; it consists of goal setting, strategic planning, self-efficacy beliefs, goal orientation and intrinsic interest. The performance phase occurs during the efforts and acts on attention; it consists of attention focusing, self-instruction or imagery and self-monitoring. The self-reflection phase follows the efforts and affects the learner’s response to efforts; it consists of self-evaluation, attributions, self-responses and adaptivity (Zimmerman, 1998).

Preservice teachers and teachers can play a crucial role in their students’ motivation (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). They can affect motivation in many ways through the implementation of numerous strategies.

METHODOLOGY

a) Participants and procedure

The study took place within a classroom management course delivered to 129 students in the third year of a secondary education degree program. This course was given concurrently with a five-week practicum, and 115 students were completing the practicum. All trainees were given access to four different forums. They had to post their messages of at least 200 words in a specific forum according to the subject addressed. Only the forums on motivation were used for this study, and 79 trainees posted a message describing a motivational problem. Also, 15 of them were prompted to describe freely in a one-hour stimulated recall interview a classroom situation where they learned to activate and sustain their students’ motivation.

b) Data source

The forum and interview transcripts were coded according to the Zimmerman’s model (1998). One procedure was used to score the interviews, and three for the forums. First, a frequency score was created by counting the number of times that a self-regulatory process appeared in the forum and interview transcripts. Second, a dichotomous score that describes whether a trainee used a process was also considered for the forums. Third, the motivational strategies appearing in forums were also counted. With the Miles & Huberman’s formula (1984), a reliability index of 84% was obtained for the interviews. Scorers agreed also at an 89% level for the self-regulatory processes appearing in the forums and at a 91% level for the motivational strategies generated by the forums.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Twelve self-regulatory processes were found in interviews. In general, trainees set both distal outcome and proximal process goals. Their self-efficacy beliefs were increased among other things by a good teaching planning. Trainees found interest in their relation with students. They mostly chose strategies in order to reach process goals. They monitored the use of these strategies by observing student behaviour in class. They reflected upon their actions: they evaluated it, made causal attributions and adapted their subsequent performance. Some were satisfied, others were unsatisfied or frustrated. A mastery learning goal orientation was reported by only one trainee. A detailed description of each process will be presented. This description could help preservice teacher educators to support them correctly in their learning.

Nine processes were present in the forums. The processes most frequently cited were goal setting (46.9%), strategic planning (77.2%) and monitoring (98.9%). The other process frequencies are: 29.2% for adaptive inferences, 27.9% for both self-evaluation and causal attributions, 11.4 % for self-reactions, 12.1% for self-efficacy beliefs and, finally, 8.9% for interest. Goal orientation, attention focusing and self-instructions processes were absent. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to examine the relationship among the three self-regulation phases. Significant correlations were found between phases 1 and 2 (r = 0.541, p < 0.001) and between phases 2 and 3 (r = 0.369, p < 0.001).

178 motivational practices (M: 2.25, SD: 2.03) were collected through the forums. The Pearson’s coefficient was used again to evaluate the correlation between the forum dichotomous scores and the motivational practice numbers generated by the forums. A positive correlation was found (r = 0.298, p < 0.005).

CONCLUSION AND EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study identifies the self-regulatory processes used by trainees to learn how to activate and sustain their students’ motivation. Trainees used all self-regulatory processes at different levels in the learning of students’ motivation. Monitoring, which is considered by many authors as a vital one, is the most frequently used. Trainees who used more self-regulatory processes generated more motivational strategies.

References

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Kremer-Hayon, L. K. & Tillema, H.H (1999). Self-regulated learning in the context of teacher education, Teaching and Teacher Education, 15, 507-522.

Kremer-Hayon, L.K. & Tillema H.H. (2001). Practising what we preach – teacher educators’ dilemma in promoting self-regulated learning: a cross case comparison. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 593-607.

Pintrich, P.R. & Schunk, D.H. (2002). Motivation in education. Theory, research, and applications, 2^nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Zimmerman, B.J. (1998). Developing self-fulfilling cycles of academic regulation:  An analysis of exemplary instructional models. In D.H. Schunk and B.J. Zimmerman (Dir.), Self-regulated learning: from teaching to self-reflective practice (pp. 1-19), New York: Guilford.