The effect of experimental manipulation of student motivation on the situational representation of text

Abstract The present study investigated the effects of motivational instructions on interest, test anxiety, and text learning. Instructions to facilitate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were compared with a “neutral” instruction. The sample consisted of 375 ninth-graders. Text-related interest and test anxiety were assessed before and after the experimental instruction as well as after the text has been read. An inference verification test was administered to assess students' situational text representation. The results showed the expected effects of type of instruction on interest and test anxiety when measured directly after the treatment. With respect to the situational text representation, no significant main effects were obtained. Instead, the experimental instructions interacted significantly with gender and pretest interest. The hypothesized effects of type of instruction on the situational text representation were only observed for girls and for students with high pretest interest.

[1]  Matthew H. Reider,et al.  The Impact of Situational and Dispositional Achievement Goals on Performance , 2001 .

[2]  Suzanne Hidi,et al.  Strategies for increasing text-based interest and students' recall of expository texts. , 1988 .

[3]  C. Sansone,et al.  Effects of instruction on intrinsic interest: the importance of context. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[4]  Regina Vollmeyer,et al.  FAM: Ein Fragebogen zur Erfassung aktuller Motivation in Lern- und Leistungssituationen , 2001 .

[5]  Sandra Graham,et al.  Motivational influences on cognition : task involvement, ego involvement, and depth of information processing , 1991 .

[6]  R. Ryan,et al.  Autonomy in children's learning: an experimental and individual difference investigation. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  A. Krapp.  Interest, motivation and learning: An educational-psychological perspective , 1999 .

[8]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  The Positive Impact of Creative Activity: Effects of Creative Task Engagement and Motivational Focus on College Students' Learning , 1995 .

[9]  Elmar Souvignier,et al.  Using Self-Regulation as a Framework for Implementing Strategy Instruction to Foster Reading Comprehension. , 2006 .

[10]  Walter Kintsch,et al.  Propositional and situational representations of text , 1985 .

[11]  W. Schneider,et al.  Reading, metacognition and motivation: A follow-up study of German students in Grades 7 and 8 , 2003 .

[12]  Juliette F Mendelovits,et al.  Reading for change : performance and engagement across countries : results of PISA 2000 , 2003 .

[13]  Walter Kintsch,et al.  Sentence memory: A theoretical analysis ☆ , 1990 .

[14]  C. Artelt,et al.  Struktur, Entwicklung und Förderung von Lesekompetenz , 2004 .

[15]  J. Hsu.  Multiple Comparisons: Theory and Methods , 1996 .

[16]  Alexander Renkl,et al.  Learning for later teaching: An exploration of mediational links between teaching expectancy and learning results. , 1995 .

[17]  Inge Schreyer,et al.  Intrinsische Lernmotivation und Lernen. Ein Überblick zu Ergebnissen der Forschung. , 1994 .

[18]  Jerrell C. Cassady,et al.  The Impact of Cognitive Test Anxiety on Text Comprehension and Recall in the Absence of External Evaluative Pressure , 2004 .

[19]  Elaborative Inferences on an Expository Text. , 1991 .

[20]  P. Alexander,et al.  The Role of Subject-Matter Knowledge and Interest in the Processing of Linear and Nonlinear Texts , 1994 .

[21]  Jacquelynne S. Eccles,et al.  Development of achievement motivation. , 2007 .

[22]  M. Zeidner,et al.  Test Anxiety: The State of the Art , 1998 .

[23]  Suzanne Hidi,et al.  Interestingness - A Neglected Variable in Discourse Processing , 1986, Cogn. Sci..

[24]  Edward L. Deci,et al.  Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior , 1975, Perspectives in Social Psychology.

[25]  Géry d'Ydewalle,et al.  Expectancy, arousal and individual differences in free recall , 1985 .

[26]  Rolf A. Zwaan,et al.  Situation models in language comprehension and memory. , 1998, Psychological bulletin.

[27]  Ulrich Schiefele,et al.  Motivation und Lernen mit Texten , 1996 .

[28]  Carol Sansone,et al.  Maintaining activity engagement: individual differences in the process of self-regulating motivation. , 2006, Journal of personality.

[29]  G. Lienert,et al.  Testaufbau und Testanalyse , 1962 .

[30]  W. Thalheimer,et al.  How to calculate effect sizes from published research: A simplified methodology , 2002 .

[31]  T. M. Amabile.  The social psychology of creativity , 1984 .

[32]  W. Kintsch.  The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: a construction-integration model. , 1988, Psychological review.

[33]  E. Deci,et al.  Motivation and Education: The Self-Determination Perspective , 2008 .

[34]  Detlev Leutner,et al.  PISA 2003: Der Bildungsstand der Jugendlichen in Deutschland - Ergebnisse des zweiten internationalen Vergleichs , 2004 .

[35]  D. Bergin.  Effects of a Mastery Versus Competitive Motivation Situation on Learning , 1995 .

[36]  S. Brooks,et al.  Applied Multivariate Statistics for the Social Sciences , 1993 .

[37]  On the modified s-method and directional errors , 1990 .

[38]  C. Artelt,et al.  Struktur, Entwicklung und Förderung von Lesekompetenz: Vertiefende Analysen im Rahmen von PISA 2000 , 2004 .

[39]  James P. Egan,et al.  Signal detection theory and ROC analysis , 1975 .

[40]  Bradley E. Huitema,et al.  The analysis of covariance and alternatives , 1980 .

[41]  Gregory Schraw,et al.  Sources of Situational Interest , 1995 .

[42]  S. Ball.  Motivation in Education , 1977 .

[43]  Charles R. Fletcher,et al.  Surface forms, textbases, and situation models: Recognition memory for three types of textual information , 1990 .

[44]  F. Schmalhofer,et al.  Three components of understanding a programmer's manual: Verbatim, propositional and situational representations , 1986 .

[45]  Ulrich Schiefele.  Interest and Learning From Text , 1999 .

[46]  Ulrich Schiefele,et al.  Ein erweitertes Verständnis der Lesekompetenz: Die Ergebnisse des nationalen Ergänzungstests , 2004 .

[47]  E. Deci,et al.  The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior , 2000 .

[48]  E. Deci,et al.  Quality of Learning With an Active Versus Passive Motivational Set , 1984 .

[49]  Rolf A. Zwaan.  Effect of genre expectations on text comprehension. , 1994 .

[50]  John T. Guthrie,et al.  Classroom Conditions for Motivation and Engagement in Reading , 2001 .

[51]  J. Eccles,et al.  The Development of Competence Beliefs, Expectancies for Success, and Achievement Values from Childhood through Adolescence , 2002 .

[52]  K. Ann Renninger,et al.  Interest, a motivational variable that combines affective and cognitive functioning. , 2004 .

[53]  M. Maehr.  Advances in Motivation and Achievement , 1991 .

[54]  Janet M. Collis,et al.  Intelligence and personality : bridging the gap in theory and measurement , 2001 .