Factors affecting student motivation in distance education
Gunnar Wettergren
Stockholm University, Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, gunnarw@dsv.su.se.
Sub-theme: Quality and ODL – the way forward
Motivated students are important in all forms of education even more so in
distance-education where students are alone in their efforts. The overall goal of
this study is to increase the quality in distance education, course creation, and emoderation. This paper examines the issue of motivating students and explores the
various factors that influences motivation. The total sample was 398 students out
of a population of 948 (41,9%). This study is based on two questions. Namely, (1)
Self-studies of any kind relies heavily on personal motivation, what affects your
level of motivation in a positive way? (2) Self studies of any kind rely heavily on
personal motivation, what affects the level of motivation in a negative was? Data
was collected during a summer course held 2009 and 2010 using an online survey
tool and the data was then analyzed using grounded theory. This method of
analysis is well suited for qualitative studies since it allows the researcher the
ability to explore the collected data without the need of a predefined hypothesis, or
a notion what the result might be.
This paper concludes among other things that the factors affecting motivation can
be divided into two categories: (1) Course process and structure, (2) Life situation
and personal variables. Both categories can have both positive and negative effects
on motivation. For example students seem to think that educational structure
decreases motivation more than it increases it. These categories will be further
expanded inside the paper. A list of questions aiding teachers in course creation
drawn from the results is also included.
Keywords: Motivation, distance education, factors affecting
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Introduction
Distance education can in many aspects be a lonely affair where
students are left to motivate themselves and to push through barriers and
hurdles with less help and support from peers and teachers, the sense of
isolation is ever present. (Dickey, 2004;Owens et al. 2009;Venter,2003;Williams
et al. 2006) In a situation where the student is left to self motivate and to drive
his/her own studies forward there is an apparent need to understand what
factors that affect motivation in distance education. Motivation has been
identified as a critical factor for online education (Lim, 2004), however it has not
been given the attention it deserves in online education (Jones & Issroff, 2005;
Miltiadou & Savenye, 2003) This paper presents the result of a study conducted
at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University
aimed at identifying key factors that affect motivation.
Background
Motivation is important in all aspects of life be it in a professional
capacity or as a student at a University. There are two basic types of
motivation: (1) intrinsic and (2) extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation refers to a person’s
internal motivation, his/her own driving force, for example a student that is
interested in a topic/task itself. Extrinsic on the other hand is external
motivation provided by outside parties, for example a teacher praising a
students for his/her good work, or monetary compensation in the form of a
bonus for a professional. (Ryan & Deci, 2000) There are a large number of
motivation theories that deal with various motivational aspects. We will examine
a subset of these theories that are related to learning and the topic of the paper.
These theories have been selected based on the fact that most of the factors
that will be presented tie in with these theories and these theories are also
important in order to understand the result.
Control theory
Control theory refers to the need of being able to control aspects of our
lives. An important aspect of control theory is self-regulation. (Cleary &
Zimmerman, 2004) Self-regulation can be defined as follows: “In general, self-
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regulation involves learners who proactively direct their behavior or strategies to
achieve self-set goals. They also rely on affective, cognitive, motivational, and
behavioral feedback to modify or adjust their strategies and behaviors when
unable to initially attain their goals” (Cleary & Zimmerman, p.538, 2004).
Cognitive evaluation theory
When learners look at tasks in a course they choose/evaluate the tasks
based on how it meets their needs of feeling competent and in control of their
learning situation. Cognitive evaluation theory influences intrinsic motivation,
negatively or positively, depending on how it affects the perceived competence
of the learner. (Deci & Ryan, 1985)
Endowed progress effect
When a learner feels he/she is making progress towards a set goal by
reaching milestones of sub-goals he/she, artificial or real is more persistent or
motivated to continue towards the goal in question. (Nunes & Drèze, 2006)
Goal seeking theory
In order to keep ourselves on track we set goals that must be:



Clear
Challenging
Achievable
The theory also states that goals set by us are more motivating than goals set by
others. (Locke & Latham, 1990)
Activation theory
This theory states that mental arousal is needed for us as humans to
function in a good effective way. However, there is a thin line between a healthy
level of arousal that helps us stay focused and motivated and over arousal that
creates stress and dissatisfaction. (Berlyne, 1949, 1967) The Yerkes-Dodson law
shows us that as arousal increases so does motivation and performance, but only
to a certain point after which it goes down again. (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908)
Drive theory
All humans have needs that we try to satisfy in our daily lives. The theory
distinguishes between primary needs (survival, protection) and secondary (social,
identity). When we strive to satisfy needs we pick up habits and certain behavior.
(Hull 1943)
Self-Determination theory
This theory deals with self-determination and pressure from the outside.
According to this theory there are three basic needs that must be satisfied: (1)
Competence, (2) Relatedness, and (3) Autonomy. In SDT people are describe based
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on having an internal or external PLOC (perceived locus of causality). (Deci & Ryan,
1985)
Method
The method used in this paper is grounded theory. This method was
selected in order to give the researcher the freedom to explore the collected
material without having a predefined hypothesis that might limit the exploration
for factors affecting motivation. Grounded theory is a qualitative research method
that is inductive and applied to information systems it is useful in developing
context-based descriptions of IT-system events and phenomena (Myers,
1997;Goulielmos, 2004). Another strong point is the close connection between
findings and the data, ensured by procedures and processes of the method
(Orlikowski, 1993).
The total sample was 398 students out of a population of 948 (41,9%).
This study is based on two questions that where a part of the course evaluation
that students filled out once completing the course. Namely, (1) Self-studies of any
kind relies heavily on personal motivation, what affects your level of motivation in
a positive way? (2) Self studies of any kind rely heavily on personal motivation,
what affects the level of motivation in a negative was? Data was collected during a
summer course in project management held 2009 and 2010 using an online survey
tool. The collected data was then analyzed according to grounded theory.
Related studies
Radovan (2011) conducted a survey on students in a distance-learning
program. The total sample was 319 students and the study showed the importance
of motivational factors, task and goal orientation, and effort regulating strategies.
It has also been shown that there is a positive effect of motivation and learning
strategies on learning results (Ying et al. 2008). A study conducted by Delialioglu
(2004) examined the sources of motivation among 25 students in a hybrid course
(blended learning – meaning a mix between campus based and online education).
This study showed that intrinsic motivation is the main component of distance and
hybrid education and plays a more important role than extrinsic in student
motivation. Chen and Jang (2010) tested the self-determination theory by Deci and
Ryan on motivation in online learning and showed that motivation and selfdetermination was important but could not be used to predict learner outcomes.
Gabrielle (2003) used the ARCS model by Keller (1983) to design strategies for
online students. The study showed that ARCS based learning promotes student
motivation. The concepts of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982) in connection with
motivation and e-learning has been studied by numerous researchers for example:
Lee et al. (2011) studied e-learning system acceptance in organizations, street
(2010) studies students decision to drop out of distance learning, and Pan (2005)
looked at the usage of e-learning management systems from a student point of
view. Task value (Eccles, 1983) has also been studied in the context of online
learning. Lee (2002) studies both concepts (self-efficacy and task value) and its
effects on satisfaction and performance in an online course. Lee showed that the
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two concepts could be used to predict online students performance and
satisfaction.
Results
This section presents the results of the conducted study and discusses it
from a learning viewpoint. As needed the results will be connected to the various
motivational theories and put into a context for better understanding. This study
was analyzed using grounded theory and our basic research question that we will
try to answer is: “What factors affects students motivation in distance education”.
When coding the results in grounded theory there are three types of
coding that the researcher goes through: (1) Open coding, here you assign
passages from the collected data to categories, (2) Axial coding, refine the list of
categories, (3) Selective coding, identify the core categories that will serve as
foundation for theories. In order to make the results clear and understandable this
paper will present the analysis in reverse order, meaning starting with the core
categories that were identified in step 3 and then presenting the supporting
results. Actual quotes from answers given by students will be inserted to support
the various claims.
Core categories and support
After completing the analysis of the collected answers the identified core
categories where: (1) Course process and structure and (2) Life situation and
personal variables. Each of these categories contain sub-categories and ultimately
factors.
Course process and structure
Course process and structure refers to the design of the online course
itself, both out of a didactical viewpoint, how the course is given as well as the
pedagogical foundation and idea of the creating teacher. Furthermore, it also
includes the actions and behavior of teachers and teaching assistants when giving
the actual course. This core category can be further divided into sub-categories
that are more explanatory, namely:
Table 1 Course process and structure sub-categories
Course process and structure
Teacher interest, feedback and response
Status, deadlines and goals
Structure
These various categories presented in table 1 can also be broken down to the
individual factors that influence motivation (see figure 1):
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Figure 1 Factors Course, process, and structure
Students feel that teacher involvement is important in motivation and that they are
active in following up students and their progress, one of the respondents
expressed it as “it is negative if teachers do not show an interest in my progress”,
another students stated that “uninterested teachers and students affect motivation
negatively”. The need for timely and qualitative feedback for teachers is also
important in order to have motivated students, “feedback when asked for is
important”, “feedback is a central part in what a teacher does and it must be of
high quality and on time”. Respondents also expressed that deadlines and goals are
central to self-motivation. The feeling of moving forward, accomplishing goals
along the way is central and has great impact on motivation, “I am motivated by
seeing progress, that the course move forward”. This is very much inline with the
endowed progress effect presented earlier and shows the need of course
scaffolding and creating clear and reachable milestones towards course
completion. The various goals that teacher’s set up must be reachable for our
students, “Goals must not be overwhelming”, “It is important that goals are
reachable and clear”, also supported by the cognitive evaluation theory. The
structure of the course in question, clarity of instructions, the technical platform
are all factors that influence motivation greatly, mostly negatively.
Life situation and personal variables
This core category refers to the situation of the students and personal variables
such as interest in the topic, the joy of development and personal growth, in other
words more connected to intrinsic motivation. This core variable can in turn be
divided into three different sub-categories, which are:
Table 2 Life situation and personal variables sub-categories
Life situation and personal variables
Life situation/Social context
Connection to the real world, course
context
Inspiration and joy
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These sub-categories can then be broken down into individual factors that affect
motivation as follows:
Figure 2 Factors Life situation and personal variables
Being a students in the 21st centaury is very different than before. The student
body is less homogenous and students have a social context, such as family,
being forced to work to larger extent, and a much broader and demanding
social network. In a survey conducted in 2007 by the Swedish National census
40% of the students claimed that it was hard for them to combine studies with
their social situation (women to a larger extent than men), for single parents the
number was higher 67%, and for couples with children 50%. Almost 50% of the
students had a social situation that more or less influenced their studies
negatively. (Sauli 2007) Subsequently anything that effects this situation
negatively or positively affects motivation. Students in this survey stated that
“being able to strike a balance between my social situation and studies”, “
freedom to plan my studies”, “ that I have time left over” all effecting motivation
positively. On the other hand they clearly state that “stress”, lack of time”, and a
“complicated private situation” affect motivation negatively. The need for a
context is also a sub-category that is apparent in the conducted study. Students
are motivated by feeling a connection with future work (“That I feel that the
topic/course is useful for me in my professional life”, “that there is a connection
between the task at hand and what will useful in the future”, “that there is a
connection to reality”) this applies to all aspects of the course, from the course
itself to individual tasks. Inspiration and joy is important and the respondents of
this study states that “being able to succeed, getting through the material”, “the
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course must be inspiring”, “I am motivated by courses that tie into my personal
interests”, “the joy and satisfaction of developing myself and my skills motivate
me”.
Discussion and Conclusions
Student motivation is driven by many things and the obvious conclusion that
needs to be drawn here is that teachers are forced to deal with everything from
both intangibles such as student internal driving force, self-determination to
succeed, to more tangible factors such as course structure, didactics etc.
Examining the results, some factors such as teachers lacking pedagogical
skills, technical issues, challenge, course structure, etc. have an overwhelming
negative affect on motivation, and very little if any positive effect on student
motivation. One way to interpret this phenomenon is that is resembles that
Herzberg’s hygiene factors, where a factor is necessary to avoid dissatisfaction
but adds very little satisfaction if present. (Herzberg, 1966) For teachers and
course developers this means that some things just have to be there and
function for students to be motivated but it does not add to the level of
motivation. Hygiene factor for distance education or online learning could be
factors like: (1) A functioning LMS, (2) Timely feedback from teachers, (3) the
quality of the materials used in the course etc. There are obviously many more
factors but further research needs to be done to identify them with certainty.
Two other central conclusions that can be drawn are that a large part of student
motivation is internal and hard to affect, and that structure seems to be the most
important factor when it comes to affecting motivation. Students want deadlines,
goals they can achieve, clear instructions of assignments that challenge them
just the right amount (Goal seeking theory) and they are motivated by achieving
setup goals. This result further shows the need for scaffolding of course
materials and not overwhelming the student with assignments and text. One
category of factors that is extra interesting to examine is that of the social
context of education and student personal life situation. Students have changed
and for example allowing students the freedom to plan their own studies in a
course will affect motivation among the students that have a complicated life
greatly. Allowing student freedom will be very important for future education,
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both on campus, blended learning, or completely online. Today’s students are
also more aware of the value of an education or a course in aiding their
professional careers or getting an edge in finding a job. The result indicate that
the context factor is important and students want to be able to connect previous
studies to their current, understand how the learned knowledge is applied in the
real world, and to understand if the gained knowledge is useful. This goes hand
in hand with the fact that students more and more look at employability and
their chances of finding a high paying job, or get promoted when selecting
courses and educational programs.
The factors presented in this paper are there to help teachers understand what
is important and what is not when designing distance courses. As with all
projects there is a budget and a limited time frame to create the course and
these factors should help teachers focus on the right areas and give them help
in selecting resources to use.
The following questions have been derived from the factors and the result of the
study and can be used as a guideline when developing an online course.
1. Do we have enough teachers/TA’s working in this course to be able to
cater to students needs when it comes to feedback and student contact?
2. Is there a mechanism in place in the LMS to track feedback and students
contacts?
3. How will we track student progress?
4. Go through all the tasks in the course and ask yourself:
a. Are the goals and sub-goals clear and understandable?
b. Are we using scaffolding to break up large chunks of work?
c. How is progress communicated back to students?
d. Is it easy for students to see what is left to do?
e. Are we challenging all students? It is very common that
assignments are designed for the middle of the pack student and
not the A student.
5. Do we have a clear pedagogy developed for this course?
6. Have we implemented the course in a sensible and good way for the
students?
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7. Is the material of high quality?
8. Have we implemented a logical course structure? Does it make sense to
the students?
9. Is the LMS in order and functions properly?
10. Do we know our student, are they working full-time/part-time or are they
100% students? Your design of the course in question might look
different depending on your target group.
11. Have we made necessary changes to cater to the target group?
12. Do we allow our students to plan their study time?
13. Do we make clear connections between the course topics and the real
world?
14. What have we done to make the course interesting and inspirational?
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