TITLE:
Students’ Perceptions of School-Related Conditions Impacting Their Motivation and Engagement in Learning
AUTHORS:
Kumbukage Dona Ruwandika Lakmali Jayalath Perera
KEYWORDS:
Engagement in Learning, Intrinsic Motivation, School-Related Conditions, Students’ Perceptions
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.9,
September
16,
2021
ABSTRACT: The data and information show that student participation in junior
secondary schools in Sri Lanka, particularly in low socio-economic districts is
considerably low. There are many reasons behind this. It seems that students’
low motivation and engagement might be one of the reasons. One of the problems
for that might be school-related conditions. Therefore, this study investigated the perceptions of students regarding
school-related conditions impacting their motivation and engagement in
learning. Self-determination theory to understand students’ intrinsic
motivation was used as the theoretical base of this study. This study employed
explanatory sequential mixed methods research design. Data were gathered from
seven Tamil medium and five Sinhala medium type, two
government schools located in the Monaragala and Nuwara Eliya districts. At the
first phase (quantitative) of the study, the
Motivation and Engagement Scale-Junior School was administered among two
hundred grade, eight students and at the second phase (qualitative) of the study
according to the scale scores, 12 male and 12 female students, identified as
least motivated, were selected to be interviewed. Semi-structured interviews
were conducted to collect data from the selected 24 students. The second phase
(qualitative) data was used for this study. Thematic analysis was applied for
analysing data. Analysis of interviews revealed two main themes in relation to the school-related conditions that impacted
students’ motivation and engagement in learning: 1) quality of classroom
relationships; and 2) quality of curriculum and resources. In theme one, quality of
classroom relationships; negative
teacher-student relationship and influence of peers were emerged as sub-themes. Under the sub-theme, negative
teacher-student relationship, four categories were identified: harsh
punishments, inadequate encouragement, un-engaging
teaching, and unfriendly teaching-learning environment. In theme two, quality of
curriculum and resources; inadequate quality learning activities, difficult
subject matters, difficult and excessive homework, regular tests, inadequate classroom resources, and inadequate
quality teaching-learning resources
were emerged as sub-themes. It is imperative that the negative school-related
conditions impacting students’ motivation and engagement should be taken into
consideration to increase students’ participation in learning.