Integration of ARCS Motivational Model and IT to Enhance Students Learning in the Context of Atayal Culture

Abstract

This study involved using teaching strategies from the ARCS Motivational Model to develop new interdisciplinary curricular modules and ability assessments that combine Atayal culture with information technology. The purpose was to explore whether, through pedagogy based on the ARCS motivational model, indigenous middle-school students had a significant improvement in teamwork, creative thinking, and communication abilities, and whether or not students’ interest in information technology and culture was inspired. Research subjects were 17 first-year students in an Atayal Comprehensive Junior-Senior High School in Nan’ao, Yilan County. The research period was 2016-2017, and data was collected from teaching demonstrations, thoughts written down by students, and tests. Research tools include the qualitative written thoughts of the students and a quantitative assessment of the key abilities of teamwork, creative thinking, and communication abilities. There were a total of 33 items. To explore whether there was a significant change in indigenous students’ teamwork, creative thinking, and communication abilities, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for statistical analysis of pre-test and post-test results. Research results show that indigenous students performed significantly better in the post-test than in the pre-test with respect to teamwork, creative thinking, and communication. The thoughts students wrote down after class clearly expressed interest in the cross-disciplinary course combining culture and information technology. Therefore, the course using an ARCS motivational model to combine Atayal culture and information technology significantly improved indigenous students’ teamwork, creative thinking, and communication abilities.