Students’ Perceptions of School-Related Conditions Impacting Their Motivation and Engagement in Learning

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.