University students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) tend to lose motivation over time, largely due to daunting coursework and competitive environments. This loss of motivation can be detrimental to students’ pursuit of careers and further studies in STEM fields, not to mention their mental health. A detailed understanding of when and how students are most likely to lose motivation could help support students and combat this issue, but research into the dynamics of motivational loss is lacking.
In a recent paper, Kristy Robinson, assistant professor in McGill’s Faculty of Education, and her team investigated short-term changes in motivation and how they correlate with specific academic settings.
“Building on previous research showing students tend to lose motivation over time, we wanted to identify times in the semester when motivational loss seems more or less common, and to answer the question of whether motivational changes can look different in different settings,” Robinson wrote to The Tribune. “In other words, how much of a difference might a teacher or class make for supporting positive motivational trajectories?”
Robinson found students were most likely to lose motivation during the initial period of the semester. This suggests that interventions meant to maintain motivation might be particularly impactful if they are timed to the return to school.
“For example, if instructors aim to enhance students’ long-term academic choices, providing opportunities for students to reflect on the personal importance of learning early in the semester would be beneficial,” Robinson wrote.
Equipping students with strategies to regulate negative emotions, especially in the challenging environment of weed-out courses and near the beginning of the semester, could be helpful for managing the stress, worry, or embarrassment that students experience in high-pressure STEM environments.
The study also found that a professor’s overall course design and approach could influence trends in motivation.
“We did find that trajectories differed at least a bit from course to course. What we took away from that was that motivational declines aren’t inevitable, and that instructors can ‘move the needle’ on students’ motivation by providing supportive course environments,” Robinson wrote.
The research also revealed that students’ incoming perspectives—such as their confidence, how costly they felt the course would be, and the value they placed on the material—were closely linked to their course grades and choices of major.
“In general, students who showed more positive trajectories of value and confidence tended to have higher course grades at the end of the semester,” Robinson wrote. “In contrast, students [who perceived the course as overly challenging] tended to receive lower final course grades, but different beliefs mattered more or less for grades and major choices depending on the time of the semester when the beliefs changed.”
Robinson’s team also found that students tended to lose confidence for their course topic over time, while simultaneously perceiving an increasing burden associated with studying the course topic.
Furthermore, early assignment scores appeared to be particularly important for shaping motivational changes. In other words, students who did well in their early assignments tended to see a subsequent increase in motivation.
The results of the study highlight the importance of developing interventions early in the semester to mitigate motivational declines in courses.
“Our study is the first, to our knowledge, to examine how motivational change is situated within specific learning contexts, with important consequences for course performance and [choices of major],” Robinson wrote.
Moving forward, Robinson pointed to the need to understand which specific features of various courses, such as instructor speech or course assessment practices, are most important for shaping students’ motivation.
“Tracking students’ motivational changes, combined with carefully designed and perhaps even individually tailored support for their various motivational beliefs, is a really interesting avenue for future research,” Robinson wrote.
