Motivation and engagement

Motivation derives from the Latin verb movere (to move) and underscores the idea that motivation is something that gets us going (Schunk et al., 2014).

Motivation can broadly be defined as “the process whereby goal-directed activities are instigated and sustained” (Schunk et al., 2014, p. 5). Theories of

motivation have been prominent in educational research for many decades, and offer fine-grained conceptualizations related to students’ expectancies, values, attributions, control, goal orientations, worth, regulation, and self-determination (Martin et al., 2017; Schunk et al., 2014). Motivation theories are thus most fundamentally concerned with the psychological processes that underlie human action. Still, most current models of motivation also incorporate an action component (e.g., choice, efforts, or engagement; Skinner

& Pitzer, 2012).

Since the 1990s, another line of research has developed, partly independent of motivation theories: research on student engagement. This line of research has had an incremental growth the last decade (Salmela-Aro et al., 2021) and has been closely linked to the development of school dropout interventions (Finn, 1989; Reschly & Christenson, 2012). Therefore, concepts derived from this line of research frequently appear in the practical and academic field of dropout prevention. For the same reason, research on student engagement tends to have a more applied nature with a more eclectic theoretical base compared to studies grounded in motivation theories (Reschly & Christenson, 2012; Salmela-Aro et al., 2021). It is claimed that the appeal of the meta-construct of engagement is tied to the issue that it unifies literature on how students feel, think, and act (Eccles, 2016; Fredricks et al., 2019). This unifying and eclectic nature does, however, not come without challenges. A continuous elaboration within the engagement literature (Eccles, 2016), as well as tendencies of motivational approaches shifting focus onto engagement (e.g., Reeve, 2012; Skinner et al., 2009), have caused conceptual ambiguities (Fredricks & Wendy, 2012; Reschly

& Christenson, 2012) and an ongoing debate as to whether motivation and engagement actually differ (e.g., Martin et al., 2017).

While this thesis does not aim to resolve these conceptual issues, it has urged caution when reviewing existing research and when attempting to draw a consistent theoretical line for this work. In this thesis, theories of motivation are used to understand particular aspects of the broad process of motivation (cf.

definition of Schunk et al., 2014) and comprise emotional engagement and academic boredom as motivational components potentially driving intentions to quit school. Emotional engagement and academic boredom are proposed as mediators between perceived psychosocial support and the academic outcome

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(here, intentions to quit school) (Reschly & Christenson, 2012; Skinner et al., 2008). This represents a position where the academic field of motivation is acknowledged with its long history of fine-grained and empirically supported theories, while operating with concepts that also appear in other frameworks (i.e., engagement). Such a position of grounding in motivation theories is seen in, for example, Skinner et al.’s “Motivational perspective on engagement and disaffection” (Skinner et al., 2008; 2009), which has served as an important theoretical inspiration.

2.2.1.1 Emotional engagement and academic boredom

Emotional engagement comprises students’ positive emotions of interest, enthusiasm, and enjoyment when involved in classroom learning activities (Skinner et al., 2009) and is by such, largely overlapping with the concept of intrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Emotional engagement is indicated as a key to sustained effort (Skinner et al., 2008; Wang & Degol, 2014).

Research among late adolescents has, however, evidenced that students do not need to be emotionally engaged to attain high academic achievement, yet declining emotional engagement has been related to an increase in depressive symptoms (Wang et al., 2015). In other words, poor emotional engagement seems to take its toll and was therefore expected to be negatively associated with intentions to quit school (Study Ⅰ). Numerous studies have also linked intrinsic motivation (or the degree of self-determined motivation) to a range of educational outcomes (see Ryan & Deci, 2017a), and some have found it negatively related to dropout intentions (Alivernini & Lucidi, 2011; Hardre &

Reeve, 2003; Howard et al., 2021), which supported the expectation regarding emotional engagement and intentions to quit school.

Academic boredom is a specific negative and deactivating emotion during academic work, characterized by a prolonged perception of time, as in “time stands still” (Pekrun et al., 2010). This specific emotion is more than a neutral state of lack of interest, and is therefore not simply regarded as the opposite of emotional engagement (Pekrun et al., 2010; Skinner et al., 2009). In everyday language, boredom may be understood as “having nothing to do;” however, in the academic literature it stems from a situation where what is offered in the setting does not appeal to the person (Mann & Robinson, 2009). When

experiencing academic boredom, the individual’s focus is directed to this negative emotional experience, which reduces their cognitive resources for the academic activity. The core psychological determinants of academic boredom are theorized to be low value placed on the activity, coupled with either extensive high control (i.e., activity being too easy) or lack of control (too hard;

Pekrun et al., 2006).

In light of the remarkably high reported levels in student populations (Bakken, 2019; Bridgeland et al., 2006; Moeller et al., 2020) academic boredom has received modest explicit attention from motivational perspectives⎯see, for example, Skinner et al. (2009) who devotes only three items to boredom in a combined scale of emotional disaffection. Likewise, in traditional SDT perspectives, boredom is rarely explicitly referred to, but theorized as an affective response to a less self-determined or controlled motivational state (Ntoumanis, 2001). The antecedents and consequences of academic boredom are more explicitly addressed from Pekrun’s (2006; 2010) control-value theory, in which it is signified as a neglected and understudied academic emotion. Its silent and socially inconspicuous nature may be a reason for this “neglection,”

while increasing evidence now documents its negative academic and health related correlates (Pekrun et al., 2014; Schwartze et al., 2021; Tze et al., 2016).

The unpleasant state of boredom, described as triggering an impulse to escape the situation (Pekrun et al., 2010, p. 533), and the negative consequence of experiencing a lack of purpose and self-determination (Ryan & Deci, 2017b) underlie the anticipated association between academic boredom and intentions to quit school (Study Ⅰ). Before Study Ⅰ was undertaken, no other empirical studies were found to focus on academic boredom in association with intentions to quit school. Recently, however, an Italian study explored trajectory subgroups of academic boredom and confirmed an essential association with intentions to quit school (Grazia et al., 2021).

Emotional engagement and academic boredom were treated as intermediate variables in the cross-sectional structural equation model in Study Ⅰ, when investigating how, and to what extent, need-supportive aspects of perceived teacher support are related to intentions to quit school. This notion follows the theoretical assumption that engagement is the “bridge” (or mediator) between perceptions of the psychosocial context and academic outcomes (e.g., Reschly

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& Christenson, 2012; Skinner et al., 2008). This notion has not been extensively tested empirically (Roorda et al., 2017), and no other studies have been found focusing on intentions to quit school as the academic outcome. That said, it is also possible that these emotional components (emotional engagement and academic boredom) reflect experiences with the learning content (curriculum) and may thereby be associated with intentions to quit school irrespective of the proposed psychosocial variables.