The relationship between learners' motivational schemas, learners' affect, and changes to learners' achievement goals : a test of the cognitive change of motivational beliefs model

Abstract

This dissertation study was conducted to examine an original model of motivational change in hopes of addressing a paucity of research regarding changes in academic motivation (Murphy & Alexander, 2000; Pintrich, 2003; J. C. Turner & Patrick, 2008). Borrowing from conceptual change theory (Chi, 1992; Smith et. al, 1993; Dole & Sinatra, 1998), the Conceptual Change of Motivational Beliefs Model (CCMBM) posits that changes in learners' motivation can be understood by examining factors of the environment, such social agents, and factors of the individual, such as articulation of motivational schemas. For the current study, changes to learners' achievement goals for tasks and courses were examined. Three aspects of the CCMBM were assessed as they relate to these achievement goals: 1.) the relationship that motivational schema articulation has with changes in learners' achievement goals; 2.) the relationship that learners' ontological categories of the motivational schema have to changes in learners' achievement goals; and 3.) how learners' affect interacts with both the motivational schema articulation and its ontological categories in their relations to changes in learners' achievement goals. Analyses conducted using Repeated measure MANOVA and growth models via Hierarchical Linear Modeling exhibited little support for the hypothesized relationships between the CCMBM and changes to learners' achievement goals.