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Reversing the paradigm: Motivational fluidity predicts lower student engagement

Joanne Hudson Orcid Logo, Laura Mason Orcid Logo, Taylor Waters, Laura Thomas, Emily Oliver

Journal of Motivation, Emotion, and Personality: Reversal Theory Studies, Volume: 11, Issue: 1

Swansea University Authors: Joanne Hudson Orcid Logo, Laura Mason Orcid Logo, Taylor Waters

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Abstract

There is a need to enhance understanding of the dynamic process of student engagement in Higher Education (Shernoff, 2013) using methods that embrace intra-and inter-individual change and processes and a theoretical framework that offers a dynamic, intra-and inter-individual approach to interpret mo...

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Published in: Journal of Motivation, Emotion, and Personality: Reversal Theory Studies
ISSN: 2331-2343 2331-2343
Published: Reversal Theory Society 2022
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa60176
Abstract: There is a need to enhance understanding of the dynamic process of student engagement in Higher Education (Shernoff, 2013) using methods that embrace intra-and inter-individual change and processes and a theoretical framework that offers a dynamic, intra-and inter-individual approach to interpret motivation, affect and behaviour. This study used reversal theory (Apter, 2018) to investigate university students’ engagement and affect in relation to metamotivational state reversals during three large-group 50-minute lectures. 172 participants reported their affect at the start of the lecture, and affect, engagement and metamotivational state at three randomly chosen timepoints throughout each of three lectures early, mid and late semester. Where differences occurred, cognitive, behavioural and emotional engagement were higher and affect more positive/ less negative in non-reversers than reversers, with one exception: agentic engagement was higher in reversers than non-reversers during the final week (p < .05). Across all three weeks the majority of students reported no reversals (72.4-78.7%) and were mostly in the telic, conformist and autic-sympathy or autic-mastery states. Thus psychodiversity, based on our context-specific operationalisation, was observed but not widely demonstrated, and overall, did not appear to be beneficial. Curiously, the only benefit was in relation to an interactive form of engagement. Our findings suggest that most students matched their metamotivational states to the demands of the environment (see Apter, 2018). Further inquiry is needed into psychodiversity and into a key aspect of reversal theory that needs attention: understanding how people control, or can be taught to control, their reversals (Apter, 2013).
Keywords: Psychodiversity, metamotivational, affect, lecture, education
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 1