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Motivational traits and preferences for differentinstructional modes in scienceR. F. Kempa a & Maria Martin Diaz aa University of Keele, Staffordshire, UKPublished online: 09 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: R. F. Kempa & Maria Martin Diaz (1990): Motivational traits and preferences for different instructionalmodes in science, International Journal of Science Education, 12:2, 195-203

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0950069900120208

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INT. J. Sci. EDUC., 1990, VOL. 12, NO. 2, 195-203

Motivational traits and preferences fordifferent instructional modes in science.Part 1: Students' motivational traits

R. F. Kempa and Maria Martin Diaz, University of Keele, Staffordshire, UK

In this paper, the development and validation of an instrument for determining students' motivationaltraits are reported, together with some general results concerning these traits. The findings broadlyconfirm empirically the existence of the four motivational traits proposed by Adar (1969) that areattributable to students' need to 'achieve', to 'satisfy their curiosity', to 'discharge a duty' and to 'affiliatewith people'.

Introduction

The notion that instructional procedures in science education (and in other areas ofeducation) should be matched to learner characteristics in order to maximize theeffectiveness of the teaching/learning process, has been widely accepted for aconsiderable period now (Cronbach 1967). Indeed, the failure to bring about suchmatching is seen by some authors as a major potential cause of students' learningdifficulties in science (Kempa 1988).

Among the learner characteristics that have received attention by researchers arecognitive characteristics such as student achievement, diverse cognitive styles(Brophy and Good 1974), students' conceptual level (Hunt 1971), personalitycharacteristics such as students' warmth/enthusiasm and introversion/extroversion(Brophy and Good 1974), and certain affective characteristics, e.g., students'attitudes, interests and motivation (Good and Power 1976, Dodge 1978, Hofsteinand Kempa 1985). It should be noted that pronouncements found in the literatureabout the matching of instructional procedures to these various studentcharacteristics are not always based on empirical research, but are often the result ofepistemological analysis.

The position underlying the view of Hofstein and Kempa (1985) is that studentspossess preferences for particular types of learning activity and that these reflecttheir motivational traits or 'motivational pattern'. The notion of 'motivationalpattern' itself is derived from the work of Adar (1969) who identified four suchpatterns, based on the predominance in a learner of one of the following 'needs': theneed to achieve, the need to satisfy one's curiosity, the need to discharge a duty and theneed to affiliate with other people. The types of learner corresponding to these needpatterns were referred to by Adar as 'achiever students', 'curious students','conscientious students' and 'sociable students', respectively.

Further to accepting the existence of these four motivational traits (or'motivational patterns'), Hofstein and Kempa (1985) postulated that a number of

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relationships exist between students' motivational characteristics and theirpreferences for particular modes of instruction in science education.

In their analysis, they focused on three main aspects of instruction, viz., thenature and orientation of learning activities; the control of learning goals and theorganization of learning; and the evaluation of student performances. Among thepostulates of Hofstein and Kempa were that:

1. 'achiever students' have a definite preference for competitive learningenvironments, while sociable students prefer learning in non-competitivesettings;

2. 'curious students' have a distinct preference for discovery-type learning andproblem-solving tasks, whereas conscientious students prefer learningsituations with clearly defined goals and structure.

These and other postulates represent the outcome of theoretical analysis andspeculation. Hence, they require empirical validation before they can be accepted asa basis for curriculum decision-making about instructional procedures. This studyrepresents an attempt to probe empirically into the relationship between students'motivational traits and their preferences for different instructional procedures inscience education. It is presented in two parts. The first part deals with theexploration of the motivational patterns in a sample of science students. In thesecond part, to be published in a forthcoming issue of this Journal, the relationshipbetween students' motivational patterns and their preferences for differentinstructional procedures will be reported and discussed.

Experimental details

The main instrument used for the first part of the study, viz., the exploration ofstudents' motivational patterns, was a 60-item self-rating questionnaire. Each itemrepresented a statement expressing some 'argument' concerning a motivationalcharacteristic and called for a response on a five-point 'applicability to me' scale(ranging from 'very true of me' to 'absolutely inapplicable to me'). The statementswere personalized, as opposed to being general statements, as the following examplesillustrate.

Item 47: I am keen to find out about things in science, even if they are not mentioned bythe teacher.

Item 51: Working in a small group gives me the chance of interacting with other students.

The items were initially written to correspond to the four motivational patternsproposed by Adar (1969). The validation of the scales, including the estimation ofscale reliabilities, is described later.

Student sample

The study was conducted with 390 second-year secondary school students (averageage: 15 years) drawn from five schools from the Bajadoz and the Madrid region inSpain. The students had previously followed a two-year 'combined science'programme and thereafter studied biology, chemistry, geology and physics asseparate subjects in one-year courses.

The choice of this particular cohort of students was governed by the fact that theywere in their last year of a compulsory science education programme. [In the Spanish

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MOTIVATIONAL TRAITS OF SCIENCE STUDENTS 197

school system, students are required at the beginning of their third year in thesecondary school (i.e., at age 16 years) to opt for either the 'science branch' or the'arts branch'.]

Administration

The administration of the 'motivational patterns' questionnaire, together with anumber of other questionnaires (described in part 2 of this paper), took place in thecourse of two test sessions of one hour each. The customary procedure for theadministration of self-rating instruments was followed; this included giving studentsan assurance of the confidentiality of their responses.

Results and discussion

The main purpose of the work described in this part of the study was to explorestudents' motivational traits and, in particular, to seek empirical support for the fourmotivational patterns previously proposed by Adar (1969).

A preliminary analysis of students' scores on the four input scales (eachcomprising 15 items) showed three of them to have Cronbach-alpha reliabilities inthe range O-75-O-73. These were the scales corresponding to the 'achiever student','curious student* and 'conscientious student' constructs. The reliability value for the'sociable student' scale was marginally below 0'6, suggesting a less satisfactoryperformance of this scale, compared with the others. Inspection of the item-totalcorrelations for this scale confirmed its deficiencies in that six of the 15 original itemshad lowish correlations with the scale total.

It was thought possible that this finding could reflect a situation where the'sociable student' construct itself was a complex one, possibly dividing into two ormore subordinate constructs. To examine this, the answers received to themotivational patterns questionnaire were subjected to a factor analysis, usingprincipal component analysis followed by an orthogonal (Varimax) rotation.

The orthogonal rotation was restricted to eleven factors which, together,accounted for about 50% of the total variance. Table 1 gives a summary of theinformation derived from the factor analysis and also presents a conciseinterpretation of each factor.

As can be seen, the first four factors—which are clearly the main factors—areclosely related thematically to the four input constructs used in the design of thequestionnaire. All items loading strongly on factor 1 express or imply the desire orcompulsion of students to attend carefully to their learning activities and to satisfythe demands made upon them by their teachers. This is clearly a characteristic of'conscientious students'. Factor 2 relates to 'achiever students': the items broughttogether under this factor all express or imply students' desire for achievement (in acompetitive sense) and its overt recognition by teacher and peers. Factor 3 may beassociated with 'curious students': all items loading on it had 'general inquisitivenessand curiosity' as their underlying theme. Finally, the items loading on factor 4appeared to relate to the theme 'co-operation in learning and provision of mutualhelp'—clearly a characteristic of 'sociable students'.

The remaining factors are less pronounced than the first four, but nonethelessgive rise to interesting interpretations. The items loading in factor 5 appeared toconcern students' self-image in relation to their peers, but not in the sense that couldbe expected of 'achiever students'. A typical item here was: 'I care about what other

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Table 1. Summary of the factor analysis of the motivational patternsquestionnaire.

FactorNumber*of items

Percentageof variance Interpretation of factor

10-9 All items express aspects of 'attention tolearning activities' and derive from the original'conscientious student' scale.

7-7 The theme common to these items is students''desire for achievement and its recognition'. Allitems were contained in the original 'achieverstudent' scale.

5-7 The theme underlying the items loading on thisfactor is 'general curiosity and inquisitiveness'.By and large, the items derive from the original'curious student' scale.

4-7 Items on this factor group relate to 'co-operation in learning and the provision ofmutual help'. They stem from the original'sociable student* scale.

3-3 The notion common to these items is the'importance of gaining good marks'.Thematically, this factor relates closely tofactor 1.

2-7 The four items express views/concerns aboutthe importance of personal relationships inlearning situations. Thematically, they arelinked to factor 4.

2-6 The items loading on this factor have a closeresemblance to those of factor 3 ('curiosity andinquisitiveness') but express a preferencefor/reliance on independent learning.

2-5 These items are similar to those loading onfactor 4 (co-operation in learning), but expressliking for small group activities.

2-4 Thematically, these items are closely linked tothose in factor 5, except that they referspecifically to pupils worrying about theirachievements.

4-5 Neither of these factors is interpretable interms of any of the motivational patternvariables. Some of the items have minorloadings on other factors.

49-7

* Figures in parentheses denote numbers of items with loadings between 0 5 and 0-3 on particular factors.The loadings of the 'main' items were generally in excess of 0-6.

fellow-students think of me'. We believe that this type of concern about one's 'self-image' is part of the profile of 'conscientious students'. This is also true for the itemsin factor 9 that express 'worry about achievement', again not in the sense of strivingfor it, but in the sense of fearing potential failure and causing disappointment.

Factors 6 and 8 both express characteristics that were initially assumed to beparts of the profile of 'sociable students': items loading on factor 6 were concernedwith the importance of personal relationships in a general sense, whilst those loading

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Table 2. Relevant reliability data (with previous values in parentheses).

Motivation Reliability

'Achiever student' scale 081 (075)'Curious student* scale 0-79 (0-75)'Conscientious student' scale 0-79 (0-73)'Sociable student' scale 0-68(059)

on factor 8 brought out a liking for involvement in group work. Factor 7, finally, borea resemblance to factor 3, at least thematically, but brought out one additionalattribute: that of a liking for, or reliance on, independent study as a means ofsatisfying one's desire to learn and find out about things.

The foregoing results broadly confirm the motivational patterns originallyproposed by Adar (1969). However, they also suggest that the individual patterns aresomewhat more complex than the Adar categorization indicates. This is particularlytrue for the 'sociable student' construct which, according to the present findings,divides into three subconstructs (corresponding to factors 4, 6 and 8). This wouldalso explain why the reliability of the original input scale for this construct provedrather less satisfactory than the reliabilities of the other input construct scales.

In the light of the information derived from thefactor analysis, the original inputscales were revised by the deletion or reassignment of certain items. However, thebasic structure of the questionnaire was left intact, in that the original four mainconstructs were retained. To this end, items loading on thematically-related factorswere combined into single scales. The resulting (modified) scales had significantlyimproved reliabilities, compared with those determined for the original scales (seetable 2).

All subsequent data analyses were carried out on the basis of the modifiedmotivation scales.

Correlations among motivational patterns

Although the classification of students in terms of the four motivational patterns isconvenient and meaningful for the purposes of research, there is no a priori reasonwhy the patterns should be fully independent of one another. Indeed, it may beargued that, in the case of many students, motivation to learn stems from more thanone source. Hence, some interrelationships between motivational traits may well beexpected.

To examine this aspect, correlation coefficients were calculated between thevarious motivational variables. They are shown in table 3. It is seen from this thatseveral statistically significant relationships exist between motivational patternvariables. Although their magnitude is generally quite small, the existence of thesecorrelations suggests certain degrees of overlap between the motivational traitsmeasured by the four traits. In particular, the link between the 'curiosity' and the'conscientiousness' measure appears to be relatively strong. Also noteworthy is thefact that the 'sociableness' measure correlates negatively with the 'achievement'measure and the 'conscientiousness' measure, respectively. A further significantpositive correlation appears between the 'achievement' and 'conscientiousness'measures.

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Table 3. Pearson product-moment correlations between the motivationalpatterns variables.

Motivationalpattern variable

AchieverCuriousConscientiousSociable

Achiever

100

Curious

0071-00

Conscientious

0-20*0-37*1-00

Sociable

-0-24»001

-018»100

•Denotes statistical significance at the p=0-001 level.

Some of the foregoing correlations are easy to explain in that they reinforce theassumptions made by Adar (1969) concerning the characteristics of the fourmotivational groups. This applies, e.g., to the negative correlation between the'achiever' and the 'sociableness' traits: achiever students are, by definition,competitive in their approach to learning, whereas sociable students prefer a co-operative learning environment. Likewise, the positive correlation between theachiever student measure and that for the conscientious students makes sense in thatboth groups strive for recognition of their achievement by their teachers, albeit forsomewhat different reasons and desires.

The relatively high positive correlation between the conscientiousness and thecuriosity variables (r=0#37) may be indicative of an inadequate differentiation(probably through the design of the test items) between students' compulsion tostudy and learn as the result of a feeling of duty and responsibility and intrinsic desireto satisfy their curiosity. The former would be a characteristic of 'conscientious'students, while the latter quality is associated with 'curious* students.

Notwithstanding the relatively high correlation between the conscientiousnessand the curiosity measure, in general the observed correlations between the variousmotivational trait variables are sufficiently small for the latter to be regarded aslargely 'independent' of one another, at least as a first approximation.

On the basis of this assumption, two further sets of analyses were performed: inthe first, the gender effect on the motivational trait measures was examined; in thesecond, an attempt was made to estimate the extent to which the various motivationaltraits prevailed in the student sample studied.

Gender and motivational traits

In table 4, the overall mean ratings of boys and girls on the four motivational traitmeasures are reported. These overall mean ratings were calculated by averaging theresponses given by individual subjects in the two gender groups to the items in eachmotivational trait scale and subsequently finding the group average. Consequently,the reported values are expressed on a 1—5 scale, as were the ratings on individualitems in the questionnaire. The figures in parentheses represent standard deviations.

It is seen that for two of the motivational traits major differences exist betweenthe two gender groups: the boys in the student sample examined are distinctlymore 'achievement'-oriented than are their female counterparts. For the'conscientiousness' trait, the situation is the reverse: girls appear to be leaning morestrongly towards this motivational pattern than do the boys.

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Table 4. Gender differences in motivational patterns.

Motivationalpattern

Achiever

Curious

Conscientious

Sociable

Mean scores and standard deviation(in brackets) on motivational

patterns questionnaire

Boys(N=123)

2-94(0-740)3-45

(0-565)3-65

(0-501)3-89

(0-519)

Girls{N=207)

2-57(0-802)3-82

(0-595)3-81

(0-504)401

(0-430)

F-ratio(p-value)

24-5(0001)5-16

(005)9-84

(0001)5-39

(005)

For the remaining two motivational traits, the gender differences are relativelysmall, in terms of both the magnitude of the differences between overall mean ratingsand the statistical significance levels (when compared with those for the other twotraits). Boys appear to be more 'curiosity'-oriented in their motivation than girls; inthe case of the 'affiliation'-motivation, the reverse situation applies.

To what extent the foregoing differences represent genuine differences betweenboys and girls, as opposed to being typical for the present experimental populationonly, cannot be assessed without further examination. Nevertheless, the genderdifferences found in this study confirm the assumptions frequently made about girlsbeing less competitive and more co-operative in their characteristics than boys: thisshould manifest itself (as it does here) in a lower achievement orientation and ahigher level of both conscientiousness and affiliation drive.

It should be noted that no conclusions can be drawn from the actual values of theoverall mean ratings reported in table 4. Although these may reflect differencesbetween levels to which the various motivational traits prevailed in the populationstudied here, they are bound to be influenced by the nature of the test itemsemployed for the different scales and their 'appeal' to the students.

Distribution of the test population according to motivational patterns

It would be naive to assume that all subjects in a particular student population wouldfall clearly into one of the four motivational patterns explored in this study. Instead,it would be expected that a considerable proportion of the subjects exhibits 'mixed'motivational traits in which elements of one of the Adar traits are combined, oroverlap, with those of another.

To explore this, an examination was made of the motivational patterns profile ofstudents whose motivational trait scores placed them in the top quarter of at least oneof the four motivational groups. In particular, the following questions wereaddressed:

1. What proportion of students could be unambiguously assigned to one andonly one motivational group?

2. What proportion of students displayed 'mixed' motivational traits (byappearing in the top quarter of two or more motivational groups)?

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Table 5. Distribution of subjects according to motivational traits.

Description of motivational traits*

One major motivational trait only,as follows:

AchieverCuriousConscientiousSociable

Two major motivational traits,as follows:

Curious with ConscientiousCurious with SociableCurious with AchieverConscientious with SociableConscientious with AchieverSociable with Achiever

Three major motivational traits

Total:

Percentage

34

356

20

7

2OS112OS

2

43

* Defined, for the purpose of this analysis, in terms of a motivational trait score appearing in the topquarter of the score distribution (see text).

The results are shown in table 5. It is seen from this that only 43% of the total studentpopulation had produced scores that place them in one of the top quarters of at leastone of the motivation categories. Of these, nearly 80% (i.e., 34% out of 43%) couldclearly be associated with one particular motivational trait, with a further 16% (i.e.,7% out of 43%) showing 'mixed' patterns in which the characteristics of twomotivational categories overlap.

It follows from the foregoing figures that over half of the student population hadproduced scores on the motivational pattern scales that did not place them into thetop quarter of at least one of the four categories. Even so, it was possible to assignmost of these students to a particular motivational trait category on the strength oftheir highest score.

The fact that a high proportion of the total student population could be fairlyclearly assigned to one of the motivational traits, provides considerable evidence insupport of the original Adar categorization.

Summary and conclusion

This paper is the first of two in which the relationship between students'motivational patterns and their preferences for different instructional modes inscience education is explored. It reports the development and validation of aninstrument for determining students' motivational traits, and gives some generalresults concerning these traits.

The findings obtained provide broad empirical support for the four motivationalpatterns originally postulated and described by Adar. However, some of theseappear to have 'subcategories', as revealed by the factor analysis undertaken. Thisapplies mainly to the 'sociableness' and the 'conscientiousness' traits.

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In comparing the motivational traits of the male and female subjects in thestudent sample used, it was found that boys were distinctly more 'achievement'-oriented than girls, whilst girls exhibited a higher 'conscientiousness' trait than boys.

References

ADAR, L. 1969, A Theoretical Framework for the Study of Motivation in Education, TheHebrew University School of Education, Jerusalem (in Hebrew).

BROPHY, J. C. and GOOD, T. L. 1974, Teacher-Student Relationships: Causes and Consequences(Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York).

CRONBACH, L. J. 1967, How can instruction be adapted to individual differences? In R. M.Gagne (ed.), Learning and Individual Differences (Merrill Books, Columbus, US).

DODGE, B. J. 1978, Towards a conceptual framework for motivational design. NSPI Journal,Vol. 17, pp. 8-10.

GOOD, T. L. and POWER, C. N. 1976, Designing successful classroom environments fordifferent types of student. Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol. 8, pp. 45-60.

HOFSTEIN, A. and KEMPA, R. F. 1985, Motivating strategies in science education: Attempt atan analysis. European Journal of Science Education, Vol. 7, pp. 221—229.

HUNT, D. E. 1971, Matching Models in Education. The Co-ordination of Teaching Methods withStudents' Characteristics. Monograph series No. 10, Ontario Institute for Studies inEducation, Ontario Canada.

KEMPA, R. F. 1988, Learning difficulties in science. In R. F. Kempa, R. Ben-Zvi, A. Hofsteinand I. Cohen, Learning Difficulties in Chemistry. Proceedings of a binational UK-IsraelSeminar, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

Correspondence

R. F. Kempa, Department of Education, University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire ST5 5BG.

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