Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 130
5
Motivation, Engagement, and Persistence
Adults lead complex lives with many responsibilities and constraints
on their availability to engage in formal learning. This reality, combined
with the amount of effort and practice needed to develop one’s literacy
skills, makes supporting persistence one of the most challenging aspects
of designing effective adult literacy programs. Adults and adolescents who
lack adequate literacy need substantial amounts of literacy practice, on the
order of many hundreds of hours, but the average duration of participa-
tion in literacy programs is nowhere close to what is needed. This chapter
addresses the practical question of what can be done to motivate adoles-
cents and adults from a range of backgrounds to persist in their efforts to
learn. Specifically, what features of learning environments, which include
instructional interactions, structures, systems, tasks, and texts, encourage
persistence?
Different terms are used in the research literature to refer to learners’
motivation and engagement with learning. We use the word “persistence”
because it aptly describes the situation of adult learning. Many adults want
to improve their literacy skills, but they do not persist, perhaps because
of competing demands on their time, unpleasant past experiences with
learning, or instruction that does not support sustained engagement or
that is otherwise ineffective. It is also easy to underestimate the amount
of effort and practice needed to develop literacy. Certainly the conditions
that motivate or demotivate learners to persist with complicated tasks such
as reading and writing are complex. Although lack of persistence is often
discussed solely in psychological or dispositional terms, such as being in-
trinsically motivated or self-regulated, most contemporary researchers of
130
OCR for page 131
131
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
motivation recognize the power of the learner’s environment—instructional
interactions and structures, relationships, and broader social and cultural
experience—to affect motivation, engagement, and goal attainment (e.g.,
Anderman and Anderman, 2010). This chapter integrates findings from
disciplines that offer complementary perspectives on these issues (psychol-
ogy, anthropology, and sociology) to obtain a more complete understand-
ing of where to focus efforts to increase adults’ persistence with learning.1
The framework for the chapter, shown in Figure 5-1, specifies the multiple
dimensions of persistence and puts at the center the question of how to
support it through the design of effective learning environments.
Box 5-1 identifies principles that are reasonable to use and further
study to determine how best to support adults’ persistence in developing
literacy given current research. The principles are derived mainly from de-
cades of research with students in school settings, adolescents in programs
outside school, adults in workplace training, and adult behavior change
more generally. Studies of high school dropouts, community college and
university students, and adults in literacy education were included when
available. The principles must be studied further, however, with adults
needing to improve their literacy since they have for the most part not
been included in the research studies. The chapter concludes with needs for
future research, which are summarized in Box 5-2.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MOTIVATION AND LEARNING
An impressive array of contributors to individual motivation has been
identified in psychological studies, among them self-efficacy (e.g., Bandura,
1977; Eccles et al., 1983), self-control (e.g., Findley and Cooper, 1983), goal
orientations and task choice (e.g., Ames, 1992; Nicholls, 1984; Pintrich
and Garcia, 1991; Urdan and Maehr, 1992), interest (e.g., Alexander,
Kulikowich, and Jetton, 1994; Renninger, Hidi, and Krapp, 1992; Schiefele,
1996a; Wade, 1992; Wade et al., 1993), self-regulation (e.g., Butler and
Winne, 1995; Pintrich and DeGroot, 1991; Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle,
1993; Schunk and Zimmerman, 1994; Zimmerman, 1989), self-concept of
ability (Eccles et al., 1983), and others. Before examining these constructs
in greater depth, there are several general points to note. First, each fac-
tor, although distinguishable and discussed separately, interacts with the
others in complex ways to influence motivation to persist. For instance,
1 The most profound area of difference among these three disciplines lies in how the relation-
ship between individuals and social systems is conceptualized. The different fields use different
terms to discuss motivation, resilience, and persistence. These different terms connote unique
meanings specific to the theoretical underpinnings of each field, and so the distinctions are
retained in this chapter to signify important differences among the various perspectives that
are likely to be useful for conceptualizing effective practices.
OCR for page 132
132 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
Persistence
Mo va on,
Engaging Contexts, Systems and
Engagement, and
Texts, and Tasks That Structures That
Interest That Support Persistence Support Persistence
Support Persistence
FIGURE 5-1 Factors that support or constrain persistence in learning.
the goals people set are related to their sense of self-efficacy, or perceived
ability to perform well on a task, and5-1 value they assign to the task.
Figure the
Second, although often discussed as stable attributes of an individual, a
person’s self-efficacy, self-regulation, goal orientation, and so on can differ
depending on the context and the activity. Third, each of these contributors
BOX 5-1
Design Principles from Research on
Motivation, Engagement, and Learning
• evelop self-efficacy and perceptions of competency.
D
• elp learners set appropriate and valuable learning goals.
H
• et expectations about the amount of effort and practice required to develop
S
literacy skills.
• elp learners develop feelings of control and autonomy.
H
• oster interest and develop beliefs about the value of literacy tasks.
F
• elp learners monitor progress and regulate their behavior toward goal
H
attainment.
• each students to make adaptive attributions for successes and failures.
T
• rovide learners’ with opportunities for success while providing optimal chal-
P
lenges to develop proficiencies.
• oster social relationships and interactions known to affect learning.
F
• se classroom structures and select texts and materials to help learners iden-
U
tify with learning and literacy tasks that counter past negative experiences with
schooling.
• ssist with removing barriers to participation and practice to ensure that learn-
A
ers have the motivating experience of making progress.
• ive learners access to knowledgeable and skilled teachers and appropriately
G
designed materials.
OCR for page 133
133
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
BOX 5-2
Directions for Research on the Motivation, Engagement,
and Persistence of Learners in Literacy Instruction
• xperiments to identify instructional approaches that motivate engage-
E
ment and persistence with learning for low-literate adults. The interven-
tions should aim to understand how individual, social, cultural and systemic
influences interact to affect persistence. The research should focus at the
task and instructional program levels. It should also evaluate ways to support
students in meeting immediate literacy goals and sustained learning to meet
longer term literacy needs.
• evelopment of measures to assess student motivation and test hypoth-
D
eses about how to motivate adult learners’ persistence. Reliable and valid
measures are needed to assess motivation and related constructs, such as
engagement and interest, which are geared toward the adult literacy educa-
tion context. These measures need to be developed for use in intervention
research at the task, program, and sustained learning levels.
• ore thorough understanding of adult learners. Rich descriptive informa-
M
tion is needed of learners’ circumstances and contexts (e.g., educational
experiences, job, family, health), and how these relate to the effectiveness of
various strategies to support engagement and persistence in adult literacy
instruction.
• ow the various components of motivation relate to one another to af-
H
fect persistence in the adult instruction context. Constructs and models
of motivation need to be clarified, applied, and tested in the context of helping
people to persist in adult literacy education.
• exts and tasks for adult literacy instruction. It is important to understand
T
how the texts and tasks made available to learners, and how their percep-
tions of these texts and tasks affect motivation to persist, even in the face of
linguistic and cognitive challenges.
• roup differences and similarities in the factors that influence motiva-
G
tion to persist with learning, reading, and writing. Although principles of
motivation apply across populations, group differences in persistence can be
expected according to age and other characteristics of the learner.
• echnology. Key areas for study are the features and formats of technologies
T
that motivate persistence and the best ways to introduce technologies and
support their use. Outcomes that may be measured include attitudes toward
literacy, task enjoyment, perceived task difficulty, expectations for success,
and literacy skills.
• onditions that motivate enrollment in literacy courses. The circum-
C
stances (e.g., mandatory enrollment) and incentives that affect decisions to
enroll in literacy courses must be determined both to influence enrollment and
identify moderators of instructional effectiveness.
• evelopment and implementation of support systems for motivating per-
D
sistence. The contexts, texts, tasks, systems, and structures of adult literacy
instruction require as much research-based attention as do the individuals who
must persist in learning.
OCR for page 134
134 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
is amenable to change and is developed and affected by various aspects of
the learner’s environment.
Self-Efficacy
When learners expect to succeed, they are more likely to put forth the
effort and persistence needed to perform well. More confident students are
likely to be more cognitively engaged in learning and thinking than students
who doubt their capabilities (e.g., Pintrich, 1999; Pintrich and Schrauben,
1992; Schunk, 1991). Indeed, self-efficacy is a strong predictor of many
educational, physical, and mental health outcomes (Bandura, 1997) and
has been associated with better literacy skills (Pajares, 2003). Self-efficacy
beliefs relating to the ability to write, for instance, have been associated
with better writing performance (see Pajares, 2003), whereas apprehension
about writing usually predicts weak performance in writing (e.g., Madigan,
Linton, and Johnston, 1996).
Self-efficacy is often confused with global self-esteem. Whereas self-
efficacy refers to learners’ beliefs about their abilities in a certain area, such
as literacy, or their ability to complete a specific type of literacy task (e.g.,
writing short stories, reading the newspaper, reading a mystery novel, read-
ing and comprehending an instruction manual), global self-esteem refers
to how one feels about oneself generally (Crocker, Lee, and Park, 2004;
Wigfield and Karpathian, 1991; Wylie, 1979). It is possible to have high
self-esteem generally while having low self-efficacy in one domain. Whether
or not low self-efficacy in one area affects global self-esteem depends partly
on how important that particular skill or behavior is to the person’s identity
and goals and whether it is valued by the people that matter to the learner
(Harter, 1999; Roeser, Peck, and Nasir, 2006).
Self-efficacy and self-esteem also relate differently to learning and other
outcomes. Whereas self-efficacy in a particular domain, such as education
or health, relates positively to outcomes in that domain, the relation be-
tween general self-esteem and any given outcome is weak. Indeed, there is
little evidence that enhancing students’ general self-esteem leads to increases
in achievement (Baumeister et al., 2003; Wylie, 1979). Thus, although
raising general self-esteem often is promoted as a panacea, the actual rela-
tions between self-esteem and beneficial outcomes are minimal (Baumeister,
Smart, and Boden, 1996; Kohn, 1994).
Many adults are likely to have experienced difficulty with literacy start-
ing in childhood (Corcoran, 2009). It can be expected that some adults
enter literacy education questioning their ability to learn to read and write.
Many may not have the confidence to enter literacy education programs,
and, if they do enter, lack the self-efficacy needed to persist. How, then,
might teachers increase self-efficacy? Research points to three areas that
OCR for page 135
135
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
require attention: (1) setting appropriate goals, (2) provision of feedback
to achieve appropriate attributions for success and failure, and (3) progress
monitoring.
Appropriate Goals
Goals are extremely important in motivating and directing behavior
(Austin and Vancouver, 1996). Adults often have very general ideas about
why they need or want to learn to read or write. Instructors need to assist
learners with breaking down their learning goals into short-term literacy
goals (i.e., proximal goals) and long-term literacy goals (i.e., distal goals)
to motivate persistence and progress. Setting proximal goals, not just distal
ones, is much more likely to result in experiencing success, which enhances
self-efficacy (Schunk, 1991). Opportunities to achieve short-term goals are
especially motivating in complex domains such as reading and writing, in
which substantial time and effort are required and reaching distal goals can
take months or even years (Schunk, 2003).
Supporting students’ awareness of progress week by week can motivate
persistence. As students reach proximal goals and recognize that short-term
achievements are the path toward reaching long-term goals, they will be
motivated to set and work toward new goals and thus continue to learn.
In contrast, if focused only on distal goals, students can become frustrated
with what appears to be minimal progress, and so self-efficacy and then
persistence may suffer.
Learning proceeds best if students engage in activities that afford op-
portunities to be and feel successful but that also develop new proficien-
cies. People persist at a task when the activity is optimally challenging,
meaning that the activity is well matched with the person’s skill level (e.g.,
Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; Csikszentmihalyi, Abuhamdeh, and Nakamura,
2005; Deci, 1975; Payne et al., under review). People also attempt to
regulate learning so as to allocate effort to material and activities that are
neither too easy nor too hard (Kornell and Metcalfe, 2006; Metcalfe, 2002;
Metcalfe and Kornell, 2003, 2005; Son and Metcalfe, 2000). Allocating
attention in this way to optimize learning may be especially important for
older adults (Miles and Stine-Morrow, 2004). One strategy to encourage
persistence is to help learners set short-term, or proximal, literacy goals
that are optimally challenging and reachable within a short period of time
(Manderlink and Haraciewicz, 1984; Schunk, 1991, 1996). Appropriate
scaffolding can support learners in moving toward those goals (Bruner,
1960; National Research Council, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978) and experiencing
the motivating positive affect that comes from success.
Research on goal orientation theory (also referred to simply as “goal
theory”) has identified the personal goals that motivate learners to achieve
OCR for page 136
136 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
and that are shaped by aspects of their environment (e.g., classroom learn-
ing environments) (Ames, 1992; Ames and Ames, 1984; Midgley, 2002).
Personal goal orientation refers to learners’ individual beliefs about their
reasons for engaging with academic tasks; goal structures refer to students’
perceptions of the goals that are emphasized in such environments as
classrooms (Anderman and Wolters, 2006; Midgley, 2002). In research on
achievement motivation, personal goal orientations are often broken down
into three types of goals: mastery goals, performance-approach goals, and
performance-avoidance goals. An additional type of goal, discussed further
in the next section, is extrinsic goals in which individuals engage with a task
to achieve or earn some type of reward (Anderman, Maehr, and Midgley,
1999; Pintrich et al., 1993).
When a student holds a mastery goal, he or she engages with a task
(e.g., reading a book) in order to improve ability; the goal is to truly master
the task. When students hold mastery goals, they use themselves as points
of comparison (i.e., the student compares her or his present performance to
past performance and gauges improvement in terms of self-growth) (Ames
and Archer, 1988). The second type of goal is actually a class of goals referred
to as performance goals. Conceptualizations of performance goals since the
mid-1990s distinguish between performance-approach and performance-
avoidance goals (Elliot and Harackiewicz, 1996; Middleton and Midgley,
1997). When a student holds a performance-approach goal, the goal is to
demonstrate his or her ability relative to others. With performance-approach
goals, students compare their own performance to the performance of other
individuals, with the ultimate goal of demonstrating that the student is more
competent (e.g., a better reader) than others. In contrast, when a student
holds a performance-avoidance goal, the student’s goal is to avoid appearing
incompetent or “dumb”; such students would want to avoid appearing to
others as if they have poor literacy skills.
It is possible to structure learning environments to facilitate differ-
ent types of goals in learners (Maehr and Anderman, 1993; Maehr and
Midgley, 1996). Goal orientation theorists argue, and research has demon-
strated, the goal structures that are emphasized in classrooms and schools
predict the types of personal goals that students adopt (Anderman, Maehr,
and Midgley, 1999; Maehr and Midgley, 1996; Meece, Anderman, and
Anderman, 2006; Roeser, Midgley, and Urdan, 1996). Specifically, when
students perceive a mastery goal structure, they perceive that mastery, ef-
fort, and learning for the sake of learning are stressed in the classroom by
the instructor; when students perceive a performance goal structure, they
perceive that learning is defined in terms of demonstrating one’s ability and
other external consequences (Kaplan et al., 2002). If a teacher emphasizes
the importance of mastering literacy skills, students are likely to adopt
mastery goals; if a teacher emphasizes relative ability (i.e., the teacher
OCR for page 137
137
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
inadvertently makes comments that position adult learners as “good” or
“bad” readers), students are likely to adopt performance goals. Mastery is
also easier to link to successful behavior in life: people do well if they can
comprehend instructions on the job and write reports that colleagues value,
not because they got an A in a course.
In one literacy intervention based on goal achievement theory (e.g.,
Ames, 1992; Ames and Archer, 1988), Meece and Miller (1999) worked
with elementary school teachers to develop literacy activities that involved
reading extended passages of prose and writing detailed responses. When
implemented well, students’ endorsement of performance goals decreased
(i.e., students became less focused on comparing their own literacy skills
to those of others), and work-avoidance goals decreased for low-achieving
students.
Much research indicates that both students’ personal goals and their
perceptions of classroom goal structures predict valued educational out-
comes. Personal mastery goals have predicted adaptive outcomes that
include persistence at tasks, choosing to engage in similar activities in the fu-
ture (Harackiewicz et al., 2000), and the use of adaptive cognitive strategies
and more effective self-regulatory strategies (Elliot, McGregor, and Gable,
1999; Meece, Herman, and McCombs, 2003; Wolters, 2004). Performance-
avoidance goals consistently predict maladaptive outcomes that include
increased use of self-handicapping strategies (Midgley and Urdan, 2001)
and poor achievement (Skaalvik, 1997). Results for performance-approach
goals are mixed, with some studies finding that their adoption is related to
adaptive outcomes (Elliot, McGregor, and Gable, 1999), and others indicat-
ing that they are related to maladaptive outcomes (Middleton and Midgley,
1997; Wolters, 2004).
Personal goals tend to correspond with certain beliefs about intelligence
that can affect self-efficacy. Carol Dweck and her colleagues have demon-
strated that students hold incremental and entity views of intelligence. Stu-
dents who hold an incremental view of intelligence believe that intelligence
is malleable and that it is possible to learn just about anything; in contrast,
students who hold an entity view of intelligence believe that intelligence
is fixed, so a person cannot effectively learn more than they are naturally
capable of learning.
Students who hold an incremental view of intelligence are likely to
adopt mastery goals, and students who hold entity views of intelligence are
likely to adopt performance goals (Dweck and Leggett, 1988). It appears
possible, however, to alter beliefs about intelligence via interventions or
manipulations (Dweck, 2008). For instance, feedback that focuses learners’
attention on the processes of learning, including the use of strategies, effort,
practice, and the general changeable and controllable nature of learning,
can foster more incremental views of ability with positive outcomes. One
OCR for page 138
138 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
challenge to implementing these practices, however, is that teachers may
hold similar views about the malleability of intelligence, as in one study
of two university teacher preparation courses (Moje and Wade, 1997).
Although documented in only one study, adult educators may benefit from
professional development to develop teaching practices that support stu-
dents in developing personal mastery rather than personal performance
goals.
The broader environments of learners also can affect how they think
about themselves in relation to other groups and social systems, thereby
influencing their goals. Markus and Nurius suggest that young people make
decisions and set goals on the basis of who they think they might become
or, alternatively, who they do not wish to become, thereby shaping their
successes. Thus, this concept of “possible selves” (see Markus and Nurius,
1986) represents an important idea to pursue in research on self-efficacy
and persistence with literacy education, especially among adolescents and
emerging adults. A question is how to foster resilience—the capacity of
those exposed to risk to overcome those risks and to avoid negative out-
comes—which is known to help people cope and avoid negative outcomes
in other areas that have included delinquency and behavioral problems,
psychological maladjustment, academic difficulties, and physical complica-
tions (see Rak and Patterson, 1996).
By contrast, Ogbu (1987, 1993) argued that a “cultural frame of refer-
ence” shapes the school successes of different groups by positioning some
groups in opposition to conventional notions of academic success, although
his findings have been challenged by social and cultural perspectives on
achievement (see Foley, 1999; Moje and Martinez, 2007; O’Connor, 1997),
as discussed in later sections. Similarly, other psychological studies of-
fer a challenge to Ogbu’s theories. Eccles and colleagues (e.g., Eccles and
Midgley, 1989; Eccles et al., 1993a, 1993b), for example, suggest that a
mismatch between formal school structures and adolescents’ development
needs produces negative behaviors among adolescents, because, even as
youth are exhorted to act as responsible, decision-making beings, the ca-
pacity to make decisions and plot a possible future is taken from them by
overly controlled school environments. Thus, many adults who seek adult
literacy instruction may not have had opportunities to envision and enact a
wide range of possible selves and self-regulated practices in past schooling.
Research on possible selves (Kemmelmeier and Oyserman, 2001;
Oyserman, 1987; Oyserman, Bybee, and Terry, 2003) reveals both the
power of limiting social identities (negative gender, race, or class-based
perceptions) and the potential for interventions (Oyserman, Brickman, and
Rhodes, 2007; Oyserman, Bybee, and Terry, 2006) to help adolescent learn-
ers set goals and identify and monitor necessary life practices for persisting
toward and attaining those goals. In general, a lack of understanding for
OCR for page 139
139
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
how to achieve desired goals ultimately chips away at motivation to persist
because individuals often think they are taking appropriate steps toward
goals, when, in reality, their daily practices interfere with taking appropri-
ate and realistic steps toward achievement. Possible selves interventions
have been documented to assist youth in clarifying their goals, evaluating
their current practices, and developing plans for meeting goals (Oyserman,
Brickman, and Rhodes, 2007; Oyserman, Bybee, and Terry, 2006). Similar
interventions could be designed for adult literacy instruction in ways that
would support both adult literacy educators and adult learners.
Beliefs about personal efficacy (and control) can decrease in older
adulthood (Lachman, 2006; Miller and Gagne, 2005; Miller and Lachman,
1999), although individual differences are observed (e.g., adults with active
lifestyles also have more positive self-efficacy beliefs; Jopp and Hertzog,
2007). Such beliefs can be modified, however, with cognitive restructur-
ing (Lachman et al., 1992) and experience with cognitive tasks in which
realistic goals are set and progress is monitored relative to those goals
(West, Thorn, and Bagwell, 2003). Research shows it is important to at-
tend to changing self-efficacy beliefs in adulthood: positive beliefs about
one’s cognitive capacity in adulthood can affect performance by enhanc-
ing perseverance in the face of cognitive challenge (Bandura, 1989b) and
by engendering the use of effective strategies for learning (Lachman and
Andreoletti, 2006; Stine-Morrow et al., 2006a). Self-efficacy beliefs at
midlife predict changes over time in cognitive ability (Albert et al., 1995;
Seeman et al., 1996). Similarly, beliefs in one’s own capacity to be effective
with cognitive activities (e.g., self-efficacy, control beliefs) predict cognitive
and intellectual performance across the life span (Bandura, 1989b; Jopp
and Hertzog, 2007; Lachman, 1983).
Altogether, research on goals and goal setting indicates that the instruc-
tional practices used in classrooms are likely to affect learners’ adoption
of goals that affect self-efficacy. Goals should be optimally challenging to
increase engagement and persistence with learning as well as progress. If
instructors emphasize mastery, effort, and improvement, then students will
be more likely to adopt personal mastery goals; the adoption of mastery
goals subsequently predicts valued learning outcomes, including persistence
at reading, choosing to engage in additional literacy activities in the future,
and the use of more effective reading strategies. If, however, instructors em-
phasize grades, relative ability, and differences in progress and achievement,
students will be more likely to adopt performance goals (either approach or
avoid) and experience maladaptive outcomes (e.g., use of less effective read-
ing and writing strategies) (Ames and Archer, 1988; Anderman and Wolters,
2006; Nolen, 1988; Nolen and Haladyna, 1990). Thus, it is particularly
important for adult educators to have training and professional develop-
ment that helps them to recognize the importance of goal orientations and
OCR for page 140
140 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
structures and to become skilled in the use of instructional practices that
will foster the adoption of appropriate goals and adaptive goal orientations
and structures in their students.
Feedback and Framing: Adaptive Explanations for Success and Failure
Adaptive self-efficacy requires having fairly accurate perceptions of
one’s current competencies, which in turn requires the opportunity to re-
ceive feedback and monitoring of progress. Overestimating one’s ability to
read and understand a text, for instance, will not lead to engaging in the
behaviors needed to develop new skills (e.g., Pintrich, 2000b; Pintrich and
Zusho, 2002); similarly, underestimating one’s abilities may lead to cop-
ing or hiding behaviors that prevent the learner from making use of their
existing skills and resources for learning (Brozo, 1990; Hall, 2007). Clear,
specific, and accurate feedback that focuses on competence, expertise, and
skill is needed to promote self-efficacy. The feedback should be appropri-
ate to the learners’ level of progress and relate directly to the specific area
that needs improvement, which requires sound assessment. Dynamic as-
sessments, although they need further development, are promising in this
regard because they can provide the feedback needed to target supports and
instruction within the learners’ zone of proximal development (Vygtosky,
1978, 1986).
Experiences with learning can trigger questions such as: Why did I do
badly? (after receiving a low score on an evaluation).Why can’t I under-
stand this? (after failing to comprehend a paragraph). Why can’t I write
sentences that make sense? (after being unable to write a coherent short
story). The attributions students form in response to such questions will
either motivate or demotivate their persistence. Those who have struggled
with reading and writing and perhaps with continuing their literacy educa-
tion in the past are likely to have formed attributions that lead to lack of
persistence.
To persist, learners need feedback and models that help frame their ex-
periences with learning and develop adaptive explanations for successes and
failures. Consistent with attribution theory (Weiner, 1985, 1986, 1992), a
learner who is experiencing failure or difficulty comprehending a text, for
example, will be more likely to persist if he or she attributes the difficulty
to something external (e.g., a boring text), something uncontrollable (e.g.,
being ill), or something unstable (e.g., feeling depressed that day). A learner
who experiences success at a task will be more likely to persist if progress
is attributed to something internal (e.g., personal enjoyment of reading),
controllable (e.g., practice, spending a lot of time working on the text), and
stable (e.g., a belief in one’s ability as a reader) (Schunk and Zimmerman,
2006).
OCR for page 151
151
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
learner’s developing skill is extremely challenging and depends heavily
on access to data on reading and writing skills, interests, knowledge, and
needs. Adult literacy educators should also consider the role of the texts
being used for instruction. Many school-based texts are poorly structured,
dense, and devoid of the author’s voice (Anderson and Armbruster, 1984;
Armbruster and Anderson, 1985; Chamblis, 1998; Chambliss and Calfee,
1998; Paxton, 1997; Schleppegrell, 2004), often creating confusion, mis-
conception, or boredom for adolescent readers. The texts used for instruc-
tion in adult literacy courses are even more broad-ranging and complex
than those of secondary education, thus potentially contributing to more
challenges for learners. Adult literacy educators need to carefully analyze
texts intended for instruction. Educators need to choose texts at a reader’s
instructional level and encourage writing tasks appropriate to instructional
levels. Texts and tasks also need to engage and interest the reader or writer.
SOCIAL, CONTEXTUAL, AND SYSTEMIC
MEDIATORS OF PERSISTENCE
While good instruction attempts to change individual beliefs and atti-
tudes that can hinder persistence, it is also essential to attend to the broader
environmental mediators of learning to support adults in attaining their
learning goals (see McDermott, 1978; Moll and Diaz, 1993; Smith et al.,
1993). Issues about systems and structures are highly relevant to persis-
tence, especially because adults have many demands on their time (i.e.,
work, family responsibilities), but limited systematic intervention research
is available to help address these issues. In this section we draw mainly from
the literature in social psychology, anthropology, sociology, the learning
sciences, and reading to identify features of the learning context, including
social structures and systems, texts, and tasks with potential to motivate or
demotivate adult learning and persistence.
Research conducted from anthropological and sociological perspec-
tives seeks to describe conditions that may explain lack of persistence. The
research has focused mainly on K-12 populations. What follows are find-
ings from research about aspects of the learners’ contexts that can make
attaining learning goals challenging for some populations and why youth
(and by extension, perhaps, adults) may fail to persist and thus fail to attain
their aspirations. They offer insights into ways to create more motivating
learning conditions for adults and adolescents.
Formal School Structures and Persistence
Motivation, especially in adolescence, comes in part from personal per-
ceptions of having a choice in one’s activities. Researchers have argued that
the structures of rules, assignment of classes, and grading in secondary
OCR for page 152
152 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
schools match poorly with adolescent needs for more space in which to
make and take responsibility for decisions about actions and self-regulation
(Eccles and Midgley, 1989; Eccles, Lord, and Midgley, 1991; Eccles et al.,
1993a, 1993b; MacIver and Epstein, 1993). Supporting this view, Connell
and Wellborn (1991) found that young people’s beliefs—particularly those
who are at risk (see Connell, Spencer, and Aber, 1994)—about their ability
to control, and thus self-regulate, academic and social outcomes depended
on the availability of contexts and experiences that allowed them some au-
tonomy while also guiding and facilitating their decision making. Similarly,
Werner’s (1984) research on resilience suggests that youth who are required
to engage in activities that help others (e.g., working to support family mem-
bers, etc.) are more resilient, or persistent, in the face of challenges. Research
also suggests that ability grouping and other related practices may have nega-
tive side effects on resilience and self-regulation (Blumenfeld, Mergendoller,
and Swarthout, 1987; Guthrie et al., 1996; Urdan, Midgley, and Anderman,
1998; Wilkinson and Fung, 2002). This research is worth pursuing further
in order to clarify the ways in which the design of school environments and
processes can support or inhibit the development of self-regulatory capabili-
ties that are needed in order to engage in literacy practice.
Students who see themselves as marginalized resist mainstream school
structures and practices in ways that often reproduce their own margin-
alization and lack of attainment. These moves may appear to represent a
lack of motivation. Willis (1977), for example, studied how two groups
of boys in a British school appeared to be unmotivated to learn when in
fact they were unmotivated to participate in social structures that they felt
were inequitable. Similarly, MacLeod’s (1987, 1995) analysis of two groups
of young men of the same social class but of different races documented
the low attainment and lack of resilience or persistence in the two groups
(MacLeod, 1995). Although all the youth in his study struggled in school,
those who lacked awareness of how their racial and class status shaped
their treatment were more likely to fail in the long term.
These studies of how both social structures and the corresponding
structures of formal schooling shape aspirations, persistence, and attain-
ment shed light on why some adolescents and adults in literacy programs
may have left school and how their motivation to learn may have been,
and may continue to be, compromised. As a result, these studies offer
important implications for different ways of structuring adult literacy
programs, especially when considered in concert with psychological per-
spectives on autonomy and intrinsic motivation, already reviewed.
Cultural and Linguistic Differences
Some of the most compelling anthropological studies of education in-
clude micro-ethnographies that have focused on how linguistic and cultural
OCR for page 153
153
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
difference played a part in young people’s school successes and failures (see
Erickson and Mohatt, 1982; Gumperz, 1981; Philips, 1972, 1983). These
studies illustrated ways in which students from other than white middle-
class groups struggled in the classroom because they did not possess “com-
municative competence” (Cazden, Hymes, and John, 1972). In other words,
they did not use the language, gestures, or even body cues (e.g., making eye
contact) that their teachers and other students understood as part of the
proper classroom norms.
Heath’s (1983, 1994) study of the language, literacy, and cultural prac-
tices of three communities augmented this research by asserting that the
young people in the working-class communities were marginalized because
schools valued the linguistic and symbolic capital of the children from the
middle-class community. Mehan, Hertweck, and Meihls (1986) illustrated
the “mediating mechanisms” of school practices, such as tracking, ability
grouping, and evaluation, which affect the different kinds of cultural capital
that students bring or do not bring to their school practices. They argued
that the ways children use their cultural capital have less to do with their
social background or ability than with what teachers and other school per-
sonnel do to work with and build cultural capital among students.
Social Relationships and Interactions
According to sociocultural theories of literacy, reading and writing are
activities that participants perceive to have meaning in specific social and
cultural contexts, which impart their own motivations (see Heath, 1983;
Scribner and Cole, 1981). Classroom collaboration is one such activity
because it fosters discourse practices in the community, from which the
participants derive motivation. Research from varied disciplines points to
several ways in which interpersonal or group activity—variously termed
“cooperation,” “collaboration,” and “collective struggle”—is likely to mo-
tivate persistence and goal attainment.
First, it is important for students to interact in a learning commu-
nity as they use literacy to research and solve problems (see Garner and
Gillingham, 1996; Mercado, 1992; Moll and Gonzales, 1994; Moll and
Greenberg, 1990). Learning environments and experiences that help estab-
lish positive relations with others while developing competence in particu-
lar skills also shape engagement, motivation, and persistence (see Guthrie
et al., 2004; National Research Council, 2000; Palincsar and Magnusson,
2005). In fact, McCaslin and Good (1996) argue for reconceptualizing the
idea of self-regulation by positing the notion of coregulation. Specifically,
classroom teachers and researchers should examine how regulating one’s
learning activity is dependent on the social interactions and relationships
developed in classroom settings. Engaging learners in working together may
have positive social and literacy learning benefits.
OCR for page 154
154 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
A common means for enhancing engagement and persistence is to have
learners work together. In learning to write, collaborative arrangements
in which students work together to plan, draft, revise, or edit their texts
have a positive impact on the quality of their writing, as illustrated in a
meta-analysis by Graham and Perin (2007a). A distinguishing feature in
these studies was that collaborative activities that students engaged in were
structured so that they clearly knew what they were expected to do as they
worked with others.
One challenge to the motivating effects of social interaction and group
work, however, is the possibility for actual or perceived negative percep-
tions and actions on the basis of differences, particularly race, gender,
sexual orientation, and social class. Among adults, these effects have been
observed in many settings, as theories of status and related performance
expectations have demonstrated (e.g., Ridgeway, 2001; Ridgeway et al.,
1998). In classrooms, Cohen and colleagues (Cohen, 1994; Cohen and
Lotan, 1997) provide evidence that the structure of the task and the nature
of the group composition can exacerbate or mitigate perceived status dif-
ferences and their negative effects (see also Wilkinson and Fung, 2002).
Models of group engagement around a task, or what is sometimes re-
ferred to as collective struggle, appear to be important to supporting youths’
aspirations and attainment. In contrast to Ogbu’s (1978, 1987, 1991, 1993)
research suggesting that an awareness of oppression contributes negatively
to students’ lack of resilience and achievement in school, O’Connor (1997)
found that a sense of the importance of collective struggle, combined with
role models who demonstrated how to challenge oppressive practices in
positive ways, contributed to the high resilience and achievement among
the 47 black students she studied. Specifically, what distinguished high-
achieving adolescents from the larger group was their access to family
members and community structures that modeled positive struggle and
resistance in the face of oppression (see Ward, 1990).
Similarly, in their analysis of various community-based education and
activity programs, Heath and McLaughlin (1993) and Lakes (1996) il-
lustrated that when provided opportunities for engaging in participatory,
action-oriented learning and acts of required helpfulness (Werner, 1984),
young people were able to engage in identity construction that supported
persistence, motivation, resilience, and attainment in school and social
settings.
These studies suggest that adult literacy programs might benefit from
engaging learners in opportunities to use reading and writing to exam-
ine social and political issues of interest to them (see Freire, 1970, for
an example of success in teaching basic reading skills to illiterate adult
peasants in Brazil). A report of the National Research Council (2005)
draws from a host of studies of how students learn in classrooms to of-
OCR for page 155
155
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
fer a basic design principle of learning environments and instruction as
“community-centered,” thus supporting a “culture of questioning, respect,
and risk-taking” (p. 13). Adults may become more engaged in reading and
writing tasks that provide opportunities to work with other adults to solve
real-world problems or allow them to make positive change in their living
or work conditions. In addition to increasing the utility of literacy-based
tasks and the sense of autonomy and control people have over their lives,
collective literacy activities may provide them with the community support
needed to persist in literacy learning even in the face of challenge.
Potentially Negative Effects of Stereotype
A robust literature on what Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson (1995)
termed stereotype threat also offers important cautions in how teachers use
group work of any size—from pairs to small groups to whole-class interac-
tions. Stereotype threat is an individual’s concern that others in a group
will judge her or him by a dominant stereotype (Steele, 1997). Stereotype
threat has been documented as strong enough to disrupt performance and
is typically heightened in situations in which individuals who might be con-
nected with such a stereotype (e.g., “women are not good at mathematics”)
represent only a small number in the overall group. For example, Steele
and Aronson (1995) demonstrated that black college students who had
demonstrated high capability in other testing situations performed poorly
when told that their intelligence was being measured; these racial stereo-
type threats were documented among members of other racial and ethnic
groups as well (see Aronson et al., 1999). Moreover, stereotype threat is
not limited to racial stereotypes: gender and other aspects of difference
have also been studied (e.g., Maas, D’Etole, and Cadinu, 2008). In other
studies, researchers have situated members of racial, gender, and cultural
groups in testing settings in which they are the numerical minority (e.g.,
small numbers of one group for whom a stereotype might be salient in large
groups of students who might hold that stereotype; see Sekaquaptewa and
Thompson, 2003) or have actively positioned groups against each other
(e.g., women playing chess against men; see Maas, D’Etole, and Cadinu,
2008). In each testing setting, the group for whom a negative stereotype
was activated, even in only implicit ways, performed worse than the other
group and worse than they had in past testing situations.
Although most of the research on stereotype threat has been conducted
in testing, game, or other high-pressure/high-stakes conditions, the consis-
tent finding that stereotype threat can be activated by implicit statements
and by group configurations has important implications for any adult
literacy program in which groups come together from a variety of racial,
OCR for page 156
156 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. This work also has important implica-
tions for mixed gender groups.
Importantly, stereotype threat studies have been conducted largely
among college students at elite universities. Thus, the history of struggle
that many who attend adult literacy programs bring into the classroom has
the potential to further divide groups on the basis of race, class, gender,
and skill differences. These studies suggest that what is known about how
society typically values various social identities needs to be considered and
planned for in enacting opportunities for group work.
Indeed, available research suggests that stereotype threat can compro-
mise learning in adult populations precisely because it can be triggered by
age. In Western culture, education is often highly age-segregated (Riley
and Riley, 1994, 2000) in being most strongly associated with childhood
and early adulthood, and adult participation in formal instruction may be
perceived to be “off-time.” Stereotypes associated with adult learners, aging
learners, and/or minority learners may constrain the effective allocation of
attention needed to perform well on a task and impact self-regulation (Hess
et al., 2003; Rahhal, Hasher, and Colcombe, 2001; Steele, 1997).
There is evidence that when stereotypes are activated (i.e., features
of the stereotype that are relevant to the learner are made salient), work-
ing memory resources that are needed for effective performance may be
consumed with distracting thoughts (Beilock, 2008; Beilock, Rydell, and
McConnell, 2007; DeCaro et al., 2010). Stereotype threat may also make it
more difficult for learners to use automatic attentional mechanisms (Rydell
et al., 2010). It can be activated by seemingly innocuous features of the
learning situation, like reporting one’s gender on a mathematics test, but
also by teachers’ own anxieties about stereotypes (Beilock et al., 2010).
Because such worries about whether one will confirm a stereotype to some
extent involve inner speech, interventions that promote task-focused ver-
balizations have been found to mitigate against stereotype threat (DeCaro
et al., 2010).
Social and Systemic Supports for and Barriers to Persistence
When designing adult education programs, it is important to consider
the contexts of adults’ lives and how to remove demotivating barriers to
access and practice (Hidi, 1990; Krapp, Hidi, and Renninger, 1992). For
adults to consider enrolling and continue participating in adult literacy
courses, they must perceive the courses as being important, useful, interest-
ing, and worth the investment of time (Wigfield and Eccles, 1992). They
must also believe they can handle the short-term consequences of spending
time on literacy improvement.
In fact, people selectively allocate resources to prioritize important
OCR for page 157
157
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
goals, balancing responsibilities across work, family, parenting, community,
and so on. Resources are also adaptively allocated across different func-
tional domains: cognitive, physical, and emotional (Li et al., 2001; Riediger,
Li, and Linderberger, 2006; Schaefer et al., 2008). So, for example, in the
face of physical threat (health, safety, security) cognitive resources may be
directed away from cognitive activities and toward changing conditions
to protect physical well-being. Effective functioning in adulthood requires
selectively allocating effort toward the most important and pressing goals in
accord with the opportunities available (Heckhausen, Wrosch, and Schulz,
2010), and well-being appears to be enhanced in adulthood among those
who engage in such “selective optimization” (Baltes and Baltes, 1990;
Freund and Baltes, 1998, 2002; Riediger, Li, and Lindenberger, 2006;
Wrosch, Heckhausen, and Lachman, 2000). In this light, lack of persistence
in adult literacy instruction, while appearing to be a poor choice, actually
may be a self-regulated, adaptive response to the constraints of competing
pressures, demands, and trade-offs.
Descriptive data from intensive interviews collected from 88 adults in
rural Kentucky reveal several factors that can affect decisions about whether
or not to enroll in adult literacy classes despite being eligible for reduced
fees (Anderman et al., 2002). Because local economies had been devastated,
adults perceived that jobs would not be available at that time even if they
earned a GED. Older interviewees reported that there was less stigma re-
lated to not completing high school in the past, and consequently they felt
less reason to enroll in adult education courses in the present; they did not
believe that adult literacy courses would be useful to them. Women, but not
men, said they would attend to help their children with school. These and
other findings from this research illustrate the value of conducting research
to better understand the factors that motivate or demotivate the potential
market for adult literacy programs. These interview responses are consistent
with other research on how adults analyze such trade-offs: there is evidence
that investment in goals perceived to be attainable is beneficial, but that
perseveration in striving for goals incongruent with available opportunities
can negatively impact well-being and mental health (Heckhausen, Wrosch,
and Schulz, 2010). If the individual comes to believe that the opportunities
to achieve the goal are unavailable, goal disengagement is likely, in which the
goal itself is devalued.
Significantly, child care emerged in this and other descriptive studies
as a serious practical issue that affects participation and persistence. It is
likely that programs to increase the availability of child care, particularly
at no cost or at reduced rates, would greatly facilitate the participation of
many adults.
Longitudinal studies have examined people’s motivation to persist in
adult literacy programs (Comings, 2009). In the most recent report, per-
OCR for page 158
158 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
sistence was related to variables that included (1) having previously en-
gaged in learning experiences after formal schooling, (2) having a strong
social support network, and (3) having a personal goal (e.g., helping one’s
children or obtaining a more lucrative job). In contrast, persistence was
undermined by the demands of everyday life, low levels of social support,
and lack of motivation.
DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH
Studies on motivation and adult literacy are scarce (Comings and
Soricone, 2007). The principles outlined in this chapter are offered with
the caveat that, although they are well researched with other populations,
on other targeted skills, and in other settings, they must be studied further
with many different groups of adult literacy learners in their varied learning
environments. It is likely that significant advances can be made in under-
standing how to motivate adult learners to persist if interventions aim to
understand how individual, social, cultural, and systemic influences interact
to affect persistence (for a similar view, see Pintrich, 2003). Research in the
following areas is especially needed.
Experiments to identify instructional approaches that motivate engage-
ment and persistence with learning for low-literate adults. Experiments,
including randomized controlled trials, are needed to learn how to imple-
ment and structure instruction to motivate engagement, persistence, and
progress. The committee found only a handful of randomized controlled
trials focused on motivation and self-regulated learning for adolescents or
adults (e.g., Oyserman, Brickman, and Rhodes, 2007; Oyserman, Bybee,
and Terry, 2006) and none focused on motivation or persistence in the con-
text of reading and writing performance of adolescents and adults, other
than studies of adolescents in middle and high school education settings.
Randomized studies of literacy have been conducted with younger popula-
tions (e.g., Justice et al., 2008; Kemple et al., 2008), but research with adult
populations is mainly descriptive or quasi-experimental. Although true
randomization conditions are difficult to establish, studies that incorporate
wait-list control designs (in which control groups receive the experimental
approach at a later time) could be an alternate approach that would benefit
both researchers and future adult learners.
As noted by Maehr (1976), continuing motivation to learn is an often
neglected but extremely important educational outcome, since adults often
hope to continue learning independently between bouts of program atten-
dance. Thus, experimental research is needed that not only evaluates ways
to help students develop proficiencies for meeting an immediate literacy
goal, but that also encourages continued learning to meet longer term
literacy needs.
OCR for page 159
159
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
Development of measures to assess student motivation and test hy-
potheses about how to motivate adult learners’ persistence. One reason
for the limited experimental research could be the lack of reliable and
valid measures for assessing motivation and related constructs, such as
engagement and interest. Providers of adult education need standard ways
to assess the specific motivational needs of their students to inform the use
of practices that meet such needs. Although many general motivation mea-
sures have been developed in research on goal orientation theory (Midgley
and Urdan, 2001), expectancy-value theory (Jacobs et al., 2002), and self-
efficacy (Bandura, 1997), with few exceptions (e.g., Moje et al., 2008) most
are not geared toward assessing adult motivation toward literacy. The few
promising instruments that exist could be developed further and specifically
for adults seeking literacy instruction. For instance, one reliable and valid
measure of adult reading motivation contains subscales that assess reading
efficacy, reading as part of one’s identity, reading for recognition, and read-
ing in order to excel in other life domains (Schutte and Malouff, 2007). It
would be especially helpful to have ways to measure actual persistence in
literacy tasks in addition to survey or other self-report data. There is reason
to think that perception of effort does not always relate directly to extent
of effort (Steinberg, Brown, and Dornbush, 1996).
Qualitative and mixed methods for more thorough understanding of
adult learners. Qualitative studies of adult literacy and mixed-methods
approaches are needed to ascertain more about learners’ motives and cir-
cumstances and how these relate to the effectiveness of various strategies
for influencing motivation, engagement, and persistence (e.g., Anderman
et al., 2002). For instance, the mixed quantitative-qualitative approach
to examining motivation to enroll in adult literacy courses among eligible
adults in Kentucky was particularly useful, since many of the participants
did not have basic literacy skills and thus could not complete survey instru-
ments, despite being eager to participate. Use of qualitative methods allows
researchers to more thoroughly examine the effects of people’s life contexts
(e.g., jobs, families, health issues) on their decisions to enroll in and persist
in adult literacy courses than relying only on quantitative methods, such
as surveys.
Research on how the various components of motivation relate to one
another to affect persistence. Different theories of motivation invoke an
array of similar constructs that partially overlap and that make different
hypotheses about how the components of motivation relate to one another
to affect behavior. Models of motivation need to be applied and tested in
the context of helping people to persist in adult literacy education.
Research on texts and tasks for adult literacy instruction. Many fea-
tures of a text or task can motivate or demotivate a reader to persist in
the face of reading challenges (Moje, 2006b). And these features change
OCR for page 160
160 IMPROVING ADULT LITERACY INSTRUCTION
dramatically as children become adolescents and move through the grades
from primary to secondary school. In adolescence and adulthood, reading
demands are shaped by knowledge domains, each with specific types of
texts and with expectations—often unspoken—for the kinds of texts to be
read and written. It is important to understand how the texts and tasks
made available to learners and how their perceptions of these texts and
tasks affect motivation to persist, even in the face of linguistic and cogni-
tive challenges. What tasks will engage learners in questions of interest
to them (see Goldman, 1997; Guthrie and McCann, 1997; Guthrie et al.,
1996)? What texts are available to learners in formal adult literacy pro-
grams? What texts typically are used and how? What texts should be used
and how? A range of research methods should be used to investigate these
questions, including large-scale surveys and inventories of the texts avail-
able and used for instruction in adult literacy settings; in-depth qualitative
and ethnographic studies of how texts are used and perceived by adolescent
and adult learners; and small-scale experimental studies that manipulate
tasks and text types with different types of readers to ascertain more and
less engaging text styles, types, and content.
Studies of group differences and similarities in the factors that influ-
ence motivation to persist with learning, reading, and writing. Although
principles of motivation apply across populations, group differences in
persistence can be expected according to age and other characteristics of
the learner. Research is needed to understand how to address the particu-
lar challenges some learners have with motivation and persistence. This
need is illustrated in research on writing: self-efficacy for writing declines
with age in some studies and increases in others (see Pajares, 2003, for a
review); similar mixed findings have been found for attitudes toward writ-
ing, with declines evident in some studies (e.g., Knudson, 1991, 1992) but
not others (e.g., Graham et al., 2003; Graham, Berninger, and Fan, 2007;
Graham, Harris, and Olinghouse, 2007). Several studies show that interest
in writing develops over time (Lipstein and Renninger, 2007; Nolen, 2003).
One’s attributions for success with writing may also vary with age: younger
students in one study were more likely than older ones to give higher rat-
ings to effort and luck as a cause of success (Shell, Colvin, and Brunning,
1995). Research on adult training in the workplace also suggests that the
age diversity of classrooms could have negative effects on learning and
that the learning environment may be more favorable for older students if
structured to avoid unfavorable social comparisons, such as those related
to speed of learning that might lower self-efficacy.
Technology. Technology use for older learners needs to be studied with
attention to the features that motivate persistence and how technologies
are best introduced and their use supported. Research is needed on how
different technology formats influence conceptions and attitudes toward
OCR for page 161
161
MOTIVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND PERSISTENCE
literacy, such as task enjoyment, perceived task difficulty, and expectations
for success, and how these attitudes in turn relate to literacy outcomes.
Research to identify the conditions that affect motivation to enroll in
adult literacy courses. The effects of compulsory enrollment on motiva-
tion and learning should also be studied. The circumstances and incentives
that affect decisions to enroll in literacy courses needs to be determined
both to influence enrollment and to identify moderators of instructional
effectiveness. In the job context, for instance, organizations often require
their employees to attend job-related training programs, but the mandatory
enrollment can promote feelings of external control and reduce motiva-
tion during training. Findings by Baldwin, Magjuka, and Loher (1991),
Guerrero and Sire (2001), and others (see Mathieu and Martineau, 1997),
for example, show that employees who are not allowed to decide whether
to attend an organizationally sponsored or supported training program
reported lower levels of motivation for training than employees who were
allowed to participate in the enrollment decision. Consistent with motiva-
tional theories that emphasize self-determination and findings on the role
of participation in goal setting, adults who are allowed to participate or
control the decision are also more likely to report higher levels of training
commitment, to allocate more time and effort to attending classes, and to
spend more time engaged in on-task learning activities than adults who are
not allowed choice over enrollment.
Development and implementation of support systems for motivating
persistence. In educational settings, a student’s family and peers are often
identified as key influences on learning motivation. In the working adult’s
environment, family members, supervisors, and coworkers also exert im-
portant influences on motivation related to training and development.
Research is needed to determine if sustained engagement with learning is
helped by establishing appropriate expectations about the amount of time
and effort that will be required to meet the learners’ literacy goals and
by providing support for overcoming logistical difficulties. Encouraging
significant others to participate in pretraining could also help to clarify the
demands and the role of social support for learning and practice.
A final point about needed research on the barriers to persistence is
critical: although research on individual motivation, engagement, and inter-
est is useful, it is unlikely that adolescents and adults with pressing social,
familial, and economic demands on their lives will make the time and ef-
fort necessary to persist unless strategies are in place to help them cope in
significant and sustained ways with these demands. Adult literacy programs
can offer significant and sustained means of supporting persistence. The
contexts, texts, tasks, systems, and structures of adult literacy instruction
require as much research-based attention as do the individuals who must
persist in learning.
