Motivation and Learning Strategies

in EMI versus non-EMI students

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Challenges and Opportunities of the International Classroom: A one-day seminar

4th April 2016

Mª José Rivero-Menéndez (CUNEF) Elena Urquía-Grande (UCM)

Mª Mar Camacho-Miñano (CUNEF) Pilar López-Sánchez (UFV)

Structure

• Motivation

• Objectives

• Context

• Sample description & Methodology

• Findings discussion

• Conclusions

• Limitations and Future research

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Motivation

• The internationalization of the Higher Education and the XXIst century has economic and social needs.

• International academic and professional talent attraction and retention: English as the medium of communication.

• Higher Education Institutions and lecturers need to know about differences in motivation and learning strategies in the use of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) students.

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Objectives

• The objectives of this paper are:

– First, to analyse if the English as medium of instruction

determine students’ learning strategies and their motivation.

– Second, to evidence whether there is a link between motivated students and their learning strategies.

– A survey designed out of the Motivation and Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) is carried out in a sample of 64 undergraduate students of Business Administration Degree taught in English (32) and in Spanish (32) at the UCM.

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• There has been much research about the Motivated and Learning Strategies Questionnaire (MLSQ) created by Pintrich et al. (1991) after it has been improved by educational psychologists and researchers (Mckeachie & Pintrich, 1986; Pintrich and De Groot, 1990; Pintrich et al., 2001; Pintrich et al., 2003; Duncan & Mckeachie, 2005)

• The MLSQ is a Likert-scaled instrument that was designed to assess motivation and use of learning strategies of College students.

• The section about motivation is divided in three main areas: firstly value including intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation and task value, the expectancy measured by control beliefs about learning and self-efficacy and, thirdly, the affection or test anxiety.

• The learning strategies section is comprised of nine scales which can be distinguished as cognitive, meta-cognitive, and resource management strategies.

– The Cognitive strategies scales include rehearsal, elaboration, organization, and critical thinking.

– Meta-cognitive strategies are assessed by one large scale that includes planning, monitoring, and regulating strategies.

– Resource management strategies include managing time and study environment; effort management, peer learning, and help-seeking.

• All scale reliabilities are robust, and confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated good factor structure.

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Context (I)

Context (II) Therefore several authors have used part of this questionnaire to analyse some

parts within student academic performance research (Bong 2001; Campbell 2001; Loyens et al., 2008)

In addition, the instrument shows reasonable predictive validity to the actual course performance of students demonstrated by several authors (Artino, 2005; Boekaerts and Corno, 2005; Cardozo, 2008)

Other empirical studies using MLSQ with different aims compare motivation and

learning strategies towards different teaching resources Case vs lecture (Barise, 2000);

Multimedia (Liu, 2003)

Computer based versus web based (Eom & Reiser 2000)

On-line teaching (Miltiadou, 2001; Zlatovi, Balaban & Kermek, 2015; Zerbini et al., 2015)

Other researchers test the MLSQ in students in school with the mathematics learning (Matallidou and Vlachou, 2010)

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Research Questions

• RQ1: Does motivation in students change from EMI students to non-EMI students?

• RQ2: Does learning strategies change in EMI versus non-EMI students?

• RQ3: Does motivation affect learning strategies?

• RQ 4: Which factors determine total motivation in EMI versus non-EMI students?

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Sample description

EMI Non-EMI

AGE mean SD

21.72 (1.25)

22.56 (2.71)

WORK 46.9% 25%

Spanish nationality 71.9% 62%

Parent study level: university

81.3% 53.1%

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Instrument (I) Survey Motivation and Learning Startegies

Questionnaire Part I: Motivation Scales Nº items Part II: Learning Strategies Nº items

1. Intrinsic Goal Orientation 4 1, Rehearsal 4

2. Extrinsic Goal Orientation 4 2. Elaboration 6

3. Task Value 6 3. Organization 4

4. Control of Learning Beliefs 4 4. Critical Thinking 5

5. Self Efficacy for Learning & Performance (8) 8 5. Metacognitive Self-Regulation (12) 12

6, Test Anxiety 5 6. Time study Environmental Management (8) 8

7. Effort Regulation (4) 4

8.Peer Learning 3

9. Help Seeking 4

Total number of items 31 50

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Instrument Validity (II) Survey MSLQ

Survey Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ)

internal consistency estimates of reliability (Cronbach’s alpha)

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Motivation Scales Items Alfa Cronbach

1. Intrinsic Goal Orientation 1,16,22,24 0,74

2, Extrinsic Goal Orientation 7,11,13,30 0,62

3. Task Value 4,10,17,23,26,27 0,90

4. Control of Learning Beliefs 2,9,18,25 0,68

5. Self Efficacy for Learning & Performance 5,6,12,15,20,21,29,31 0,93

6, Test Anxiety 3,8,14,19,28 0,80

Learning Strategies Scales Items Alfa Cronbach

1, Rehearsal 39,46,59,72 0,69

2. Elaboration 53,62,64,67,69,81 0,71

3. Organization 32,42,49,63 0,64

4. Critical Thinking 38,47,51,66,71 0,80

5. Metacognitive Self-Regulation 33r, 36, 41, 44, 54, 55, 56, 57r, 61, 76, 78,79 0,79

6. Time study Environmental Management 35,43,52r,65,70,73, 77r, 80r 0,76

7. Effort Regulation 37r, 48, 60r, 74 0,69

8.Peer Learning 34, 45, 50 0,76

9. Help Seeking 40r, 58, 68, 74 0,52

Instrument MLSQ Advantages and Disadvantages

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Advantages

Survey already run since 1985, hundreds of researchers

Different points of view

• Cross cultural

• Different subjects, different learning strategies, different motivation

It can be shortened

Disadvantages

Long questionnaire 81 questions

31 Questions of Motivation

50 of Learning Strategies

19 of Student Management of Resources

31 of Cognitive and Metacognitive strategies

20-30 minutes to complete

Reverse questions difficult to measure

Findings Discussion (I)

Motivation MSLP

(Self-efficacy for learning and performance)

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M1 0,801

M2 0,734

M3 0,668

M4 0,752

M5 0,838

M6 0,737

M7 0,809

M8 0,788

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Component Matrix

Factor Analysis

8 Learning Strategies factors Effort (EFF)

Self-Regulation (SR) Time-Study Management (out of class)

TSME Time-Study Management (TSMI)

Methodology (MTHD) Focus Difficulty (FD) Perseverance (PRSV)

Reflective (RFX)

Rotated Component Matrixa,b

Component

EFF SR TSME TSMI MTHD FD PRSV RFX

LE1 ,420 -,070 ,311 -,254 ,105 ,685 ,129 ,076

LE2 ,067 -,001 ,063 -,088 ,837 ,285 ,057 ,073

LE3 -,215 ,207 ,813 ,111 -,025 -,019 ,067 ,021

LE4 ,810 ,209 -,019 -,103 ,079 ,263 ,147 -,024

LE5 ,218 ,140 ,375 ,403 ,556 -,265 ,180 ,016

LE6 ,078 ,027 ,078 ,041 ,110 -,003 ,936 -,087

LE7 -,338 ,637 ,046 -,185 ,510 ,012 ,174 -,137

LE8 ,130 ,289 ,722 ,116 ,297 ,008 ,259 -,002

LE9 ,792 ,037 ,103 -,039 ,137 -,037 ,096 -,126

LE10 ,047 ,184 ,047 ,287 ,774 ,091 -,076 ,098

LE11 -,561 ,211 ,192 ,016 ,188 ,020 ,210 -,410

LE12 ,176 ,823 ,251 -,097 ,296 -,069 -,042 -,113

LE13 -,183 -,240 ,102 ,307 ,261 ,557 ,003 -,224

LE14 -,395 -,222 ,059 ,137 ,375 -,114 -,522 ,289

LE15 ,057 ,038 ,093 ,870 ,026 ,047 -,184 -,148

LE16 -,067 -,018 ,202 ,616 ,117 ,385 ,325 ,364

LE17 -,285 ,200 ,160 ,642 ,149 ,125 ,289 ,084

LE18 ,258 ,659 ,310 ,365 -,143 ,150 ,077 ,088

LE19 -,041 ,743 ,311 ,193 -,032 ,115 ,129 ,398

LE20 ,285 ,261 ,209 -,530 -,166 -,032 ,405 ,327

LE21 ,425 ,017 -,406 ,205 -,063 ,509 ,225 ,126

LE22 ,148 ,153 ,765 ,088 ,068 ,287 -,110 ,182

LE23 -,073 ,084 ,121 -,078 ,171 -,128 -,114 ,809

LE24 ,066 ,283 ,041 ,198 ,125 ,844 -,093 -,150

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.a,b

a. Rotation converged in 15 iterations.

b. Only cases for which subject = 1 are used in the analysis phase.

Findings Discussion (II) ANOVA

Motivation is higher in EMI students compared with non-EMI

Relying in learning basic concepts (6,16 vs 5,38)

Understanding basic concepts (5,13 vs 4,50)

Performing highly in class (5,75 vs 4,65)

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Findings Discussion (III)

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ANOVA Instead Learning Strategies are similar in EMI and non-EMI students except for: - Effort where

- EMI students 3,06 versus non-EMI 3,56 (lowest values)

- Time-Study Management where

- EMI students 5,69 versus non-EMI 4,09

Findings Discussion (III)

• Correlation Matrix between motivation and learning strategies with no distinction between EMI and non-EMI students – Motivation correlates with Time-Study Management (TSME) and with

Perseverance (PRSV)

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• Learning strategies • Time-study management (TMSE) correlates

with methodology (MTHD) and reflectiveness (RFX)

Regression analysis MSLP= f(PAU, TSME,TSMI,PSVR)

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Findings Discussion (IV)

Coefficientsa

Model

Unstandardized Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig. B Std. Error Beta

1 (Constant) -3,663 2,527 -1,450 ,154

Gender -,280 ,273 -,125 -1,025 ,311

Age ,150 ,096 ,224 1,564 ,125

Nationality ,171 ,204 ,106 ,838 ,407

work ,015 ,224 ,008 ,069 ,946

PAU - Total ,056 ,033 ,226 1,705 ,095

Grant -,021 ,314 -,008 -,067 ,947

Parents Study level ,060 ,173 ,043 ,346 ,731

students -,008 ,012 -,133 -,608 ,546

SR ,111 ,144 ,092 ,772 ,444

TSME ,521 ,141 ,433 3,689 ,001

TSMI ,264 ,141 ,210 1,875 ,067

MTHD ,102 ,133 ,087 ,766 ,448

FD -,174 ,141 -,143 -1,233 ,224

PRSV ,293 ,135 ,248 2,162 ,036

RFX ,113 ,120 ,101 ,943 ,351

subject ,162 ,469 ,079 ,345 ,732

a. Dependent Variable: REGR factor score 1 for analysis 1

Conclusions (I)

• The eight questions about motivation integrated into a variable measuring total motivation in self-efficacy for learning and performance (MSLP)

• The thirty two questions about learning strategies integrated into eight factors: effort, self-regulation, time-study management, methodology focus difficulty and perseverance.

• EMI students have higher motivation than non-EMI although there are not significant differences in learning strategies – EMI students have higher motivation in learning and understanding basic

concepts correctly and performing well in class

– EMI students have better learning strategies when self-regulating, managing their time-studies and their effort (although lowest values in all students)

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• Students’ motivation correlates highly with self-regulating learning strategies as time-study management and perseverance, in line with Pintrich, 2003, without distinction between EMI and non-Emi students – More motivated students manage better their time studies

– More motivated students are more perseverant

• Total motivation in self-efficacy for learning and performance can be explained by the students’ PAU (mark achieved in the global exam to study in Higher Education), Time-study management and Perseverance

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Conclusions (II)

Conclusions (III)

• There is a learning strategy about students’ focus capacity that should be encouraged

• Motivation and learning strategies are not static – Motivation is dynamic

– Learning strategies can be developed

• Lecturers can be aware of the students learning strategies, such as self regulation and time management at home, in order to improve teaching procedures and deep learning

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Limitations and Future Research

• Limitations

– Small sample

– Only one public university

– Only one subject

– Only one academic year

• Future research

– Enlarge the sample and compare data from public and private universities

– Differences by gender, subjects, areas

– Time horizon to observe trend

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• Thank you for your attention!

• Any suggestions are welcomed!

– mjrivero@cunef.edu

– eurquiag@ccee.ucm.es

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