Motivation is a Two-Way Street: Pedagogies Employing Discussion in Addition to Lecture Display More Positive Student Motivational Response

This research paper investigates the relationship between two of the most ubiquitous classroom activities – lecture and discussion – and their correlation to student motivation. This investigation uses a dataset from 27 introductory STEM classes across 7 institutions that participated in weekly surveys, in which students listed the activities they had recently undertaken and then completed a multiple choice motivation survey. The motivation survey, based on the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, measured the levels of four distinct types of motivation amotivation, external regulation, identified regulation, and intrinsic motivation which were compared, in turn, to the balance of Lecture and Discussion activities in the participating classrooms. The correlations between classroom activity and average level of student’s motivation response were found to be significant for intrinsic motivation and external regulation, and insignificant for identified regulation and amotivation. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate discussion around the implications of these preliminary results for pedagogical practice.