Facilitating students’ motivation and learning through competence-based didactic units

The purpose of the present study was to examine the influence of the “Competence-based didactic units” in vocational education on students’ motivation and self-regulated learning. The sample consisted of 115 males and 133 females (n=250) who were attending secondary vocational or technical schools in Slovenia. The students were included in an experimental project that introduced a “competence-based didactic unit” (CBDU) in vocational schools’ curricula. In our study, the introduction of the CBDU was used to measure changes in the motivational, cognitive, and metacognitive aspects of self-regulated learning and to examine how they were subsequently related to other students characteristists, such as gender, school performance and time spent on school work. The results show the importance of CBDUs, on the one hand, on motivational factors such as intrinsic goal orientation, task value, and self-efficacy, and, on the other hand, differences in gender and grade level. The findings are discussed in terms of how teaching strategies in vocational education can contribute to the development of individuals’ motivation.