The relation between students' motivational beliefs and their use of motivational regulation strategies

The goal of this study was to investigate the relation between a set of pre-decisional beliefs including students' task value, self-e$cacy, and learning and performance goal orientations and "ve post-decisional, implementation strategies students use to regulate their e!ort and persistence for the academic tasks assigned for a speci"c class. A group of eighth grade students (N"114) completed a self-report survey that assessed these four motivational beliefs and the frequency that they used "ve motivational regulation strategies including self-consequating, environmental control, interest enhancement, and mastery and performance self-talk. Results from a series of multiple regressions indicated that the motivational beliefs, as a group, could be used to explain students' reported use of each of the regulatory strategies examined. Further, results indicated that task value, learning goal orientation, and performance goal orientation individually explained three or more of the regulatory strategies, whereas self-e$cacy was not related signi"cantly to any of the "ve regulatory strategies studied. Findings are presented and interpreted in light of their signi"cance for models specifying both motivational and volitional aspects of self-regulation. ( 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. The purpose of the study was to explore the relation between students'motivational beliefs and their use of regulation strategies intended to sustain or increase their e!ort or persistence for academic tasks. These motivational regulation strategies have been incorporated into di!erent models of self-regulation including those emphasizing volition and self-regulated learning. Research on the volitional aspects of self-regulation, for instance, distinguish the post-decisional processes through which students' 0883-0355/01/$ see front matter ( 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 8 8 3 0 3 5 5 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 5 1 3 work to manage or regulate their engagement in academic tasks from the predecisional processes of motivation or goal setting. Models that emphasize this distinction propose that individuals select the goals they wish to pursue through various motivational processes and then work to protect their pursuit of those goals by employing various implementation processes or strategies (Corno, 1993; Corno & Kanfer, 1993; Kuhl, 1985; 1992). Labeled as volitional in this research, these implementation processes are seen as important for ensuring that students' intentions and goals are accomplished despite the presence of various motivational threats. For example, students may have to overcome such motivational problems as distractions in the environment, tasks that become increasingly di$cult or boring, or material that appears irrelevant or unimportant. The strategies students use to combat obstacles such as these are typically divided into categories related to students' control of their motivation, emotion, attention, encoding, environment, and information processing (Corno, 2001; Corno & Randi, 1999; Kuhl, 1985). Models of self-regulated learning also propose that students strive to control or manage di!erent aspects of the learning process including aspects of their motivation (Boekaerts, 1997; Schunk & Zimmerman, 1994; Zimmerman & Schunk, 1989). Zimmerman and Risemberg (1997), for example, cite six processes, including motivation, that are important for academic functioning and that may be controlled by the student. Although studies of self-regulated learning may not distinguish motivational and volitional processes, they emphasize many of the implementation strategies that re#ect volitional control. For example, Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons (1986; 1990) include self-consequating and environmental structuring among the strategies assessed within an interview designed to tap into students' self-regulated learning. Similarly, Pintrich (Pintrich, 1999; Pintrich & Garcia, 1991) identi"es resource management strategies, including e!orts to control the environment, as an important aspect of self-regulated learning. At the same time, other types of motivational strategies have also been incorporated into models of self-regulated learning (Boekaerts, 1997). Garcia and Pintrich (1994), as an example, discuss students' use of self-handicapping, defensive pessimism, and attributional style as types of motivational strategies. Overall, research stemming from models of self-regulation has begun to investigate the strategies that students may use to regulate their e!ort and persistence for academic tasks. In this study, we continue to draw from these models and focus on "ve speci"c strategies that have been used to understand how students actively work to manage their level of motivation and concomitant e!ort and persistence for academic tasks. Although identi"ed by various names in prior research, we use the labels self-consequating, environmental control, interest enhancement, and mastery and performance self-talk to describe these "ve strategies. 1. Research related to 5ve motivational strategies Self-consequating strategies involve students establishing and providing themselves with extrinsic consequences for di!erent aspects of their engagement in learning 802 C.A. Wolters, H. Rosenthal / Int. J. Educ. Res. 33 (2000) 801}820