Abstract
Motivational theories coming originally from Western countries, like the self-determination theory, recognize that autonomous motivation provides energy for students to be actively engaged in academic learning. The theory assumes that the importance of autonomous motivation is cross-culturally generalizable. However, it remains inconclusive whether or not findings from past Western research are valid for the Indonesian context. Particularly, it is unclear whether or not the two types of autonomous motivation as conceptualized by the self-determination theory (identified and intrinsic) contribute equally strong to Indonesian students’ academic engagement. The present study was designed to examine the relationship between the two types of autonomous motivation and academic engagement in the Indonesian secondary education. Importantly, the hierarchical structure of the data was taken into account. A total of 4000 students (grades 7 to 12) from 200 classes/teachers from 15 secondary schools participated in the study. All students responded to the questionnaires on academic motivation and academic engagement in the middle of the school year. Multilevel modelling was used to analyse the data. Results show that autonomous motivation is significantly and positively related to academic engagement. This means that the higher the level of autonomous motivation, the better the level of academic engagement. Both identified motivation and autonomous motivation are important predictors for students’ academic engagement. However, identified motivation could explain more variance in students’ academic engagement than intrinsic motivation. Findings suggest that schools should emphasize on providing a stimulating and safe learning environment that is conducive for sustaining students’ autonomous motivation (in the Indonesian context).
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Notes
- 1.
Different researchers use different terms referring to the same meaning. The concept of effort is used interchangeably with that of engagement.
- 2.
In Indonesia, annual rolling in teaching is possible. Therefore, teachers who teach the first grade during the first school year may be assigned to teach the second grade in the subsequent school year. Additionally, some teachers may teach two different grade levels during the same school year. That is why a relatively small number of pupils may have the same teacher for two consecutive school years.
- 3.
A sample of about 15 pupils per class is generally sufficient to generate (aggregated) class perceptions of motivational variables.
- 4.
Identified motivation explains about 14 % of the variance in academic engagement, while intrinsic motivation explains about 11 % of the variance.
- 5.
The inclusion of background variables in the model is treated as control variables when estimating significant effects of the main variables of interest. Therefore, the discussion of effects of background variables is beyond the scope of this paper.
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Maulana, R., Helms-Lorenz, M., van de Grift, W. (2016). The Role of Autonomous Motivation for Academic Engagement of Indonesian Secondary School Students: A Multilevel Modelling Approach. In: King, R., Bernardo, A. (eds) The Psychology of Asian Learners. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-576-1_15
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