Self-assessment of motivation for information and communication technologies learning: results of a pilot study among secondary school students
Abstract
Self-assessment is often used in research, school, and employment. Respondents mark on a scale for example how good their skills and knowledge are or how they feel in a particular situation.
One of the fields in which self-assessment can be applied is motivation. The aim of this contribution is (a) to find out the students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to learn information and communication technologies (according to the type of attended school and gender), (b) to find out how these groups of students (according to the type of attended school and gender) use the scale when evaluating their motivation to learn ICT.
The sample consists of students at four types of secondary schools (a humanities-oriented school offering a study programme Pedagogical Lyceum, a grammar school, a technical nonICT school focused on mechanization, a technical school offering a study programme focused on ICT, N=166). The results show significant differences in ICT learning motivation amongst these groups of students.
Our results indicate that students studying a study programme focused on ICT have a significantly higher level of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. When compared according to gender, boys show a higher level of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Individual respondents seem to use the scale in a significantly different way when assessing the motivation to learn ICT. However, within the groups we studied (gender, type of school), only slight differences in the use of the scale were found (students from ICT schools tend to use rather lower scale categories, they are stricter).
In future research, it is necessary to analyze differences in scale usage among other groups (e.g. according to socio-economic status or peer groups). Furthermore, due to the high heterogeneity in the scale usage, we recommend applying the anchoring vignette method to increase the validity of the measurement.