Special Interest Group 8 – Motivation and Emotion

• 2020 SIG8 Lifetime Achievement Recognition: In light of her contributions to our scientific community and to our SIG, Dr. Ruth Butler received the SIG8 Lifetime Achievement Recognition 2020. This award is usually announced at the ICM conference, but because of the postponed conference, it was given to Ruth at this year’s EARLI conference. She was nominated by Stuart Karabenick, and 11 more proponents. Warmest congratulations, Ruth!
• 2021 SIG8 Student Research Excellence Recognition: One excellent young researcher was recognized at the SIG8 members meeting at EARLI 2021, for her outstanding first-authored paper presented at the conference, based on ratings received by an international selection committee of long-term SIG8 members. Warm congratulations to Daria Benden (TU Dortmund University) for the recognition of her paper on “Short-Term Relations Between Students’ Situated Expectancies and Task Values in the Math Domain”. We also congratulate her co-author Fani Lauermann.
   

We look forward to our SIG 8 business meeting next Thursday (September 2) from 4pm to 5pm CEST. Please make sure to attend. A few highlights:

• We will introduce and honor the 2020 ICM Lifetime Achievement Award recipient
• We will present the EARLI 2021 Student Research Excellence Award
• We will report on SIG8 activities 2020-2021
• We will inform our members of our plans for the ICM 2022 (including our summer school)

We are aware that some SIG members encountered technical issues with Pheedloop. To ensure that everyone can participate in the business meeting, we are sending the Zoom link directly within this email. Please use this link to join our business meeting, in case of any issues with Pheedloop.

Zoom link to manually join the business meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82132088612?pwd=WGRJOFVJK0lKNlZiT0NpZlErdjBzZz09

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting!

Dear SIG8 Members, 

EARLI 2021 is fast approaching and we have several important announcements to share with you: 

1) The SIG8 Business Meeting is (tentatively) scheduled for September 2nd, and we will reach out with further details as soon as we know more. Please mark this date in your calendar! In this meeting, we will report on past SIG8 activities, we will honor the ICM 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, and we will announce the next ICM 2022 conference, as well as the new SIG8 coordinators. We look forward to seeing you there! 

2) For all junior members: Please vote for a JURE coordinator by July, 14 2021. Five excellent candidates have applied for this position. You will learn more about them and will be able to submit your vote by clicking on the following link: https://ww3.unipark.de/uc/jc/

3) Please check the EARLI conference program by using the following link; SIG8 members are, as usual, very well represented: https://www.earli.org/sites/default/files/conference-program/2021-06/EARLI2021-PROGRAMME-140621.pdf

4) The EARLI conference will be hosted via PheedLoop. You can attend a virtual training here: https://pheedloop.com/more/virtual-attendee-training

5) Please mark your calendars for the EARLI SIG8 Invited Symposium, which is dedicated to our late colleague Stuart A. Karabenick and his many contributions to the SIG: Session Z 17, Session Room 15, 27/08/2021 at 15:45: The Life and Legacy of Stuart A. Karabenick: “Acquired Wisdom? More Like Lessons Learned”

6) Request for Studies for Meta-analysis on Achievement Goals / Goal Structures and Academic Dishonesty: At the Motivation Lab of the University of Augsburg and Mannheim, we are currently conducting a meta-analysis on the linkages between achievement goals and goal structures on academic dishonesty (e.g., cheating, plagiarism) in educational settings. We are searching for any grey or unpublished literature on this topic. If you have manuscripts, data or other literature that might fit this description, we would be very happy if you could send us a copy of the respective work to martin.daumiller@uni-a.de as soon as possible, and ideally before July 31, 2021.

Your SIG 08 Coordinators,
Fani Lauermann (fani.lauermann@uni-bonn.de),
Hanna Järvenoja (hanna.jarvenoja@oulu.fi),
Julia Morinaj (iuliia.morinaj@edu.unibe.ch) and
Martin Daumiller (Martin.Daumiller@phil.uni-augsburg.de)

Dr. Monique Boekaerts is an international pioneer and highly recognized researcher in educational psychology. Her ideas about motivation and self-regulation have transformed how learning and teaching are approached around the world. Dr. Boekaerts was born in Belgium, studied psychology at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, and obtained her PhD at Tilburg University. She was a full professor at the Radboud-Universität Nijmegen and at Leiden University.

One of the most prominent contributions of Dr. Boekaerts is her “Dual Processing Self-regulation Model” that has generated extensive empirical studies and describes the dynamic aspects of self-regulated learning and includes motivation, emotion, metacognition, self-concept, and learning. Her publications include numerous peer-reviewed empirical and theoretical articles in top-level international peer-refereed journals and books. Well-known books of hers include the Handbook of Self-Regulation (2000) and Motivation to Learn (2002), which have been translated into Chinese, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Greek. Dr. Boekaerts is a founding member of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) and served as EARLI president from 1999–2001, as well as the president of the Division of Educational, Instructional, and School Psychology of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP, 1998–2002).

In light of these achievements, Dr. Boekarts received the EARLI SIG8 Lifetime Award in 2010, and was afterwards also awarded with the 2015 EARLI Oeuvre Award. To learn more about her career, motivations, and research, we asked her several questions. Her answers are based on excerpts from an interview with Héfer Bembenutty in his book “Contemporary Pioneers in Teaching and Learning” (Bembenutty, 2015, pp. 75–87). For the full text, please see: https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Contemporary-Pioneers-in-Teaching-and-Learning

Personal career/ Your own motivations

Why did you decide to quit being a teacher and start a research career?

When I was 18, I ranked top of my class and parents were quite proud but they did not want me to go to university, because in their opinion that was not for girls and anyway it cost a lot of money. Instead, I enrolled in teacher training college. I was certified as a (foreign) language teacher (English, German, and Dutch) and taught for two years. I first taught students with special educational needs. I think that my philosophy of teaching took shape in that period. I discovered that the “power of learning” resides in all students but that it needs to be triggered time and time again. I also learned the hard way that you need to create a learning environment based on trust, where students can experience that their actions lead to success and that they are supported by a competent, reliable, and caring teacher.

After six months teaching these children, I got a job as a language teacher in a regular school and afterward, I got a job as a foreign language teacher at the Catholic University of Leuven. While working at the university, I became interested in psychology. I decided to go to England and applied for a job. I immediately obtained a job, which qualified me to register as a UK student. After taking an entrance examination at Reading University, I was offered the opportunity to study psychology. I finished my psychology degree in 2 years. Next, I applied for a junior teaching position at the Teacher Training Department at Antwerp University and started there in 1974. I was working in a teacher-training department and needed to make myself familiar with Educational Psychology.

After three years, my Ph.D. was ready but to my surprise, I could not defend it in Belgium because they did not accept my UK bachelor degree. I found a promoter in the Netherlands who was willing to defend my case. Afterward, I applied for the job as a full professor in Educational Psychology at Nijmegen University. I was never a junior professor: I went from being a Ph.D. student to being a full professor. This is not such a good starting position because you do not have a good role model and you cannot learn from your mistakes.

Research in your field

Can you please describe your Dual Processing Self-regulation Model? What are the differences between your model and other SR models?

The Dual Processing Self-regulation Model describes self-regulation as a set of dynamic, interacting regulation processes. The model describes how students, who are confronted with a learning task, form a fast mental representation of the situation (appraisal). They will start a learning activity in a mindful mode, when their appraisal of the learning situation is such that the learning task is congruent with their personal goals, needs, and aspirations. Such a match elicits a feel-good state, characterized by trust, confidence, being interested in the task, and wanting to expand one’s competence. These positive cognitions and emotions about the learning situation encourage students to form a commitment to the task and move onto the learning or mastery pathway. This pathway refers to activation of cognitive and motivation strategies that ensure the expansion of knowledge and competence. If the learning situation is initially appraised as threatening to well-being – either because the task is perceived as tedious, difficult, ambiguous, or complex, or because the students do not perceive enough decision latitude or support – negative cognitions and emotions are triggered (e.g., anxiety, irritation, disappointment). This negative feeling state initiates activities into the well-being pathway straight away, which refers to strategies that protect students from threat, harm, or loss (e.g., avoidance, denial, giving up, distraction).

To my knowledge, my model of self-regulated learning was the first model that describes the dynamic, non-stop appraisals that assign meaning to the learning activity itself. What is more, my Dual Processing Self-regulation Model explains how these non-stop appraisals dynamically shift the focus of the self-regulation system to any of three purposes of self-regulation, namely: (1) expanding knowledge and skills (i.e., activities in the mastery pathway with a focus on the task), (2) preventing threat to the self and loss of resources so that one’s well-being is kept within reasonable bounds (i.e., activities in the well-being pathway with a focus on the self), and (3) protecting one’s commitments by using activities that re-route attention from the well-being pathway to the mastery pathway (i.e., from a focus on the self to a focus on the task).

What are your next goals regarding your research?

I am currently involved in training parents and grandparents in recognizing approach and avoidance goals in their (grand) children. I found that (grand) parents, who are knowledgeable about how motivation and emotion work, are better equipped to assist them in regulating their motivation and emotion in relation to schoolwork.

In your opinion, what will be the most important questions to answer concerning self-regulation in the future?

Up to now, researchers have not devoted much research attention to meta-motivational and meta-interpersonal knowledge. Yet, it is essential to describe the different types of conditional knowledge that students must accrue to steer and direct the different types of self-regulation strategies. Likewise, little research is available on the use of the motivation, volition, and emotion regulation strategies that students successfully use in the classroom.

About the award

What does being a part of the EARLI mean to you and what are your most memorable experiences, when you think about EARLI?

I had been one of the founding members of the association and I had seen how the organization had grown from a small family to an extended family with many young researchers. In the Netherlands, there were plenty of opportunities for young researchers to be initiated into the field but that was not the case in other European countries. I wanted to help these young researchers. To this end, I met several times with my own Ph.D. students and several young Dutch and Flemish researchers to draft a blueprint for an association of young researchers within the EARLI. I really enjoyed doing that, and I am proud to say that during my presidency the JURE was founded and is still a flourishing association within EARLI. During my career, I organized and took part in several summer schools for young researchers, and I consider working with these bright and enthusiastic young people as a real treat.

One of my most memorable experiences I had was becoming the president of EARLI and I was proud to become the president of this important organization.

Advice

Could you give us some valuable suggestions for future researchers?

Read the relevant literature thoroughly and use validated instruments rather than constructing new ones yourself. Don’t spend time re-inventing the wheel: build on the shoulders of senior researchers. It is better to be a well-equipped wagon pulled by a well-oiled engine than to try and be an engine too soon.

Also, if it is your ambition to advise and train teachers to change the classroom, it is necessary that you first train to be a teacher yourself so that you find out firsthand what is happening in the classroom. You will see that teachers will immediately identify you as somebody who is familiar with the teaching profession and with the complex world of the classroom. As such, they will communicate better with you, trust your opinion, and implement your findings.

I have often communicated to young researchers that organizing the social program of a conference well is just as important as organizing the scientific program well. I truly cared about the education of the next generation and I wish all young researchers an interesting and stimulating career as I had myself.

Martin Daumiller & Julia Morinaj

References

Bembenutty, H. (2015). Contemporary pioneers in teaching and learning. IAP.

Boekaerts, M. (2002). Motivation to learn. International Academy of Education.

Boekaerts, M., Zeidner, M., & Pintrich, P. R. (Eds.). (1999). Handbook of self-regulation. Elsevier.

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing with great sadness to inform you of the passing of our colleague, mentor, and friend Dr. Stuart Karabenick on August 1st at 2:30pm ET. This is a tremendous loss for our community. Stuart was an exceptional scholar, a great thinker, a kind and generous person, a caring mentor, and a beloved colleague and friend. He is well known for his excellent scholarship in the fields of self-regulation and student and teacher motivation. Stuart was one of the worldwide leading experts on the motivational underpinnings and self-regulatory implications of help-seeking in educational contexts. In 2016, SIG8 recognized Stuart’s contributions to the profession and our community with a Lifetime Achievement Award—a well-deserved honor for his research excellence and mentorship.

Stuart received his PhD in Personality and Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1967 under the mentorship of John Atkinson. He was an Emeritus Professor of Education (University of Michigan) and Psychology (Eastern Michigan University) and an Adjunct Professor in the department of psychology (University of Michigan). He was an associate editor for EARLI’s flagship journal Learning and Instruction (2007-2010) and a series editor for the Advances in Motivation and Achievement series (2014-2020).

We are at a loss for words to express how much Stuart meant to our community. Stuart was a coordinator of SIG8 between 2005 and 2009 and was the first non-European coordinator of the SIG. Under his leadership, the Student Research Excellence Award (since 2007) and the Biannual Summer School of Motivation and Emotion (since 2006) were both introduced. He served as an invited Summer School Mentor and a Keynote multiple times. Stuart was committed to supporting others, especially young scholars. He was a generous and kind person.

Stuart, we will miss you.

Fani, Hanna, Julia, and Martin (on behalf of SIG8)

P.S. Below, we are sharing links to some of Stuart’s most recent interviews and keynotes:

Just a few months ago (in June), Stuart shared some of his experiences and “lessons learned” in the Education Review, Acquired Wisdom Series; he was excited about this publication and the opportunity to reflect on some of his experiences (Karabenick, 2020): 
https://edrev.asu.edu/index.php/ER/article/viewFile/2965/979

These are also shared in a recent interview we did with Stuart as a recipient of a SIG8 Lifetime Achievement Award:
http://motivation-emotion.eu/2020/06/16/interview-with-earli-motivation-and-emotion-sig-2016-lifetime-award-recipient-stuart-karabenick/

Stuart’s EARLI 2019 Keynote Address on SRL in Aachen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA55kxn3ssM&t=403s

UPDATE (30.07.2020): The conference program is now out. Please have a look at the exciting presentations: https://conference.sig17.net/schedule/

We are proud to announce a virtual conference for the junior and early career researchers of SIG8 with a theme “Motivation and Emotion in Education: Responding to Global Challenges”.

Due to the current global health crisis, this year’s International Conference on Motivation (ICM) 2020 had to be postponed. With technical and organizational support offered by SIG17 (a very special ‘thank you’ goes to Dominik Froehlich for his commitment and expertise), we are able to organize a virtual meeting to provide you an opportunity for the exchange of ideas and timely feedback. Please note that the virtual meeting is not a “replacement” for our in-person conference and is geared toward the needs of our junior and early career members.

We are using the same time slot as originally scheduled for our in-person conference. The virtual conference will take place on September 3^rd – September 4^th, 2020, after the lunchtime (two afternoons, around 14:00-18:30, CEST). 

We are equally excited to announce our keynote speakerDr. Kou Murayama. Dr. Murayama is a Research Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Reading, UK. His research spans across the areas of motivation, metacognition, neuroscience, and research methods. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards for research excellence.
Link to Dr. Murayama’s website: https://koumurayama.com/people.php

What’s more? You will have a chance to participate in the networking events by visiting open space rooms, where you can talk with other researchers in your field, discuss current issues in your research, explore potential collaboration space and interesting new research initiatives or simply chat. This could be your platform to get ideas, help or peer-support and expand your network.

We are thrilled about this opportunity and hope that many of you will participate. You can join with a presentation already accepted for either the summer school or the joint conference of the EARLI SIGs 8 and 16. This way you do not need to do any extra work for submission and we ensure the quality of the virtual conference. New submissions cannot be submitted for presentation at the virtual conference.

Ticket price*:  33 EUR/early bird ticket (till July, 31)
                       44 EUR/normal price (after August, 1)
 (*A pleasant bonus:SIG17 is offering free access to their events to all participating SIG8 members.)

We kindly ask you to sign up by July 22nd, 2020. Your participation is important to keep the virtual conference interactive and to ensure success of the networking events. We believe that collaboration is important and warmly encourage you to sign up! You can register for the virtual SIG8 conference here.

Further information on the SIG8 virtual conference will be provided to those registered by email. Be sure to keep an eye on the virtual SIG8 conference website, which will be updated to include the latest information. Please note that you will be redirected to a website hosted by SIG17 as they are providing the online platform and technical support for our virtual meeting. If you have further questions about the virtual conference, feel free to reach out to us at sig8online@gmail.com. For the technical issues, please contact hello@sig17.net.

We are looking forward to your participation in the virtual SIG8 meeting and seeing you online!
SIGN UP FOR THE VIRTUAL SIG8 CONFERENCE

Dr. Stuart Karabenick is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Education at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (associated with the Combined Program in Education and Psychology) and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Eastern Michigan University. He is an international highly recognized researcher, particularly in the field of student and teacher motivation and self-regulated learning. His research interests include (a) how teachers’ beliefs about their professional responsibilities are related to their approaches to instruction, (b) motivation for professional development, (c) parent, student and teacher motivational influences on help seeking and achievement, (d) how motivation affects self-regulated learning (SRL), and currently (e) the role of help seeking and other forms of SRL in the field of learning analytics.

His work on motivation and self-regulated learning began when he was an undergraduate and has taken many forms since then. During his studies at the University of Michigan (UM), he spent most of his time in Jack Atkinson’s lab, which he joined after connecting with his student Bernie Weiner, a graduate student instructor in one of his psychology classes. His publications include numerous peer-reviewed empirical and theoretical articles in top-level international peer-refereed journals. In addition, he published two books about help seeking: Strategic Help Seeking (Karabenick, 1998) and Help Seeking in Academic Settings (Karabenick & Newman, 2006).

Dr. Karabenick began attending EARLI in 2003 where he participated in a session honoring his colleague Paul Pintrich and joined the SIG 08 in 2004. He was elected as SIG co-coordinator at the 2005 EARLI meeting and served in that capacity until 2009 — the first American to hold that office. During that time, he established (with Marold Wosnitza) the SIG Student Research Awards. He was active in SIG attempts to increase EARLI fiscal transparency and more equitable SIG financial support from EARLI.

In light of these achievements, Dr. Karabenick was awarded the EARLI Motivation and Emotion SIG Lifetime Award in 2016. To learn more about his career, motivations, and research, we asked him several questions. His answers are based on excerpts from his reflections published in the Education Review on Acquired Wisdom (Karabenick, 2020). For the full text, please see: http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/er.v27.2965

Personal career

What do you consider your most memorable early career accomplishment?

That would be my first published study, with a colleague, continued in the Atkinson tradition. It nicely confirmed the model’s predictions that performance depended on task difficulty and motives both to approach success and to avoid failure (Karabenick & Youssef, 1968). It was quite memorable since our paper was accepted immediately and the editor was very complimentary.

How/why did you start academic research career?

I remember always being interested in science. Science kits, science classes, building, electric circuits; just to see how things work. I remember drawing a world map when in middle school and “discovering” how the South America and Africa coastlines fit together.

I studied architecture for a short time at University of Michigan (UM). Well, let’s just say that dream was short-lived after experiencing how dull the classes were and realizing how restricted the architecture program was, but even more so after exposure to the university’s exciting array of intellectual opportunities. Flipping through the catalogue there was just so much more to learn – and of course more science – a thirst that has never been quenched. It did not take me long to gravitate to the College eventually like so many other students, to psychology.

After a couple of introductory courses, an invitation to join the new psychology honors program sealed my commitment. The program provided personal exposure in small classes to many of the major researchers in the field at that time. These scholars spanned almost every area, including my honors advisor, Bob Zajonc, in social psych. However, most of my time as an undergrad was spent in Jack Atkinson’s lab, which I joined after connecting with his student Bernie Weiner, a graduate student instructor in one of my psych classes. Being socialized into the motivation world, and having already taken psychology graduate classes as an undergrad, I turned down Stanford to stay at UM, to which, as it turns out, I returned toward the end of my career.

I was socialized in the McClelland- Atkinson tradition based on personality, assessed by the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), and with the person-situation interaction approach, exemplified by Jack’s expectancy-value risk-taking model, in which incentive values of success and failure were weighted, respectively, by motives to approach success and avoid failure. Atkinson and Birch also developed a creative Dynamics of Action model of motivational “forces” to understand persistence and change in activities. My dissertation was based on that theory, but I did not pursue it further.

Tell us about a person/mentor who made an impact on you or set you on your present path?

You could say Bernie Weiner became my first mentor. He was a graduate student instructor in one of my psych classes.

Why did you decide to start a researcher career?

After my dissertation I took an attractive position close by in a new psychology department at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). Several factors led to my decision to remain there, including the opportunity to shape the program that had just split from a highly respected education college. It also allowed me to maintain connections with UM faculty. EMU also offered access to large numbers of students for research who were more representative of the general population than the thin slice of upper SES students at UM. Teaching such a diverse student population required adjustments to make psychology and research methodology relevant.

Why did you focus your research on student and teacher motivation and self-regulated learning?

As fate would have it, awareness of my work on help seeking, published in education journals, prompted an invitation from Bill McKeachie and a recent (and at the time relatively unassuming, if you can believe it) UM PhD – Paul Pintrich – to join the National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning (NCRIPTAL) that had just started at UM. It vastly expanded my intellectual horizons, professional network, and more generally shifted my work to adopt a more applied educational psychology perspective compared to the more controlled but less directly applicable experimental and lab studies I had been conducting. Although the invitation came on the heels of my studies of help seeking, my involvement quickly expanded into the full self-regulated learning (SRL) spectrum operationalized by the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). This was an inflection point in the development of the SRL-motivation relationship – the skill and the will – as Paul Pintrich liked to phrase it. Attended by faculty and students from several universities (some international), meetings became a fertile breeding ground for the exploration of theory and research in all phases of motivation and SRL in education, primarily framed by expectancy-value theory.

Despite an extremely productive five-years that generated numerous motivation- and SRL-related products and a significant presence in research and theory in higher education more generally, NCRIPTAL funding was not renewed. The effort came to a screeching halt. However, there was no turning back, and Paul Pintrich, Bill and I continued to meet with others in our College Research Group. My work continued with two additional studies on help seeking.

The NCRIPTAL experience also increased my desire to promulgate its research. Given the increased focus on college teaching and learning at the time, my education school colleague Jan Collins-Eaglin and I decided to establish the Research on Teaching and Learning (RTL) program at EMU. RTL provided funding for faculty to conduct research on teaching and learning in their own area of expertise. The curriculum included many of the resources produced and frameworks promoted by NCRIPTAL, and a crash course on research design, motivation, and SRL, and classroom assessment techniques. Most of the faculty created credible studies. One significant study with a clinical psychology colleague provided evidence that SRL strategies mediated the effects of psychopathology on academic performance (Brackney & Karabenick, 1995).

Research in your field

What have been major changes in the field of motivational research since you have been working on it?

All the while the motivation world was shifting, and I continued to struggle with that reality. Relatively stable motives did remain in the motivational lexicon, for example, as Andy Elliot subsequently incorporated approach and avoid achievement motives into his goal model, and David Winter and Oliver Schultheiss continued to work on implicit motives that were assessed with the TAT. However, for many, the dominance of relatively stable personality variables in motivation theory was over given theoretical competition. One highly attractive alternative was Weiner’s attribution theory. Based on Fritz Heider’s work, it prompted a couple of my studies on how locus of control beliefs influence the valence of success and failure (Karabenick, 1972) and relations between locus of control and self-esteem (Fish & Karabenick, 1971). Another was Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT), although one could claim that it had yet to reach its full potential in motivation theory at the time.

The decline in theory and research based on relatively stable personality characteristics meant reaching out for new ways to understand motivational influences on learning and performance, which, in addition to attribution theory, led to the emergence of achievement goal theory (AGT). AGT had a seismic impact on the field (and my own development), due in large part to the creative work by John Nicholls. Achievement goal theory represented a true paradigm shift in the classical sense by providing an alternative conceptual framework in which person and situation dynamics could be more adequately understood, including its major constructs – personal goal orientations and achievement goal structures – that were more malleable than were relatively stable achievement motives. In addition to the “cognitive revolution” occurring at the time, many consider that AGT was the final blow to the McClelland-Atkinson approach to achievement motivation. During my last meeting with Jack I tried to suggest ways to adjust to the new reality, to increase his awareness of emerging AGT research, and hint at how there might be ways to adapt his models, or to at least think about it. My efforts were to no avail, and I was one of his last students.

My connection with the Combined Program in Education and Psychology (CPEP) at UM continued to deepen. It can arguably be considered one of the major centers for research on motivation at the time. Colleagues included Jacque Eccles, Marty Maehr, Carol Midgley, Phyllis Blumenfeld, and their graduate students who continue the motivational lineage, and with whom I have subsequently collaborated, including Avi Kaplan (Kaplan, Karabenick, & De Groot, 2009) Thus, I was surrounded by colleagues and students in the 1990s during the ascendency of AGT, EVT, and SRL.

Significant as well were increasing connections with the motivation community of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Including Dale Schunk who had co-authored with Paul Pintrich their influential motivation in education text, Phil Winne along with Nancy Perry, a major force in SRL research and theory, and Allan Wigfield, who with Jacque, profoundly influenced the degree and range of EVT. Also emerging from that period of SRL expansion was the influential volume that Paul Pintrich edited with Monique Boekaerts and Moshe Zeidner, the Handbook of Self-Regulation. At about the same time as did Barry Zimmerman, in one of my favorite, and I believe most important work, John Knapp and I demonstrated that “better” learners were more rather than less likely to seek help when necessary, as well as to use other formsof cognitive, metacognitive and resource- management strategies (Karabenick & Knapp, 1991).

Without doubt an even more pivotal set of events occurred when Paul Pintrich and Marty Maehr were asked to submit a proposal to the Math and Sciences Partnership Program (MSP) of the Education and Human Resources (EHR) directorate of NSF on what at the time they considered “non-cognitive” influences on learning and achievement. Paul Pintrich and I wrote the proposal – the Math and Science Partnership-Motivation Assessment Program (MSP-MAP) – that was immediately accepted. They even asked us to increase the budget! This was the first EHR motivation proposal that exemplified Pasteur’s Quadrant of use-inspired basic research (Stokes, 1997). In addition to conducting our own research, the project’s role was to act as a resource to provide consultation on the motivation research conducted by other MSP grantees, including ways for them to assess motivation and SRL.

In addition to numerous publications emanating from MSP-MAP, the project was an opportunity to focus on how to ensure maximum effectiveness of self-report surveys. We used cognitive interviews to establish cognitive validity (as distinct from construct validity), and to assess the degree to which respondents interpreted items as researchers intended.

Future research in general

How did you start your affiliation with EARLI?

Continuing on my intellectual journey, in addition to playing a larger role in AERA, including the Motivation in Education and the Study and Self-Regulation (SSRL) SIGs, and the American Psychological Association (APA), another consequence of the NCRIPTAL connection was further opening the door to the international motivation and SRL communities. This began with my participation in a Pintrich memorial session at the 2003 European Association of Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) meeting. That event resulted in my integration into the Motivation and Emotion SIG, which was primarily due to Simone Volet and Marold Wosnitza, that was combined with the International Conference on Motivation (ICM). Although Paul Pintrich and Bill McKeachie had frequently extolled the virtues of their international experiences, I cannot begin to describe the full significance of direct connection with the EARLI community. Although I was familiar with numerous non- U.S. researchers who attended APA and AERA, from the first conference it was crystal clear that EARLI was an opportunity to expand understanding about motivation and SRL in ways not captured by the primarily U.S.-based meetings. It was also a time of expansion of the primary EARLI journal, Learning and Instruction (JLI). My involvement in EARLI significantly increased when I was elected co-chair of the Motivation SIG (the first from the U.S.), and my subsequent appointment by Anastasia Efklides as an associate editor of JLI. Both even further expanded my grasp of motivation theory and research. This also exponentially increased my international contacts, particularly graduate students globally, and broadened the audience for my research related to motivation and SRL, especially in Europe.

In your opinion, what will be the most important questions you are continuing to work on?

Motivation and SRL continues to be a major focus for me in two ways: one theoretical, the other applied. The theoretical component concerns sources of motivation in SRL. Despite their differences, goals are considered the primary determinant of motivation, which can be labeled as outcome based. However, models of the process have not taken the motivational influence of the strategies themselves into consideration – that some strategies are more worthwhile or cost more than others. New studies indicate that this strategy motivation can more adequately explain students’ use of strategies, as reported in my recent EARLI keynote. The two applied efforts fuse motivation and SRL to improve college students’ learning and performance. The first involves being part of an interdisciplinary team that designed a new student dashboard to accompany learning management systems. For example, EVT principles were brought to bear when determining the cost-benefit ratio of using information, and SDT autonomy principles contributed to providing users the capacity to customize how information is presented. We found more motivated and strategic students were more likely to take advantage of information the dashboard provided (Kia et al., 2020). That the research used both self-report and online tracking is an example of the ongoing controversy about the relative value of these sources of information. A second project to begin soon will test effects on help seeking and other variables like identity and persistence when students are provided a “back channel” to ask their own questions and anonymously observe others asking question during large interpersonal introductory STEM classes. The study design even includes the potential to determine effects of backchannel access on metacognitive monitoring. And so the work continues.

What does being the recipient for the Lifetime Award mean to you?

Receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the EARLI Motivation and Emotion SIG was a wonderful capstone to the entire experience. I am truly humbled by the recognition since there are so many other colleagues who I believe are equally deserving, and it truly never occurred to me that I would be so honored. Awards are nice, of course, but it’s all about the exciting opportunity to pursue one’s passions and share them with others.

Could you give us some valuable suggestions for future scientists?

1. As should be obvious from the history of my career, I believe collaboration is important. There is so much to be gained by working with others: peers, junior researchers and students.
2. Explore other disciplines and ways of thinking.
3. Don’t be discouraged! As in every science, setbacks are the norm rather than the exception.
4. Some of the most important findings are those unexpected.
5. In our Google world there is no excuse for not keeping up with the literature. It’s really disheartening when reading journal submissions and articles that omit important work.
6. Applied work can be frustrating and may not result in publishable research, but it can be enriching in ways that are not always predictable.
7. You will be frustrated by the publication process, but remain committed. I have finally published articles that required more than one journal and multiple revisions. That’s just the nature of the process. Not all reviewers are as perceptive as you are, but those who take their time to provide constructive criticism are to be applauded.
8. Being a journal editor requires a major time commitment but is worth the effort.
9. Cultivate and sustain positive connections with colleagues.
10. You are never finished; there is always something more to learn.
11. Colleagues are critical to your success in so many ways.
12. Finally, celebrate the opportunities this lifestyle affords. Few occupations provide the chances to make contributions to knowledge and the satisfactions that come with it, and the opportunities to mentor and continue to “pay it forward.”

Martin Daumiller & Julia Morinaj

References

Brackney, B., & Karabenick, S. A. (1995). Psychopathology and academic performance: The role of motivation and learning strategies. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 42, 456–465.

Fish, B. A., & Karabenick, S. A. (1971). Relationship between self-esteem and locus of control. Psychological Reports, 29, 748.

Kaplan, A., Karabenick, S. A., & De Groot, E. V. (Eds.). (2009). Culture, self, and motivation: Essays in honor of Martin L. Maehr. Information Age Publishing.

Karabenick, S. A. (1972). Valence of success and failure as a function of achievement motives and locus of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 21, 101–110.

Karabenick, S. A. (Ed.). (1998). Strategic help seeking: Implications for learning and teaching. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Karabenick, S. A. (2020, June 3). On the rewards of being open to opportunities and their challenges. Acquired Wisdom Series, S. Nieto, F. Erickson & P. Winne (Eds.). Education Review, 27. http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/er.v27.2965

Karabenick, S. A., & Knapp, J. R. (1991). Relationship of academic help seeking to the use of learning strategies and other instrumental achievement behavior in college students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 221-230.

Karabenick, S. A., & Newman, R. S. (Eds.). (2006). Help seeking in academic settings: Goals, groups, and contexts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Karabenick, S. A., & Youssef, Z. I. (1968). Performance as a function of achievement motive

level and perceived difficulty. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 10, 414–441.

Kia, F. S., Teasley, S. D., Hatala, M., Karabenick, S. A. & Kay, M. (2020). How Patterns of Students Dashboard Use Are Related to Their Achievement and Self-Regulatory Engagement. International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Frankfurt, Germany, March 23–27, 2020 (LAK ’20), 340–349.

Deadline for submission: March 16, 2020.

The Jacobs Foundation is pleased to announce the 2020 call for applications for its Research Fellowship Program.
The Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship Program is a globally competitive fellowship program for early career researchers whose work is dedicated to improving the development, learning and living conditions of children and youth. The relevant disciplines include, but are not limited to, education sciences, psychology, economics, sociology, family studies, media studies, political science, linguistics, neuroscience, and medical sciences.
Fellowships are awarded to highly talented and innovative early career researchers who have received their PhD within the past 10 years. Funding from Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowships is awarded directly to the fellow’s institution and may be used by the fellow over a three-year period to cover a portion of the fellow’s salary and for any purpose in support of the fellow’s research, such as assistants’ salaries, equipment, technical assistance, professional travel, or trainee support.
Scholars who engage in interdisciplinary work that focuses on individual development and variability in the learning of children and youth, and who seek to combine multiple levels of analysis, are particularly encouraged to apply.
In addition to providing fellows with independent and competitive funding, the program offers a wide range of non-financial benefits.

Check out the new application details and eligibility.

For further information and to submit an online application, please visit: Call for Applications 2020

Dr. Simone Volet is an international highly recognized researcher who focused her studies on motivation, emotion, self- and social regulation, social interaction, higher education, and learning and instruction. She contributed to the field of cultural issues in higher education and to our understanding of socio-cognitive, socio-cultural and situative perspectives on learning. Dr. Volet contributions to theory are crucial, particularly with her development of a multi-dimensional and multi-level cognitive-situative framework for understanding learning and motivation at the “experiential interface”, across contexts and cultural educational practices.

Her publications include numerous peer-reviewed empirical and theoretical articles in top-level international peer-refereed journals and books. In addition, she is co-editor of two published books in EARLI book series. She was honored with the inaugural EARLI “Outstanding Publication Award”. Professor Volet is currently engaged as a reviewer in numerous scientific journals. She is active as a member of several international Editorial Boards as well as in numerous international and national scientific research Advisory Boards. Furthermore, she has been holding the office of the Chief Investigator of many major projects funded by the Australian Research Council (Discovery, Linkage, and Large grants schemes) and the Australian National Training Authority.

As an invited keynote speaker in many international conferences, including several EARLI conferences, and as a teacher in international summer schools she has achieved the highest academic standards. As a part of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP), she is a past president of the Educational, Instructional, and School Psychology Division and was coordinator (2001-2005) of the Special Interest Group Motivation and Emotions within EARLI.

In light of these achievements, Dr. Volet was awarded the EARLI Motivation and Emotion SIG Lifetime Award in 2018. To learn more about her career, motivations, and research, we conducted an interview with her.

Personal Career

Why did you focus your research on learning, motivation, and higher education?

Gaining insight into how learning (in the broad sense) and cognitive development occur naturally, but can also be facilitated through various activities and in interaction with others have always been of the greatest interest to me, already as a school teacher. Watching how some of my students learnt, reasoned and understood concepts easily, while others struggled fascinated and challenged me as a teacher. While my initial teacher training had been very successful in preparing me for teaching multi-level classes across all areas of the primary curriculum, it had been more limited in helping me develop a sound understanding of the nature of human learning and cognitive development, and this extended to understanding motivational and emotional processes, as well classroom social dynamics. This gap in my teacher education is what motivated me initially to undertake further studies at university, which eventually evolved into postgraduate and doctoral studies and continuing research in these areas. The applied focus of my research in higher education rather than in school contexts was more related to convenience than deliberate choice.

If it wasn’t research in psychology, what field would you be working in and why?

Given the opportunity, I would pursue research in the local history of education in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, especially the Canton de Vaud, which I got a taste of a part of my “Mémoire de licence” at the University of Geneva. I found exploring the complex and evolving interactions (social, economic, political) of different stakeholders (teachers, parents, local school authorities, the Canton) at various historical times, through archival documents absolutely fascinating to understand today’s situations and challenges in education.

Own Motivations

What did you like most when teaching in summer schools?

I found teaching in the summer schools for junior researchers one of the most rewarding experiences of my academic career. The SIG Motivation and Emotion summer schools present fantastic opportunities for junior and more experienced researchers to engage collaboratively with contemporary challenging research issues, conceptual, methodological and empirical. I have enjoyed sharing my understanding and experience but also feeling challenged and pushed further in my own thinking by their burning, sometimes difficult questions. I found the scholarly exchange that takes place in these summer schools of very high standard and rewarding for everyone. The summer schools I participated in were excellently organized, with a combination of stimulating discussions and a wonderfully warm and supportive local environment.

You have published many scientific papers. What was your motivation for writing all of these publications?

The large majority of my publications are co-authored, which reflects the importance I have given to collaborative research throughout my career.  My co-authored publications are the product of stimulating, close collaboration with colleagues in the field of educational psychology, but also genuine research partnerships with colleagues from other, complementary fields (e.g. in the case of applied field research, with colleagues in computer science, or business, or veterinary medicine). Many of my publications are with junior researchers and doctoral students, locally and internationally. Sharing the full process of designing a study, carrying it out, writing up the results, and monitoring the submission and revision of a journal article in a supportive way is appreciated by junior researchers as less daunting and frustrating.

Future Research

In your opinion, what will be the biggest obstacles in future research in motivational psychology?

Future developments in research in motivational psychology and educational psychology more generally may depend on researchers’ capacity to combine the design and then integrate the findings of studies that use different lenses and research methodologies, and are conducted in culturally diverse environments. Understanding individual motivation and emotion needs situated research conducted in real-life, meaningful evolving learning activities, activities that capture the complex and dynamic, individual and contextual, social nature of such phenomena. But it also requires, on the one hand rigorous experimental studies that can test systematically ideas emerging from exploratory studies, and on the other hand research that explores the influence of broader aspects as well, such as class, school, educational systems, societal values, and culturally rewarded or inhibited social practices, for e.g. what is perceived as acceptable display of emotions and social regulation of emotions in group situations.

Involvement in EARLI

How did you start your affiliation with EARLI?

My affiliation with EARLI started in 1986, shortly after receiving a letter from Prof Robert-Jan Simons with whom I was corresponding regarding his research. In that letter, he informed me that a European association for research on learning and instruction had just been formed at Leuven in Belgium the year before, and that given my research interests I would probably be interested in joining.  He also told me that a conference would be held in Tübingen, Germany the year after. I was very excited about this news given my European background and immediately joined the association, and went to Tübingen for my first EARLI conference in 1987.  Since then, I attended all EARLI conferences, without any exception, which says it all!

To make Australian academics aware of EARLI (the only international conference they knew about at the time was AERA) and to encourage them to join the new association, I volunteered to be the EARLI national correspondent for Australia shortly after joining the association. For many years, I actively promoted EARLI in Australia. I am very proud to say that EARLI has been my academic home since the late 80s, and joining the

SIG Motivation and Emotion (WATM in the early days) was naturally part of this. All my international research collaboration throughout my entire academic career has been with EARLI members, specifically members of the SIG Motivation and Emotion. I felt very honored to receive the Lifetime Achievement Recognition award from our SIG and thank everyone for their kind words and special messages.

Advice

Could you give some valuable suggestions for future researchers?

Successful research, in my view, is linked to passion for the pursuit of important, meaningful research questions.  Scholars who are passionate, have a genuine interest in what they are studying, are rigorous in their conceptual and analytical approach to do research, and undertake research aimed at making a difference in the real world tend to be the best researchers. Already when I was a doctoral student, and throughout my career, I have been attracted by researchers who can share their passion and enthusiasm for research with others, especially with junior researchers. With passion and enthusiasm in the pursuit of important research questions, setbacks along the way such as rejections in the publication process, are more easily put into perspective, which is important for future researchers to realize. Collaborative research with passionate colleagues is stimulating and rewarding for everyone involved, experienced and junior researchers alike, locally and internationally, therefore, I would recommend future researchers to join and further initiate such research teams.

Martin Daumiller & Julia Morinaj