Study of academic motivation of adolescents in distance education

The article discusses main psychological problems of distance education for adolescents. It is proposed to study the motivation of teenagers being taught remotely and to compare them with those who study full-time. The authorial questionnaire by I.V. Abakumova, I.A. Bakaeva is presented for study the teachers’ attitude to distance education technologies. It also describes a set of psycho-diagnostic research tools for study academic motivation of adolescents. The experimental group of distance form was divided into 3 subgroups, according to the level of teachers’ competence in distance technology and their relation to the latter; the control group consisted of students of full-time additional education. The result analyses of the ascertain and control experiments show that in general the level of students’ internal motivation for learning has decreased in the group of distant education, but it has significantly increased among students who are taught by competent teachers, that is those students who actively mastered the tasks developing independent cognitive activity; the students of the control group showed increased index. Tendency of motivation for knowledge acquisition grew in students of distance education, and decreased in those of full-time. In the course of the experiment it was observed a decrease of general motivation for achieving success, while the motivation for avoiding failure was increased in both groups the experimental and control. However, the students of competent teachers showed an increase in motivation for success achievement. Analysis of changes in the structure of students’ motivation in the experiment group shows the increase of role in “Educational prestige in the family”, “Motive of social approval (by parents)”, “Fear of punishment by the family,” and the decrease of role in “Motivation of communication” in distance education students. The control group did not show any change in the structure of motivation as well as the group of incompetent teachers in distance education. The article draws a conclusion about a significance of differences in academic motivation in adolescents of distant and full-time forms of education. It is specified that active use of technology for initiation of independent activity has positive effect on the level of inner motivation for study and acquiring knowledge that proves the fact of students’ self-education development. The author proposes to rely on psychological and pedagogical features of different groups of students in organizing distance education. The author recommends to use the approved technology with various forms of activities, using efficiently the methods of initiation of independent activity as well as communication technology to develop various students’ competencies.

Keywords

Authors

References