Introduction to the Research Design of the Main Study

Further to the criticisms of SDT discussed in section 2.9, the conclusions drawn by prior research within the MER have been explored within the main study (section 2.20). This study has used a research design that enabled the investigation of the impact of students’ perceptions of SDT-based relatedness and competence upon students’ autonomous motivation, self-determined motivation and engagement with science within the teacher- researcher’s school setting. An identified gap within the reviewed studies was the absence of interviews or focus groups as a means of enabling the in-depth exploration of the classroom- based experiences and perceptions that influence students’ decisions to either engage or disengage with learning (Section 1.6). This gap has been addressed within the current study through focus group interviews across four different cohorts.

The main study, herein, has investigated the extent to which the common motivational patterns proposed across the MER studies may be applied as one means of identifying and understanding key variables that inform students’ motivation to engage with learning activities. Through the two research questions, the MER findings and conclusions have informed the research design, research methods and analysis methods for the main study. Both research questions pointed towards a research design which acknowledges that the responses of students are subjective, interpretive perceptions, informed by the individual circumstances which they perceive themselves to be in. Having defined a research design that would ensure that the data collected would provide answers to the research questions, the next stage involved identifying the methodology appropriate to the research design (Clough and Nutbrown, 2012; Gorard, 2013; Robson, 2011; Thomas, 2009). Given that each school will be unique in terms of its teachers and the students they teach, there was the need to ensure that the findings from the context-based research methods used within the school under scrutiny can be applied by teachers within similar settings. This led to the choice of methods that would optimise the harvesting of students’ self-reported perceptions of the key behaviours and factors within the learning environment that motivate them to become engaged with learning. In addition, an objective of the current research was that the methods should be replicable by teachers within their own classrooms. Therefore, the research

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easily and reliably collect student perceptions of key influences upon their engagement with learning in science, together with underlying experiences that informed these.

A mixed methods approach was chosen as a means of achieving an in-depth understanding of key teacher behaviours and methods that influence the motivation and engagement of students within their learning environments (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994, p. 49). In order to answer the research questions, students’ self-reported perceptions regarding the contextual and behavioural variables that inform their motivation for and engagement with learning within their formal science lessons were needed. This led to a retrospective study which followed four student cohorts within the same school over the course of six months. The design that evolved has utilised questionnaires and focus group interviews (FGIs). The FGIs were used as a means of exploring the students’ responses in depth, to gain a more informed understanding of the extent to which the quality of the teacher-student relationship and students’ perceived competence have an influence upon students’ perceptions in three particular areas: their motivation to be autonomous, the autonomy

supportive behaviours afforded by the teacher, and perceptions of engagement during science lessons (Chapter 4). The selected research methods, therefore, harvested students’ views regarding the key motivational influences upon their engagement with learning activities in science lessons. These measures enabled the tracking of how and why perceptions, if at all, had changed over the course of the six-month research period, in relation to variables such as different teachers’ interpersonal motivating styles and the enhancement of perceived

competence. Cohort studies enabled the identification of factors that have a potential developmental influence which, in time, could be used as the basis for identifying and developing interventions for trial with different age groups within a specific school setting (Petticrew and Roberts, 2006).

As students are the focal point of the teaching processes and methods within a school, the harvesting of student perceptions and experiences was approached as a more viable means of understanding what engages students with learning, rather than relying, as many prior studies have done, upon the perceptions of teachers alone (Parsons and Taylor, 2011). That is, as educational researchers, if we are to have an impact upon teachers’ classroom- based professional practices:

“We need to better understand these youth and determine how best to engage them in learning; [as] yet, there is a notable lack of ‘student voice’ or student perspectives in the literature on student engagement.”

103 3.3 The Aim of the Research

The aim of this study was, further to the MER (see section 3.1), to investigate the impact of science teachers’ key behaviours and contextual factors within the learning environment upon students’ engagement with learning activities in science. These were viewed through the lens of SDT as a theoretical and conceptual framework.