High School Learners Participating in Teachers’ Asynchronous Professional Development: The Impact on Students’ Motivation

Abstract

Learner motivation is an essential aspect for high school students, helping them understand future university pursuits and the reasons behind their academic plans. The quantitative, causal-comparative research study examined the perceptions of high school students in eleventh and twelfth grades who participated in and completed teachers’ asynchronous professional development coursework. The research adopted a dual theoretical framework that included (1) the autonomy dimension of self-determination theory and (2) the four motivational dimensions of mastery-approach goals, mastery-avoidance goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoidance goals from the achievement-goal theory. Participants (N = 34) were selected using purposive sampling. Descriptive statistics, MANOVA, and ANOVA were used for data analysis. The study found that: (1) high school students’ learning autonomy was the strongest factor in their motivation and incentive to complete asynchronous professional development coursework in teachers’ education; (2) high school students were motivated by personal competence, skill development, and task mastery, all related to students’ intrinsic motivational capacities, as seen through the mastery-approach goals; (3) students’ grade level was a catalyst in motivational incentives to participate in teachers’ professional development coursework.