How are incremental theories about studying motivation related to effective motivation regulation?

Highlights

• On average, university students tend toward malleability beliefs about motivation.

• This is the case for intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of studying motivation.

• Incremental beliefs about motivation relate to motivation regulation strategy use.

• It further goes along with stronger self-efficacy for motivation regulation.

• In concert, they are related to higher effort expenditure for studying.

Abstract

Implicit theories about the malleability of various personal attributes have been linked to successful self-regulation in several domains (e.g., abilities and emotions). The current study extends these findings to achievement motivation in the context of self-regulated learning. Two surveys (N = 376 and N = 365) revealed an overall tendency of university students to believe that both intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of their motivation are malleable. Stronger incremental theories about motivation were associated with increased motivation regulation strategy use and effort expenditure via stronger self-efficacy for motivation regulation beyond implicit theories about other domains. This indicates the value of a domain-specific consideration of the impact of implicit theories and individual dispositions on the motivation regulation process. Both implicit theories about motivation and self-efficacy beliefs for motivation regulation may therefore represent target variables in trainings of motivation regulation.

Introduction

Motivation is a crucial predictor of learning, academic achievement (Scherrer & Preckel, 2019; Steinmayr et al., 2019) and well-being during studying (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Smit et al., 2017), as well as a desired educational outcome by itself (OECD, 2019; UNESCO, 2016). However, motivational problems such as decreases in studying motivation over time, procrastination, and attrition are prevalent among university students (Dresel & Grassinger, 2013; Grunschel et al., 2016; Heublein et al., 2010; Klingsieck, 2013). To remedy motivational deficits in the learning process, learners can self-regulate their motivation for studying by implementing actions, thoughts, and behaviors to “initiate, maintain, or supplement their willingness to start, to provide work toward, or to complete a particular activity or goal (i.e., their level of motivation)” (Wolters, 2003, p. 190).

The process of motivation regulation depends on individual factors (e.g., prior knowledge, cognitive abilities, Schwinger & Stiensmeier-Pelster, 2012). Individual beliefs more specific to motivation regulation in educational contexts such as self-efficacy for motivation regulation (i.e., individual beliefs about one's ability to increase and maintain motivation for studying even in the face of boring or difficult tasks) have been found to go along with more frequent motivation regulation strategy use, effort expenditure for studying, and thereby academic achievement and well-being (Trautner & Schwinger, 2020). Another more fundamental belief often linked to self-regulation (understood as a cyclical process of defining a desired goal, using adaptive behaviors to reach this goal and monitoring goal progress, Carver & Scheier, 1998; Inzlicht et al., 2021), refers to implicit theories about personal attributes or states, such as abilities or emotions (e.g., Dweck, 1999; Tamir et al., 2007). Learners holding implicit theories that an attribute (e.g., ability or emotions) is malleable (incremental theory) are more likely to use adaptive self-regulatory strategies, persevere longer when facing difficulties, and show higher levels of well-being as opposed to people believing that these attributes or experiences cannot be changed (entity theory, Burnette et al., 2013; De Castella et al., 2013; Dweck, 1999; Tamir et al., 2007). However, there are only few studies to date examining implicit theories specific to motivation and its regulation in educational contexts. The present research seeks to close this gap by examining how implicit theories about intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of motivation for studying are related to motivation regulation, well-being and achievement. A better understanding of the interplay of individual beliefs and self-regulatory behavior regarding motivation for studying may provide important insights into why attempts to regulate motivation for studying in university contexts may or may not occur and succeed. This may in turn inform individualized trainings and interventions for motivation regulation and self-regulated learning in higher education.

To regulate their motivation, learners use a variety of strategies targeting various aspects of motivation and underlying processes (e.g., Schwinger et al., 2007; Wolters, 1999). Goal based strategies highlight learners' goals to either continue studying to learn as much as they can (mastery-self-talk), outperform others (performance approach self-talk) or avoid looking incompetent in front of others (performance avoidance self-talk). Interest-based strategies enhance learners' situational interest (e.g., by highlighting enjoyable aspects of a task) or personal significance of a task or material to be studied (e.g., by highlighting connections between the task content and their lives). Further, several behaviors aim at environmental control, e.g., choosing studying environments devoid of distractions. Self-consequating (promising oneself rewards for finishing a task) is often used in combination with proximal goal setting (splitting large and difficult tasks into smaller, more attainable goals).

Motivation regulation strategy use is important in educational contexts because it leads to increased effort expenditure for studying, achievement (e.g., Eckerlein et al., 2019; Engelschalk et al., 2017; Kryshko et al., 2020; Pintrich, 2004; Schwinger et al., 2009; Schwinger & Stiensmeier-Pelster, 2012), and experiencing pleasure in learning activities (Smit et al., 2017). Simultaneously, low levels of motivation regulation are associated with dropout intentions (Bäulke et al., 2018) and procrastination (Bäulke et al., 2018; Grunschel et al., 2016).

According to theoretical models, motivation regulation depends on individual factors, which refer to both stable dispositions such as personality traits and cognitive abilities, and to less stable dispositions such as knowledge of, beliefs about and attitudes toward motivation and its regulation (Dresel et al., 2015; Miele & Scholer, 2018; Schwinger & Stiensmeier-Pelster, 2012; Wolters, 2003). For example, a more precise declarative knowledge of motivation regulation strategies and their effective implementation (procedural and conditional knowledge) are related to more effective motivation regulation in educational contexts, effort for studying, reduced academic procrastination and dropout intentions (e.g., Bäulke et al., 2018; Dresel et al., 2015; Eckerlein et al., 2019; Miele & Scholer, 2018; Scholer et al., 2018). However, for rather stable individual dispositions such as cognitive abilities (Schwinger et al., 2009) and conscientiousness (Schwinger & Otterpohl, 2017) only weak and inconsistent links with motivation regulation strategy use have been found in empirical studies. This may be because the factors examined are a) global dispositions not very specific for motivation regulation in educational contexts and b) rather stable and not easily modifiable, resulting in little predictive utility for this specific self-regulatory process. Additionally, the precise mechanisms how they are related to the motivation regulation process are not clear (Miele & Scholer, 2018; Schwinger & Stiensmeier-Pelster, 2012).

In contrast, individual dispositions specific to motivation regulation are more useful predictors of motivation regulation. For example, Trautner and Schwinger (2020) found in three student samples that self-efficacy beliefs for motivation regulation as learners' subjective estimation of how successfully they are able to motivate themselves for studying when facing difficult or boring tasks were associated with a more frequent motivation regulation strategy use, higher effort expenditure, and indirectly higher achievement and well-being. Importantly, self-efficacy for motivation regulation predicted these variables beyond more general academic self-efficacy beliefs, indicating specific dispositions to be more useful to predict motivation regulation than more global dispositions (Baranik et al., 2010). Therefore, it seems valuable to consider individual and malleable dispositions specific to motivation regulation to explain interindividual differences in motivation regulation in higher education contexts.

In other and related areas of self-regulation (e.g., academic self-regulation or emotion regulation), implicit lay theories about personal attributes, abilities and experiences play an important role (e.g., Burnette et al., 2013; Hertel & Karlen, 2020; Molden & Dweck, 2006). People holding implicit theories that an attribute is fixed and unchangeable are defined as holding entity theories about an attribute, whereas people holding implicit theories that these attributes and experiences are dynamic and malleable (e.g., through personal efforts) are defined as holding incremental theories (Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Entity and incremental theories therefore refer to the two poles of the dimensional construct of implicit theories about the malleability of attributes and experiences as opposed to separate theories (incremental theories, Dweck, 1999; Tamir et al., 2007). Further, implicit theories are domain-specific with respect to different attributes as people can believe different aspects of themselves and the world are more or less malleable (Molden & Dweck, 2006). Implicit theories about ability impact self-regulatory behaviors in many ways, for example, by influencing perceptions, attributions, and interpretations of situations and events such as failure (Dweck, 1999; Dweck et al., 1995; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Molden & Dweck, 2006).

With the “Setting-Operating-Monitoring-Achievement (SOMA) Model”, Burnette et al. (2013) presented a comprehensive framework based on meta-analytic evidence how incremental theories about abilities are associated with more adaptive patterns of self-regulatory processes, such as adaptive learning goal setting, regulation or control (applying mastery-oriented strategies), and goal progress monitoring, such as success expectations, which are in turn associated with achievement. This general process of self-regulation (Carver & Scheier, 1998) parallels models of self-regulated learning, which comprises goal setting, regulation, monitoring, and reflection phases (Pintrich, 2004; Zimmerman, 2000a). Therefore, it can be argued that incremental theories about self-regulated learning as learners' belief about how malleable one's ability “to plan, execute, and evaluate their actions, as well as regulate their behavior, thoughts, and feelings to achieve their personal goals” (Hertel & Karlen, 2020, pp. 3–4) go along with a more frequent use of strategies for self-regulated learning, such as cognitive or metacognitive strategies. Paralleling Burnette et al.'s (2013) findings, the authors found that learners holding incremental beliefs about self-regulated learning abilities were less likely to set themselves performance-avoidance goals and more likely to apply metacognitive learning strategies (but not cognitive learning strategies). Incremental theories about general and self-regulated learning abilities therefore promote achievement via adaptive self-regulation, such as functional goal setting and the use of learning strategies. These beneficial effects of incremental theories about abilities and attributes on self-regulation are also supported by findings from the emotion regulation literature. In the present study, we seek to transfer this relation between implicit theories and self-regulation to implicit theories about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and motivational self-regulation as a sub-domain of self-regulated learning (Pintrich, 2004; Wolters, 2003).

Implicit theories can be held about more transient states, too, such as emotions, which refers to the belief that emotions are fixed rather than malleable (Ford et al., 2018; Tamir et al., 2007). Entity theories about emotions are also associated with less adaptive self-regulation, specifically, with higher perceived intensity of emotions, lower well-being and psychological health, and increased psychological distress, anxiety and depression (e.g. De Castella et al., 2013; Ford et al., 2018; Tamir et al., 2007). This may be due to implicit theories' effects on self-regulation: people believing emotions to be malleable select more adaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g., De Castella et al., 2013; Ford et al., 2018; Kneeland et al., 2016; Tamir et al., 2007) and use them more effectively (Gutentag et al., 2017). As explained in the following, this adaptive pattern for incremental and maladaptive pattern for entity theories is also well established for implicit theories about certain aspects of motivation and its regulation, which represents an important aspect of self-regulated learning (Pintrich, 2004; Wolters, 2003).

Motivation in educational contexts is not a unitary construct and has thus been described by a diverse set of theories each explaining specific aspects of motivation-related behaviors and experiences (e.g., Bandura, 1997; Ryan & Deci, 2020; Sansone & Thoman, 2005; Wigfield & Eccles, 2020). Therefore, implicit theories about motivation examined to date have reflected various aspects of motivational experiences. Spinath and Schöne (2003) found that incremental theories about effort invested in academic work as a behavioural manifestation of motivation for studying were associated with mastery goal orientations and higher achievement, indicating that achievement may depend to some degree on malleability beliefs about motivation and engagement. Tapping into dispositional experiences of interest, O'Keefe et al. (2018) found that people holding stronger beliefs that one's core interests (“passions”) are fixed and limited expected motivation to come without effort for activities within their interest domains. The stronger people's entity theories about interest were, the more interest they lost when difficulties occurred during activities pursuing their interests, which indicates less attempts to motivate oneself in areas of non-interest. Similarly, Thoman et al. (2020) reported that implicit theories about experiencing situational interest led to more use of interest regulation strategies.

Paralleling results of the SOMA model (Burnette et al., 2013), these findings suggest that implicit theories specific to some aspects of motivation are also associated with adaptive self-regulation and coping. Besides experiences of interest (Sansone & Thoman, 2005), one prominent experience of motivation for studying refers to the distinction of intrinsic, autonomous vs. extrinsic, controlled motivation, is self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci, 2000, Ryan and Deci, 2020). Self-determination theory describes intrinsic motivation as an activated state and intention toward action due to the task itself being experienced as enjoyable and pleasant. Extrinsic motivation, in turn, refers to a continuum of motivational experiences all based to some degree on external pressures, such as rewards and punishments upon task (non)completion or the feeling that one ought to do the task for external benefits (e.g., utility for one's future life). Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are frequently examined and important predictors of achievement and well-being in academic contexts (Ryan & Deci, 2020; Schneider & Preckel, 2017) beyond learners' more narrow motivational experiences, such as situational interest, or rather global effort. They depend on contextual factors, such as instructional designs (Ryan & Deci, 2020) – however, the extent to which environmental features are perceived and interpreted as intrinsically or extrinsically motivating also depends on learners' perception, processing, and interpretation of these features. Consequently, perceiving both intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of motivation as malleable may make it more likely that learners change something about how motivating they experience both intrinsically and extrinsically motivating aspects of their learning environment by using strategies to enhance their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Therefore, it is important to examine implicit theories learners hold with respect to their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation beyond implicit theories about other motivational experiences, such as interest or effort examined so far.

With respect to regulating one's motivation for studying, as explained above, some strategies aim explicitly at enhancing rather intrinsic aspects of motivation (e.g., situational interest), while others focus on rather extrinsic aspects of motivation (e.g., self-consequating, c.f. Schwinger et al., 2009). However, to date, it is not clear which strategies learners choose when and why. Since they perceive intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as different motivational states and have strategies at hand to regulate them accordingly (both enhancing a motivational experience and changing its quality), it seems important to distinguish implicit theories about motivation with respect to intrinsic and extrinsic experiences. Further, it seems plausible that holding incremental theories about one motivational experience (e.g., believing that extrinsic motivation is malleable) may be related to a stronger tendency to more frequently choose strategies aiming at extrinsic motivational aspects (e.g., self-consequating). Despite the wide use and implications of self-determination theory and intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, to date, no study has examined whether learners hold differentiable implicit theories about these two motivational experiences for studying. In line with predictions by the SOMA model (Burnette et al., 2013) and findings from implicit theories about intelligence, emotions, or self-regulated learning abilities, the present study will examine whether incremental theories about motivation go along with a more frequent use of motivation regulation strategies and specific choices of motivation regulation strategies. Furthermore, the current study examines whether implicit theories about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are associated more closely with motivation regulation than less specific implicit theories (Baranik et al., 2010). Specifically, their relations will be compared to those of implicit theories about three other attributes and experiences relevant to self-regulation in the learning context: implicit theories about intelligence (Burnette et al., 2013; Dweck, 1999), implicit theories about emotions (Tamir et al., 2007) because learning and achievement emotions and their regulation impact task motivation and self-regulation strategy use (Pekrun et al., 2002), and to implicit theories about dispositional interests (O'Keefe et al., 2018) as a specific aspect of learning motivation which impacts learning outcomes (Hidi & Renninger, 2006).

While implicit theories about attributes and experiences are usually assessed with respect to these attributes in general (e.g., “you can change your intelligence”), learners can hold beliefs about the (non)malleability of the same attribute in themselves (self-theories, e.g., “I can change my intelligence”, De Castella & Byrne, 2015). Research on cognitive biases suggests that learners may tend to both self-diminishing and self-enhancing judgements about their own attributes and experiences when comparing themselves to others (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009; Hepper et al., 2010; Oreg & Bayazit, 2009; Robins & Beer, 2001). Therefore, “believing that it is possible to improve intelligence does not necessarily mean students are confident they can improve their own. Students may, for example, hold different theories for themselves and others—endorsing entity or incremental beliefs more or less depending on whether they are appraising their own abilities.” (De Castella & Byrne, 2015, p. 246). General and personal theories about intelligence were strongly correlated (De Castella & Byrne, 2015), but students on average endorsed entity theories for people in general more strongly than for themselves (De Castella & Byrne, 2015). With respect to their personal vs. general implicit theories about motivation, learners may believe that their own motivation is malleable as opposed to other learners' motivation when they observe their fellow students moaning about tedious classes, skipping lectures, and procrastinating with studying activities. On the other hand, learners experiencing motivational problems while sitting in class with many interested and engaged fellow students may conclude that their own motivation is comparatively less malleable than others'. While implicit theories in general are most strongly informed by one's own experiences, social comparisons may lead to differences between personal and general implicit theories about motivation.

Besides mean differences in personal and general implicit theories, personal implicit theories about emotions predicted outcomes beyond general theories about emotions, indicating that personal theories are a more precise predictor of self-regulation and well-being (De Castella & Byrne, 2015). Thus, personal implicit theories about motivation may be the better predictor for motivation regulation and regulatory success.

Believing that one's personal motivation for studying is malleable may arise from the same judgements as self-efficacy beliefs for motivation regulation as one's subjective beliefs about one's ability to increase and maintain motivation for studying even in the face of boring or difficult tasks (Trautner & Schwinger, 2020). This raises concerns regarding how separable the two constructs are empirically. While several studies have reported small to medium correlations between implicit theories and self-efficacy beliefs in various contexts (Bai & Wang, 2020; Diseth et al., 2014; Karlen et al., 2021), there are few empirical investigations on the two constructs' empirical separability and their relation. From a theoretical perspective, implicit theories refer less to personal abilities to achieve desired outcomes and more to one's conviction of whether an attribute or experience can be changed at all (Tabernero & Wood, 1999; Zimmerman, 2000b). Implicit theories are suggested to function as “glasses” through which people view and interpret the world (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Molden & Dweck, 2006). In line with this, several studies examining general implicit theories suggest that implicit theories contribute to the forming of self-efficacy beliefs. For example, Tamir et al. (2007) found that entity theories about emotions were associated with lower self-efficacy for emotion regulation and explain negative emotional experiences through and beyond the latter. Similarly, Tabernero and Wood (1999) found that inducing incremental theories about group management abilities led participants to develop stronger self-efficacy beliefs for a subsequent management task compared to inducing entity theories, as well as better performance on this task. Karlen et al. (2021) explained the small, but positive relation between incremental views about self-regulated learning ability and self-regulated learning self-concept (the subjective perception how good one is at regulating one's learning as a conceptually close construct to self-efficacy) with the fact that even if people believe an ability to be malleable, they do not necessarily believe they are good at it. However, the authors argue that incremental beliefs about self-regulated learning ability may serve as a protective mindset against self-concept declines when encountering mistakes and failures as such situations are interpreted as learning opportunities. Overall, this suggests that implicit theories may not simply directly go along with a more frequent use of adaptive self-regulation strategies, but also with higher self-efficacy beliefs, which are also in turn related to more self-regulation strategy use and thus, regulatory success (Burnette et al., 2013; Tabernero & Wood, 1999; Trautner & Schwinger, 2020).

In sum, it seems worth examining whether learners make different malleability judgements on their own vs. others' motivation and whether personal implicit theories about motivation are empirically separable from self-efficacy for motivation regulation. Additionally, if so, it should be examined whether personal implicit theories about motivation are better predictors of the motivation regulation process and whether this relation is mediated by self-efficacy for motivation regulation.

Overall, both empirical research and theoretical frameworks show that incremental as opposed to fixed theories about various attributes and experiences are associated with higher well-being and achievement through more frequent and adaptive self-regulatory strategy use and self-efficacy beliefs (Burnette et al., 2013; Tamir et al., 2007; Thoman et al., 2020). With respect to self-regulation of learners' motivation for studying in higher education contexts, it has also been found that individual beliefs about motivation for studying are related to actual motivation, effort for studying and thereby academic achievement by enhancing self-regulation of motivation (e.g., Schwinger & Stiensmeier-Pelster, 2012; Trautner & Schwinger, 2020). Especially given the criticism on individual factors influencing the process of motivation regulation examined so far regarding a) their stability, b) relative lack of specificity for motivation regulation and the educational context, and c) unclear theoretical effects on the process of motivation regulation, a thorough understanding of how individual, but explicitly malleable (e.g., Kneeland et al., 2016; Yeager et al., 2019) dispositions (i.e., implicit theories about motivation) influence motivation regulation can be helpful to design more effective training programmes for self-regulated learning in higher education addressing such convictions. However, so far, implicit theories about the malleability of one's motivation for studying beyond the narrower experience of situational (Thoman et al., 2020) and dispositional interest (O'Keefe et al., 2018) have not yet been examined.

Therefore, the present study examines how implicit theories about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to study are related to the process of motivation regulation. To this end, two studies were conducted. Study 1 hypothesized that in line with relations between incremental theories about intelligence (Burnette et al., 2013), emotions (Tamir et al., 2007), and self-regulated learning abilities (Hertel & Karlen, 2020) and respective self-regulation strategy use, learners holding stronger incremental theories about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for studying use motivation regulation strategies more often, thereby, but not directly, displaying more effort expenditure (hypothesis 1). Also, in accordance with theoretical and empirical suggestions that implicit theories are a fundamental belief forming subsequent ability judgements, such as self-efficacy beliefs (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Molden & Dweck, 2006; Tabernero & Wood, 1999; Tamir et al., 2007) we expected that the more students held incremental theories about their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the higher their self-efficacy for motivation regulation should be, which was in turn expected to go along with more frequent motivation regulation strategy use (partial mediation of the relation between implicit theories about motivation and motivation regulation by self-efficacy for motivation regulation, cf., Trautner & Schwinger, 2020, hypothesis 2). Further, it was expected that incremental beliefs about intrinsic motivation for studying are associated with a more frequent use of strategies aiming at enhancing intrinsic aspects of motivation for studying, such as enhancement of situational interest (e.g., highlighting aspects of a task which are enjoyable). Similarly, incremental theories about rather extrinsic motivation for studying were expected to be related to a more frequent use of strategies highlighting extrinsic aspects of one's motivation (e.g., enhancement of personal significance and self-consequating, hypothesis 3). Finally, we hypothesized that implicit theories about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for studying as more specific predictors for motivation regulation (Baranik et al., 2010) predict motivation regulation strategy use, self-efficacy for motivation regulation, and effort for studying beyond implicit theories about intelligence, emotions, and dispositional interest which are less specific for the motivation regulation process, but generally relevant in the learning process (Burnette et al., 2013; Hidi & Renninger, 2006; Pekrun et al., 2002, hypothesis 4).

Study 2 replicated hypotheses 1 to 3 and additionally examined, as previously suggested for implicit theories about emotions (De Castella et al., 2013; De Castella & Byrne, 2015), whether personal and general implicit theories about motivation for studying are separable from each other and from self-efficacy beliefs for motivation regulation as a closely related, but differentiable construct (Tamir et al., 2007; Tabernero & Wood, 1999; hypothesis 5). Finally, we expected personal implicit theories about motivation for studying to be more strongly associated with self-efficacy for motivation regulation and motivation regulation strategy use than their general counterpart (hypothesis 6).