Investigating Relationships Between Learning Environment Perceptions, Motivation and Self-Regulation for Female Science Students in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

The global lack of student motivation towards learning science and gender imbalance in STEM careers provided the impetus for this study, which had two key aims: (1) to examine the influence of female students’ perceptions of the psychosocial learning environment on their motivation towards and self-regulation in science learning,; and (2) to investigate the influence of their reported motivation on their self-regulation of effort. Data were collected from 338 female students in grades 6 to 9 science classes across 16 government schools in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Structural equation modelling was used to explore the hypothesised relationships, which indicated that there were statistically significant relationships between learning environment perceptions, motivation and self-regulation. The results provide exigent information to both teachers, policy-makers and researchers with regard to the influences of the psychosocial learning environment on female students’ motivation towards science, as well as the influence of motivation towards science on their self-regulatory behaviour within science classroom settings.

Relationship Between Science Classroom Psychosocial Learning Environment and Secondary School Students’ Motivation

The learning environment of a classroom plays an integral role in students’ life. If a student’s surrounding environment is good then they perform well in studies. Learning environments are of different types like physical environment, social environment, psychological environment, instructional environment and psychosocial environment. Among these, Psychosocial learning environment is very important. It not only encourages the science learners to learn new things but also enhances their motivation for science learning. The aim of this study is to investigate of relationship between science classroom psychosocial learning environment and secondary school students ‘motivation. The research design used is descriptive and quantitative in nature. Population of the study consisted of 10th grade Secondary School Students’ who enrolled in all the campuses of District public school Okara during academic session 2016-2018.The total numbers of students were 1146.The random sampling technique was used to select the sample. Two Questionnaires were used to collect the data about the perceptions of students for psychosocial environment and motivation. Collected data were tabulated in SPSS (version24) and then analyzed by using one sample t-test, and two way between groups analysis of variance (Two-way ANOVA). Significant difference between science classroom psychosocial learning environment and secondary school students’ motivation in science classes was found for Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, and Equity.

Student perceptions of the classroom learning environment and motivation to learn Chinese

This study investigated the associations between student perceptions of their classroom psychosocial learning environment and their motivation to learn Mandarin Chinese in the United States. The students took two surveys that measured their perception of the Chinese classroom psychosocial learning environment and their motivation to learn Chinese. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. There were statistically significant associations between student perception and motivation for learning the Chinese language. The three scales of Task Orientation, Involvement, and Equity emerged as having the most influence on students’ motivation to learn Chinese. The Task Orientation scale had the strongest relationship with student motivation.