Understanding Students’ Motivation to Write: How Technology Impacts Student Engagement In and Outside the Classroom

I came across this research study as I was developing content for my online course and I wanted to share some of the information in a blog post because I thought a lot of the information related to general course ideas discussed in AL881 along with my own concept of a community course. In the study, the researchers wanted to know if preservice teachers were being prepared to not only teach student’s how to write but to appreciate their students’ vast array of writing skills. Particularly, the researchers felt that many of their students wrote in school for reasons very differently than writing outside of school because of technology. For instance, many of their students today were assigned in classrooms traditional papers to write. However, outside of school, students were writing via text messages and Facebook posts. Therefore, the researchers formulated questions around the idea of students writing for various motivating factors such as school or their social life. As such, the researchers posed the following questions:

• What motivates students to write in and out of the classroom? 
• How many students write for their own, authentic purposes using new technologies, and how often do they do so?
•  How can pre-service teachers attempt to create 21st century writing class- rooms that are responsive to students’ reported motivations?

They then created a questionnaire and gave it to students in preservice teachers classrooms. The results from the study found that students write inside the classroom for very different reasons than outside the classroom. Particularly, students are motivated in school to write for grades. Outside of the classroom, students are mainly motivated to write for communication. Think of the multitude of texts that can be sent from student-to-student or student-to-parent simply communicating with each other. The other reasons that students write outside of school are for encouragement and/or self-esteem. This too, makes sense considering the frequent use of Facebook and other social networking sites students visit throughout the day.

I found that the researchers understanding of how assignments impact student writing most useful and significant to understanding how students view writing assignments and in particular the use of technology with writing assignments. The researchers found that assignments made a large difference in the motivation of student writing. Specifically, students found that when the assignment was more student-centered, like a journal assignment, they were more motivated to complete it and be engaged. However, drafting a general paper students were less engaged and less motivated. As such, the researchers (2010) state “blogs are one way that teachers can successfully create a reading and writing space that can provide an authentic, worldwide audience for writing that is traditionally called an essay, for example” (p. 93).  

As such, the researchers conclude and, I think appropriately, that understanding how students use technology and why they use it to write may better prepare writing teachers in engaging students in the classroom. There is this gap of space between the classroom and outside of the classroom. Technology is a tool that will help to bridge that space and create a hybrid third space for new, innovative and motivated students can come to create and write. Further, this third space is an innovative place for teachers to assign, evaluate and assess student writing. These ideas and understanding of space I think really support a lot of the ideas and theories that I have been working with to create my own course design. Further, I think this study highlights a key component central to teaching with technology and that is student motivation. Teaching with technology can begin to engage students in the classroom in new ways and I think that this is an important point considering how students today are often considered disengaged and unmotivated students. Redesigning the classroom space to incorporate technological tools and assignments then present new opportunities to counter such myths that continue to cause headlines on the 7pm news.

Dredger, K., Woods, D., Beach, C., & Sagstetter, V. (2010). Engage me: Using new literacies to create third space classrooms that engage student writers. Journal of Media Literacy Education 2(2), 85–101.