Students Who Want to Contribute to Society Have OptimalLearning-Related Outcomes (Journal Article)

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Abstract:
One of education’s primary goals is to cultivate citizens who want tocontribute to society. However, surprisingly little research has been con-ducted on how students’ desire to contribute to society is related tocrucial learning-related outcomes. The aim of this study was to examinehow the desire to contribute to one’s society, which we call societalmotivation for shorthand, is associated with optimal learning-relatedoutcomes such as self-regulated learning, deep learning, and achieve-ment. The sample included 8,773 secondary school students from HongKong. The mean age of the students was 13.28 (SD ¼ 1.09) years old.Students were asked to respond to self-reported surveys and answerachievement tests across two-time points, one year apart. Structuralequation modeling was used to analyze the data. Results indicated thatTime 1 societal motivation positively predicted Time 2 self-regulatedlearning and deep learning. These associations held despite controllingfor auto-regressive effects and other relevant covariates such as Time 1goals (mastery, performance, social, and extrinsic) and demographic vari-ables. Our results showed that societal motivation is associated withoptimal learning-related outcomes. This paper has theoretical implica-tions for educational research by showing that societal motivation is animportant yet neglected aspect of student motivation.