Stimulating students' intrinsic motivation for learning chemistry through the use of context-based learning modules

Abstract

This paper introduces a research project in which five chemistry teachers, working in cooperation with university researchers, implemented a new teaching approach using context-based modules specially designed to stimulate the intrinsic motivation of students. The intention was to induce change in chemistry teachers' teaching approach from more traditional, extrinsically motivational teaching styles, into student centred approaches stimulating students' intrinsic motivation. Evaluation of the approach was by means of student pre- and post questionnaires, in part adapted from the intrinsic motivation instruments developed by Deci and Ryan based on indicators of autonomy, competence and relatedness, but also encompassing items of interest and value in the eyes of students. The questionnaire was validated after translation for use in the Estonian secondary and high school situation. Based on the questionnaire responses, it was found that students' (N = 416) motivation was significantly higher related to the lessons based on the modules compared to their previous chemistry lessons. While significant differences existed in questionnaire responses between the schools (teachers) before the intervention, there was no significant differences in post-questionnaire results. Implications of this are discussed.

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Introduction

Worldwide it is recognised there is the need to enhance students' scientific literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 1993; National Research Council (NRC), 1996; OECD, 2009; EURYDICE, 2011). Holbrook and Rannikmäe (2009) even went further and suggested that it is the enhancement of scientific and technological literacy that is the focus, placing emphasis on the socio-scientific interrelationship of the science learning within the natural and artificial world we experience.

Based on the PISA framework (OECD, 2009), scientific literacy covers a range of science competencies that students should gain:

• Scientific knowledge and use of that knowledge to identify questions, acquire new knowledge, explain scientific phenomena and draw evidence-based conclusions about science-related issues.

• Understanding of the characteristic features of science as a form of human knowledge and inquiry.

• Awareness of how science and technology shape our material, intellectual and cultural environments.

• Willingness to engage in science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen.

These competences have been well reflected in the national curriculum of Estonia (e.g., Estonian Government, 2010). Attempting acquisition of such competencies, importance is given to the development of students' positive attitude and stimulation of motivation in science learning alongside personal and social values (European Commission, 2004; OECD, 2009). It is thus seen as important to focus on an evaluation of the affective components through science education research. This is supported by Osborne and Dillon's (2008) suggestion in their report ‘Science Education in Europe: Critical Reflections’ that ‘More attempts at innovative curricula and ways of organizing the teaching of science that address the issue of low student motivation are required’ (p. 16). This notion is especially relevant in the Estonian context where, according to PISA 2006, students' general interest towards learning chemistry was below the OECD average (Henno, 2010).

Notwithstanding the years of concern about poor relevance of science education and calls for improving the situation (Osborne and Dillon, 2008), questions still exist about reorienting science education towards scientific and technological literacy for all, and how best to meet the needs and interests of all students (e.g., Holbrook and Rannikmae, 2007; Hofstein et al., 2010). The critique of the conventional science curricula has produced calls for a change towards a more authentic, socially oriented approach. For example, STS (Science, Technology and Society) and context-based courses designed to improve students' scientific literacy, ‘take authentic situations and problems as the starting points for the development and application of scientific concepts and processes providing, therefore, insight into real scientific projects, displaying fields where science is carried out, and rehearsing important discussions on social issues related to scientific knowledge’ (European Commission, 2004, p. 136).

Nevertheless, examples of teaching approaches that are motivating, relevant and meaningful for students, seems to be only rarely applied in a majority of countries (ibid., European Commission, 2007). The study sets out to meet this need.

Self-determination theory and learning

Learning is a multifaceted mental phenomenon in which motivation is one of the key factors. The motivation inherent in students is often referred to as intrinsic motivation as opposed to extrinsic motivation coming from external sources, usually the teacher. The effort to support intrinsic motivation has been widely accepted as a desirable educational practice (Ryan and Deci, 2000b; Brophy, 2004).

The self-determination theory (SDT, Deci and Ryan, 1985, 2002; Ryan and Deci, 2000a) is one of the most comprehensive and empirically supported theories of motivation today (Pintrich and Schunk, 2002). According to SDT, conditions supporting the individual's experience of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are argued to foster the most volitional and high quality forms of motivation (in its most ultimate form, specifically internal to an individual, called intrinsic motivation). The degree to which any of these three psychological needs is supported or thwarted within a social context will have a strong impact on the wellness of an individual in that setting (Deci and Ryan, 2000a). Based on SDT, all three needs are necessary for intrinsic motivation, albeit that the relatedness plays a role primarily in the maintenance of intrinsic motivation.

Furthermore, in SDT, extrinsic motivation is not a static concept; through the internalization process extrinsic motives can be transformed into personally endorsed values and thus assimilate behavioural regulations (Ryan, 1995). Deci et al. (1994) experimentally demonstrate that providing a meaningful rationale for an uninteresting behaviour, along with supports for autonomy and relatedness, promote internalization and integration processes.

In the review by Niemiec and Ryan (2009) on SDT and educational practice, they conclude that the way in which teachers introduce learning tasks impacts on students' satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy and competence, thereby either allowing intrinsic motivation to flourish and deeper learning to occur, or thwarting those processes.

The above mentioned aspects of SDT are considered highly important for the school context as many (if not to say, most) learning activities may not be inherently satisfying or ‘fun’. Even when the learning process is generated by the teacher (externally), as it naturally seems to occur at school, it is very much in the teacher's power to support and facilitate the students' internalization processes towards being more self-regulated and attaining value by students.

Meeting students' need for autonomy

Behaviours that are autonomous have an internally perceived locus of causality (deCharms, 1968). Autonomous behaviours emanate from one's integrated sense of self, in contrast to controlled behaviours that have an external perceived locus of causality and are experienced as being pressured by interpersonal, or intrapsychic contingencies, or demands (Black and Deci, 2000). According to SDT, the interpersonal context influences the extent to which individuals are autonomous vs. controlled.

Strategies for enhancing students' autonomy include providing choice and meaningful rationales for learning activities, acknowledging students' perspective and feelings about those topics, minimising pressure and control (Deci and Ryan, 1994; Niemiec and Ryan, 2009), providing students with opportunities for participatory learning and stimulating group problem solving (Black and Deci, 2000), and encouraging self-initiation (Ryan et al., 1996).

More particularly, Deci et al. (1981) find that autonomy supportive teachers tend to endorse responses that involve investigating and working from the students' perspective with their students showing more curiosity and desire for challenge. At the same time controlling teachers tend to use external rewards, punishments, and social comparisons while their students exhibit lower confidence in their academic abilities and lower self-worth perceptions.

Valås and Søvik (1994) point out a similar picture of autonomy supportive teacher action: supportive teachers provide students with choices, minimise extrinsic performance pressures, encourage students to solve problems in their own ways rather than insisting on a single method, and invite students to ask questions and suggest ideas for individual learning projects.

Providing choice is likely to enable students to choose tasks that they perceive as consistent with their goals and interests (Assor et al., 2002). Secondly, teacher behaviours that clarify the relevance of schoolwork for students help students to understand the contribution of schoolwork to the realisation of their personal goals, interests, and values (Brophy, 2004) and, as a consequence of this process, students' learning becomes more autonomous and self-regulated.

In the classroom context, the meaningfulness of learning materials in the eyes of students can be boosted through the use of real-life examples and relating material to everyday applications, drawing cases from current newsworthy issues, giving local examples, relating theory to practice (Kember and McNaught, 2007), thereby showing the value of a given task by personalizing it and relating science learning with the students' future plans or needs (Good and Brophy, 2000).

Meeting students' need for competence

‘Competence refers to the desire to feel efficacious, to have an effect on one's environment, and to be able to attain valued outcomes’ (Deci, 1998, p. 152). For example, students feel themselves competent when they are able to meet the challenges of their learning tasks.

Different authors (White, 1963; Niemiec and Ryan, 2009) have suggested that a sense of competence, which in turn encourages further efforts toward effective interactions within one's environment, can be promoted through autonomous action. This can occur in a context wherein challenges are optimal and feedback is effectance relevant (as opposed to norm-based). Hence, based on these authors, a medium for arousing one's sense of competence, is the autonomy-support as well, as these two are mutually interconnected.

Brophy (2004, pp. 195–201) put forward the following suggestions in order to respond to students' competence needs: the teacher should

(1) make sure that learning activities are well matched to the students' levels of knowledge and skill;

(2) allow students to make active responses and get immediate feedback;

(3) allow students to complete the task that will yield a finished product which students can use or display (a map, diagram, illustration, an essay or report).

Meeting students' need for relatedness

Relatedness refers to the desire to feel connected to and be accepted by significant others (Deci and Ryan, 2002).

The experience of relatedness that derives from authentic contact with others appears to play a crucial role in connecting individuals to social task and promoting an internalization of valued goals, primarily by identifying with, and emulating the practices of, those to whom one is, or may desire to be, attached (Ryan and Stiller, 1991). Teachers who put an emphasis on the social and personal development of their students are vital in fostering engagement and motivation to learn (McCombs and Whisler, 1997). Niemiec and Ryan (2009) have pointed out, that in the classroom, relatedness is deeply associated with a student feeling that the teacher genuinely likes, respects, and values him or her.

In conclusion, supporting students' need for relatedness includes two dimensions: teacher-student interactions and student-student interactions. Strategies for enhancing relatedness should, at the teacher-student level, include teacher behaviour conveying warmth, caring, and respect to students (Niemiec and Ryan, 2009) and, at the student-student level, establishing the classroom as the kind of learning community (Wenger, 2008; Brophy, 2004, pp. 201–206) where students are provided with frequent opportunities to collaborate with one another. The benefits from such learning can be maximised by using purely cooperative small-group learning formats, with differentiating roles within groups and with the assigning of group members with specific responsibilities for ensuring that the group functions effectively (ibid.).

Raising students' interest

High levels of interest are necessary to trigger and maintain a strong intrinsic motivation for learning (Hidi, 2000). Students can possess two different kinds of interest: individual (personal) interest and situational interest (Krapp, 2002). Researchers conceptualize personal interest as a relatively stable disposition, personality trait, or characteristic of the individual while situational interest refers to the specific context of learning and tends to be quite short term (Krapp et al., 1992).

Individual interest has been described as the energizing force behind intrinsic motivation (Alexander et al., 1997). Although individual interest and intrinsic motivation are actually two separate constructs, they predict similar outcomes in that they both create and sustain a deepening involvement with content and have an effect over time. Situational interest, by contrast, corresponds more to extrinsic forms of motivation in that it is ‘caught’ from external stimuli (such as the teacher's, positively induced, classroom environment) and ‘held’ by students only as long as the external stimuli are present (Hidi, 2000). Also, referring to Krapp (2002), in certain conditions, situational interest could become a sufficiently strong stimulus that it creates individual interest and thereby can stimulate future intrinsic motivation.

Previous studies have consistently demonstrated the relationship between intrinsic motivation and performance, self-esteem, persistence, and emotional outcomes (Deci and Ryan 1995; Vansteenkiste et al., 2004), as well as on students' cognitive engagement and academic achievement (Pintrich et al., 1993), although the relationship may not be unidirectional (Singh et al., 2002). Therefore, successfully promoting intrinsic motivation may increase cognitive engagement and, consequently, learning achievement alongside positive affective indicators. However, this hypothesis rests on the fundamental premise that appropriate strategies for supporting students' intrinsic motivation can be incorporated into the curriculum design and that these strategies are feasible in the real school environment. Identifying appropriate strategies to stimulate students' intrinsic motivation and then creating practical ways to implement these strategies, in actual secondary and high school classrooms, are not easy tasks. The current study represents an attempt to operationalise the underpinnings of self-determination theory within chemistry education, investigating strategies that make the learning process more enjoyable, effective, and lasting.

The study

In the current study, an attempt was made to address the problem of the poor individual interest of students in science education and the need for stimulating classroom practices through initiating a carefully orchestrated type of learning module together with its contingent teaching approach. Such modules would be expected to explicitly support students' need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, stimulating therefore students' self-regulated learning and increasing the role of intrinsic motivation in students' classroom experiences. Involving the intrinsic motivation of students was considered a key factor in developing students' scientific literacy.

More specifically, this study set out to examine to what extent teachers were able to develop and utilise new teaching modules in terms of stimulating and maintaining students' intrinsic motivation, and whether there was any significant difference in students' motivation between different learning contexts (previous chemistry lessons vs. module lessons).

Research questions

For this study the following research questions were posed:

1. Were participant teachers able to trigger students' intrinsic motivation by the use of context-based modules and sustain this by the related teaching approach?

2. Are there any significant differences in students' intrinsic motivation between different teachers measured before, after the first, and after multiple, use of modules?

Project activities

At the beginning of the project, a three-hour seminar session was conducted with participant teachers by the first author to introduce the philosophy, structure and learning goals of the prototype learning modules and the relevant teaching approach. The participants ‘worked through’ an exemplar module ‘Should vegetable oils be used as a fuel?’. Every teacher received individual guidance from the first author before and during the implementation of a particular module.

During the next school year, the five teachers, in collaboration with the first author, developed new context-based learning modules based on the prototypes ‘Should vegetable oils be used as a fuel?’ and ‘Should we do more for saving monuments?’ taken from Holbrook and Rannikmäe (1997). Three additional modules were created, entitled ‘Alcohol measuring: Could this save somebody's life?’ (see Fig. 1), ‘Which is better—Blend-a-med or Silverstone?’ and ‘Oxygen—an element of life or death?’ The modules were included as single units within a compulsory chemistry curriculum, each occupying four to six 45 minute lessons.

Fig. 1 Suggested teaching flowchart for the module ‘Alcohol measuring: Could this save somebody's life?’

Learning materials

The context-based modules, used to guide this study, were specially designed to capture students' intrinsic motivation and build learning on this, thereby enhancing scientific literacy towards responsible citizenry. The learning encapsulated, conceptual chemistry learning, science methods of inquiry, enhancing communication skill, cooperative learning and stressing socio-scientific decision making (Holbrook and Rannikmäe, 1997). The dependence on students' intrinsic motivation was considered in the current study as an essential and key factor in order to support the higher level scientific learning by students.

Each module consists of three stages built on the model taken from Holbrook and Rannikmäe (2010).

The first stage is based on an authentic issue (context), starting from an everyday-life scenario seen as familiar to the students' lives, acting like a backbone for stimulating the teaching and learning processes that followed. The first step is seen as promoting two attributes:

(1) students' individual interest, necessary for arousing and maintaining their motivation to learn chemistry, and

(2) helping students to see the value of the learning activities; such relevance being also an important factor for intrinsically motivational learning. According to these suggestions, the scenarios are presented in a variety of stimulating ways, often using supporting video clips.

In the second stage, the scientific ideas and problems to be solved, and the associated process skills, personal and social attributes, are incorporated into the teaching. Science learning in this stage is designed to follow the ‘need-to-know’ principle—students are put in a position that they feel, and see the point of, extending their knowledge (Bulte et al., 2006). Context-stimulated, but decontextualised scientific inquiry-based learning is expected to maximize students' personal interest and involvement in their scientific learning process.

In the third stage, the initially put socio-scientific issue is revisited, allowing students to discuss the issue in which they can show that they can transfer and incorporate their newly acquired scientific knowledge alongside other reasoned considerations, such as ethical, environmental, social, political, and economic factors in order to, through argumentation, arrive at a justified socio-scientific decision.

Throughout the whole module, stimulating and sustaining students' intrinsic motivation and internalization processes, is addressed by:

Supporting students' need for autonomy

In every module, students were given a range of possibilities to choose between different ways of learning, e.g., encouraged to deal with divergent problems, derive their own research questions and ways to solve the problem. For example, after presenting the scenario in the module ‘Should vegetable oils be used as a fuel?’, students are asked to put forward as many thoughts, ideas and questions as they can, which is followed by group, and afterwards class, discussion. Students' autonomy is also stressed during the planning and carrying out of the inquiry activity. In the module ‘Which is better—Blend-a-med or Silverstone?’, students are first invited to pose research questions related to undertaking silver cleaning. According to the posed question, which may be related to the influence of variables like temperature, concentration, cleaning agent, or type of silver alloy, on the effectiveness of cleaning, students plan and carry out their own inquiry. Nevertheless, the type of inquiry learning varies amongst the modules within the continuum beginning from structured inquiry formats towards guided and open inquiry (Banchi and Bell, 2008), being more structured in the module ‘Should we do more for saving monuments?’ and more open in ‘Oxygen—an element of life or death?’.

A strong emphasis is put on formative assessment, included self-, as well as criterion-based assessment, further encouraging students' self-regulation of learning. Therefore, the modules are provided (along with support assessment strategies conducted directly by a teacher) with rubrics allowing students to self-assess their learning (including affective measures like the effort put into groupwork) or with a list of criteria helping students to analyse and improve the existing outcomes (e.g., criteria for excellence in laboratory reporting). Supporting students' need for competence.

Alternative tasks and ways of teaching were introduced for teachers to choose according to students' capabilities. On the other hand, whenever possible, teachers were encouraged to allow students to choose the desirable goal for solving a task, or designing a procedure, thereby guiding students towards self-regulated learning. Different ways of thinking were particularly encouraged in the last stage where learning is geared to the making of a socio-scientific decision. This was expected to give a sense of competency to students with different abilities and interests.

Moreover, in the module ‘Alcohol measuring: Could this save somebody's life?’ students are asked to perform the role play ‘In court,’ where a court case over a drunken driver is enacted. Students play roles and take positions of a victim, drunk driver, lawyer, judge, criminalist, policeman, etc.. As students can choose their roles according to their interest and capabilities, it is expected to satisfy students' need for competence alongside their autonomy-need for sustaining intrinsic motivation.

Related to competence support, Brophy (2004) emphasises the importance of the feeling of accomplishment—satisfaction from performing a task from the beginning to the end, or creating a product one can point at, or identify with. In modules, like ‘Should vegetable oils be used as a fuel?’, ‘Which is better—Blend-a-med or Silverstone?’ or ‘Oxygen—an element of life or death?’, students are guided to create a ‘product’ in the face of a real biodiesel, self-cleaned silver jewellery, or self-designed experiment equipment, which they can also demonstrate to their classmates. In modules where the making of tangible products is not possible, a poster, video-clip, report, or power point presentation is made, presenting the main findings of the students' inquiry and/or socio-scientific decision.

Another possibility to meet students' need for competence, as suggested by Brophy (ibid.), is to provide students with frequent feedback during their learning. In our module design, together with formative assessment conducted by a teacher as suggested in supporting materials, the feedback given by classmates, or group members during and after the learning activity is encouraged.

Supporting students' need for relatedness

According to given assumptions, each module provides students with many possibilities to communicate with their classmates, e.g., putting forward a relevant science related issue, solving a problem through inquiry, and making a socio-scientific decision. It was desired that the inclusion of the different formats of group work would take more than 60% of lesson time. The module guidelines encouraged students to act as ‘a community of learners’ (Wenger, 2008) in which every student's input is integral to the action of others and knowledge is negotiated within the group, or class. For example, in the module ‘Alcohol measuring: Could this save somebody's life?’ every group measured the alcohol consistence in different standard solution using a redox back titration method. After titration, data were collectively used in order to compile a graph by which groups determined the alcohol consistence in a ‘blood’ sample.

Teacher support

The quality of instruction was supported by the module design, which promoted a systematic sequence of learning activities in each module that connects the single module and its learning outcomes with the overall outcomes and philosophy. Not only was the support of students' intrinsic motivation emphasised, teachers' autonomy was also endorsed offering alternatives to the main story line and learning activities and thus allowing teachers to act within their perceived competence. In other words, updated teaching practices were not directly imposed on the participating teachers, as it was expected to be a teacher controlled situation, recognising that not only students are to ‘internalize’ new things. Participation in the project through implementing, reflecting, and developing modules, was intended to provide teachers with self-efficacy needed for enhancing students' learning (supporting thereby teachers' need for competence).

Instrument

Students' questionnaire design. A modified version of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Deci and Ryan, 2007) was used to assess students' interest (enjoyment), their perceived choice (autonomy), competence, relatedness and value in their normal chemistry lessons and in the module context in a seven-point Likert scale from ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7). A value subscale was included into the questionnaire in order to find out to what extent learning activities were internalized. The generic label ‘activity’ was suitably reworded to be relevant to the current study which took place in a chemistry class context.

Validation. Validities of the original subscales were established across a variety of tasks, conditions and settings (McAuley et al., 1989; Tsigilis and Theodosiou, 2003; etc.). As changes were made and, because of translation of the instrument, the internal validity of the questionnaire was rechecked by explorative factor analysis. The pilot study for validating the questionnaire was conducted with 102 students.

A principal axis method of the 24-item version was performed on the piloted data. Cattell's scree test indicated a five-factor solution. A Varimax rotation of the five factors was then performed and the resulting factor pattern revealed a four-item interest-enjoyment factor, three-item autonomy-factor, five item competence factor, three item relatedness-factor and a six-item value factor (see Appendix 1). Three statements which had factor loadings under the cut-point of 0.4 and which did not belong clearly in any particular factor, were omitted from the main questionnaire.

The final version of the interest, autonomy, competence, relatedness, and value subscales with 21 statements (randomly ordered) had adequate internal consistencies when used in a standard and a modules-driven, chemistry learning context. Specifically, the internal reliability estimates of the subscales were as follows: interest/enjoyment α = 0.78 and 0.81, choice α = 0.70 and 0.72, competence α = 0.84 and 0.82 and relatedness α = 0.61 and 0.67, value α = 0.89 and 0.86. The overall scale appears to be internally consistent with α = 0.92 and 0.92. The item-total correlations and alphas, if item deleted, were calculated to make an additional check of reliability of the questionnaire. Still, removing of any item did not raise Cronbach's alpha in both questionnaires.

Questionnaire use

In the pre-questionnaire, students were asked to give their estimation on statements regarding their last 4–5 chemistry lessons and in the post-questionnaire regarding the module lessons. Time interval between pre- and post- questionnaire was 3–6 month depending on the teacher. During the subsequent school year, after implementing modules with the same students a number of times (for teachers B, C, E after their 3rd time and for teachers A and D, the 4th time), the same questionnaire was again implemented as post use of modules.

1. The interest/enjoyment subscale was used as the only direct self-reporting measure of intrinsic motivation within this questionnaire. Four of these items assess students' interest and enjoyment, e.g., In my opinion, the lesson activities were very interesting.

2. The autonomy subscale was used to measure the need to be self-initiating in the regulation of actions. It encompassed three items, for example: I felt like I had to learn these things.

3. The competence subscale is related to feelings or perceptions of competence with respect to an activity or domain, performed during chemistry lessons. It consists of five items, e.g., I think I did pretty well at lesson activities, compared to other students.

4. The relatedness subscale measured this need by three items, e.g., I liked to take part in the lesson activities because it allowed cooperation with my class mates.

5. The value subscale is based on the idea that people internalize and become self-regulating with respect to activities that they experience as useful or valuable for themselves. This subscale consisted of six items, from which three were more generally measuring students' perceived value of their prior lessons, e.g., I believe doing lesson activities could be beneficial to me because I learned many new things, and three of them were more specific being relevant for the current study in measuring the extent to which students appreciated or valued their prior chemistry lessons for a certain reason, e.g., I think that the things we studied in the lessons are useful for solving different problems.

Data were gathered by student questionnaires before, after the implementation of the first, and after multiple use of modules.

Sample

The sample consisted of 416 basic and high school students and their chemistry teachers (N = 5) (Table 1). All five teachers were female and their teaching experiences varied from 15–34 years. The schools belong to the same district of Estonia.

Table 1 The number of students according to the teacher and grade level^a

Grade	8	9	10	11	Total
a The grade level corresponds with the period of conducting the pre- and post-questionnaire.
Teacher A	74	—	28	—	102
Teacher B	23	27	—	13	63
Teacher C	—	31	—	15	46
Teacher D	52	62	17	—	131
Teacher E	26	28	—	20	74
Total	175	148	45	48	416

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The school type in all cases was gymnasium (equivalent to grade 1–12 education). Two of the schools were town schools and three were country schools.

For students taking part in this study, this was their first contact with a module approach designed to stimulate intrinsic motivation. It was assumed by the researchers that at the time of conducting the pre-questionnaire, the general teaching style of these teachers had not changed (or the changes they had implemented were minimal; influences from the project had not been sufficiently internalised to affect their customary teaching practice).

Data analysis

In order to address the first research question, descriptive statistics were used to analyse students' intrinsic motivation within five subscales (interest, autonomy, competence, relatedness, value). Negatively worded items were rescaled prior to the analysis of the data.

In order to find out whether there is any difference between students' intrinsic motivation measured through perceived interest, choice, competence, relatedness, and value in the module context and in their usual chemistry lessons, paired samples t-test was conducted: (1) for all students together, (2) for students of different teachers.

Additionally, to investigate more thoroughly motivational differences between sub-groups (students of different teachers) one-way ANOVA with post hoc Scheffe testing was performed.

In order to find out whether students' level of intrinsic motivation in learning through modules is persistent in time, questionnaire data gathered after multiple use of modules were compared with the data gathered after the implementation of the first module.

The significance level for all conducted analyses was determined a priori to be p < 0.05.

Results

Students responses to the 21 items summarised within every subscale measured before and after the first implemented module are presented in Table 2.

Table 2 Means and mean changes in subscales of the questionnaire in total and according to the teacher

Subscale	No. of students		Teacher					Total
No. of items			A	B	C	D	E
			N = 106	N = 62	N = 48	N = 130	N = 74	N = 416
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, pre-test scores are subtracted from post^1-test scores.
Interest 4	Mean (SD)	Pre	4.25 (1.17)	4.80 (1.25)	4.65 (1.24)	4.68 (1.19)	4.66 (1.39)	4.56 (1.23)
		Post^1	5.40 (1.29)	5.44 (1.38)	5.28 (1.04)	5.23 (1.22)	5.14 (1.17)	5.30 (1.21)
	Paired t-test: Mean change (SD)		1.15*** (1.43)	0.64*** (1.06)	0.63** (1.24)	0.55** (1.07)	0.48** (1.08)	0.74*** (1.22)
Autonomy 3	Mean (SD)	Pre	3.55 (1.25)	4.00 (1.18)	4.24 (1.34)	4.20 (1.35)	4.24 (1.46)	3.98 (1.33)
		Post^1	4.58 (1.38)	4.65 (1.21)	4.60 (1.34)	4.61 (1.28)	4.68 (1.40)	4.61 (1.32)
	Paired t-test: Mean change (SD)		1.03*** (1.84)	0.65*** (1.09)	0.38 (1.58)	0.41** (1.26)	0.44** (0.95)	0.63*** (1.30)
Competence 5	Mean (SD)	Pre	4.23 (1.17)	4.37 (1.23)	4.14 (1.24)	4.45 (1.16)	4.99 (1.27)	4.43 (1.22)
		Post^1	5.00 (1.04)	4.96 (0.98)	4.84 (1.27)	5.06 (0.92)	5.13 (1.10)	5.01 (1.14)
	Paired t-test: Mean change (SD)		0.77*** (1.29)	0.59** (1.18)	0.70** (1.32)	0.61*** (1.06)	0.14 (1.17)	0.58*** (1.20)
Relatedness 3	Mean (SD)	Pre	4.05 (1.18)	3.95 (1.18)	3.95 (1.37)	4.47 (1.17)	4.15 (1.30)	4.17 (1.22)
		Post^1	5.08 (1.28)	4.82 (1.13)	4.78 (0.95)	5.11 (0.95)	4.99 (1.13)	5.01 (1.14)
	Paired t-test: Mean change (SD)		1.03*** (1.43)	0.87*** (1.36)	0.84** (1.44)	0.64*** (1.12)	0.84*** (1.25)	0.84*** (1.33)
Value 6	Mean (SD)	Pre	4.49 (1.19)	4.78 (1.25)	4.67 (1.27)	4.87 (1.02)	4.82 (1.38)	4.72 (1.19)
		Post^1	5.04 (1.26)	5.20 (1.15)	5.21 (1.02)	5.25 (0.87)	5.18 (1.00)	5.17 (1.08)
	Paired t-test: Mean change (SD)		0.55*** (1.24)	0.42* (1.24)	0.54* (1.09)	0.38*** (1.01)	0.36* (0.92)	0.45*** (1.17)

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Table 2 shows that in total, students' motivation after the implementation of the first module was higher in every subscale and these changes were statistically significant. The biggest change in motivation took place in relatedness and interest subscale and the smallest in value subscale.

Additionally, the means were higher in all subscales according to every teacher. Nevertheless, students of teacher C did not show significant change in the autonomy subscale and students of teacher E in the competence subscale.

Table 3 shows the results gained from students after multiple use of context-based modules in the next school year. Post²-questionnaire data, gathered after the 3rd (4th) module, compared with the data gathered after the implementation of the first module on all subscales, showed the change was positive.

Table 3 Paired samples t-test on differences between post²- and post¹-questionnaire scores (N = 105)

	Post^1 mean (SD)	Post^2 mean (SD)	Paired differences: mean change (SD)
***p < 0.001, post^1-test score is subtracted from post^2-test score.
Interest	5.73 (0.99)	5.94 (0.81)	0.21 (1.10)
Autonomy	4.93 (1.22)	5.95 (0.81)	1.02*** (1.38)
Competence	5.11 (0.96)	5.14 (0.92)	0.03 (1.33)
Relatedness	5.23 (1.20)	5.85 (0.57)	0.63*** (1.10)
Value	5.36 (0.97)	5.66 (0.66)	0.30 (1.16)

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However, significant differences existed only in autonomy (mean change 1.01, p < 0.001) and relatedness subscale (mean change 0.60, p < 0.01). As many of the students changed school and/or the teacher after graduation at secondary school level, the number of student respondants to the post²-questionnaire is much lower. Still, based on the further analysis, it could be claimed, that the last sampling is representative, in relation to the first sampling, in the sense of students' achievement and motivation level (the percentages of low-, middle- and high-achievers and their means of pre- and post¹-questionnaire responses) were similar to the first sampling.

One-way Analysis of Variance and post hoc Scheffe multiple comparisons indicated the following:

Before the intervention, statistically significant differences existed between teacher related students' responses, within the autonomy subscale, F(4,416) = 4.35, p < 0.01 related to teachers A and D, and teachers A and E) and within the competence subscale, F(4,415) = 4.17, p < 0.01, between teachers A and E, and C and E.

After implementation of the first module and after multiple use of modules, students' mean scores (teacher related) in every motivation subscale did not differ significantly.

Discussion

In the current study, a teaching approach heavily driven by students' intrinsic motivation is presented through the use of carefully constructed, context-based learning modules. Every learning module starts from student relevant, everyday life experiences, followed by cognitive science learning according to a desired ‘need-to-know’ principle. The self-regulated work is carried out in groups, where students plan, carry out, discuss, and demonstrate their own ideas to stimulate and sustain their intrinsic motivation. This is specifically recognised through satisfying students' psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness while facilitating the internalisation processes by demonstrating the value and usability of chemistry learning to the students' personal lives, including their future careers. Stimulating intrinsic motivation in learning chemistry was considered an important prerequisite in order to attain the true competence-based scientific literacy for which affective outcomes were regarded as essential as cognitive ones.

Based on the results, the project fulfilled its main expectations. First, according to student responses, students found the module approach to be intrinsically more motivational than their usual chemistry learning, as measured by all used subscales. It was especially evident in their changed feeling of relatedness and perceived interest in the module approach.

A further important finding (even though it is drawn from the responses of a limited number of students) was related to the longitudinal data. At the beginning of the project, it was questioned amongst the team, whether a module approach would be persistently interesting and motivating for students, or whether they would become bored when it was integrated into the usual part of chemistry learning, as was found by Rannikmäe (2001). In contrast, however, students' motivation if not raised compared to the first encounter, then at least it was maintained after multiple implementations of modules. We can perhaps claim, this happened basically due to the diversity of scenario approaches starting from TV-news-type introductions (‘Alcohol measuring: Could this save somebody's life?’) and ending with ‘stories’ adapted to local conditions using supportive video clips (‘Should vegetable oils be used as a fuel?’) and/or because of the diverse learning activities supporting students' basic psychological needs.

Information regarding teachers' ability to stimulate students' intrinsic motivation through five components is presented. As evidenced, teachers' different teaching styles reflect themselves in students' pre-questionnaire responses: there existed significant differences in intrinsic motivation perceived by students according to the teacher. Of course, we could neglect the possibility, that students from different schools were generally differently motivated, notwithstanding the particular teacher. Still, the results from this study are congruent with the findings based on classroom observations (partially indicated in Vaino and Holbrook, 2008) of the same teachers. Students of teachers A and C, who exhibited more traditional teaching style at the beginning of the project, showed relatively lower motivational indicators in learning chemistry. This was more significantly expressed in the category of autonomy and competence perceived by the students. On the other hand, teachers D and E, who exhibited more updated teaching practices from the beginning, resulted in higher student motivational indicators, measured by almost every sub-category.

Through classroom observations during the implementation of the modules, individual adaptations, related to scenarios and particular learning activities, were found in some cases, e.g., open inquiry was changed to guided inquiry by teacher C, formative assessment methods were rarely used by teacher A (ibid.). However, teachers generally followed the main ideas of the STL philosophy and guidelines given in the teacher guide (ibid.). This claim was supported by the current study with the same teachers, where the mean results of students' motivational indicators did not differ significantly according to the teacher after implementation of STL module. Hence, we can claim that when using the module approach, teachers used ways of teaching which were more similar than at the beginning of the project. This is not surprising, as the teachers were encouraged to use the STL approach.

Few studies in science education have explored the influence of context-based (STS, SSI) modules on students' intrinsic motivation in terms of self-determination theory. Gräber and Lindner (2008) who used the SDT framework in interpreting students' interview responses on their context-based learning modules, found positive shifts in all three need categories (autonomy, competence, relatedness). However, as their methods were mainly qualitative and descriptive, it proved difficult to compare the extent of changes in every sub-category.

Conclusions

Based on the outcomes from the students' pre-, post¹-, and post²-questionnaire, it was found that students' motivation: (a) was significantly higher related to the lessons based on the modules compared to their previous chemistry lessons; (b) increased through using the modules taught by every teacher. Students' increased motivation in learning through modules was maintained also after multiple use of modules. If moderate differences in students' motivation were found, according to the teachers during previous chemistry lessons, then when using a module approach, differences became insignificant. It was assumed this was a result of the suitability of the developed learning and teaching materials together with cooperative use of the modules by participating teachers. There is evidence to suggest the introduced module approach as a curriculum innovation needs to be included into learning-teaching materials meant for larger chemistry teachers' group.

Limitations

It is important to recognise that a Hawthorne effect (Cohen et al., 2007) can account for part of the gains observed. That is, simply being part of any new programme and participating in the motivation intervention prompted students to operate in more motivated ways and perhaps to inflate their self-reports of motivation and engagement. It might be possible that these gains were a function of the students' expectations, practice effects, or their propensity to be ‘test savvy’. They were aware of the purpose of the intervention and may have been motivated to give the ‘right’ answers.

The items in the questionnaire are translations of those used in the study. Nevertheless a limitation of the study is that these items were understood in a similar manner and the strength of reaction were taken to be similar in each.

The analysis assumes that the sample of teachers and students can indicate meaningful interpretations of the questionnaires and that the second use of the questionnaire is independent of that conducted the first time.

This study was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Science and Education Grant No SF0180178As08.

Appendix 1

(Table 4).

Table 4 Rotated Factor Matrix^a

Statement	Factor
	1	2	3	4	5
Extraction Method: Principal Axis Factoring. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.a Rotation converged in 6 iterations.
1. I believe doing lesson activities could be beneficial to me	0.715	0.251	0.180	0.173	0.114
2. I believe the things we studied in the lessons could be of some value to me	0.713	0.161	0.217	0.114	0.145
3. I think that doing lesson activities could help me to develop my learning skills	0.704	0.123	0.283	0.193	0.069
4. I believe doing lesson activities could be beneficial to me because I learned many new things during these	0.665	0.253	0.302	0.158	0.157
5. I think that the things we studied in the lessons are useful for solving different problems	0.603	0.155	0.021	0.245	0.129
6. I would be willing to do the things like we did during these lessons again because it has some value to me	0.540	0.132	0.230	0.251	0.235
7. I think I was pretty good at lesson activities	0.218	0.799	0.240	0.147	−0.055
8. I think I did pretty well at lesson activities, compared to other students	0.175	0.748	0.080	0.146	0.001
9. I am satisfied with my performance at the tasks given in the lessons	0.207	0.716	0.119	0.111	−0.007
10. These were some activities that I couldn't do very well (R)	0.008	0.590	−0.013	−0.041	0.177
11. I was pretty skilled at the lesson activities	0.325	0.581	0.091	0.235	0.083
12. I think, the lesson activities were boring (R)	0.199	−0.016	0.609	0.083	0.334
13. I liked to take part in lesson activities very much	0.267	0.308	0.591	0.160	0.159
14. In my opinion, the lesson activities were very interesting	0.376	0.233	0.495	0.276	0.304
15. Lesson activities did not hold my attention at all (R)	0.275	0.148	0.430	0.084	0.296
16. I think that during these lessons I could be useful to my classmates	0.091	0.223	0.146	0.634	0.044
17. Taking part in lesson activities I got feedback from my classmates	0.150	0.047	0.005	0.563	−0.040
18. I liked to take part in the lesson activities because it allowed cooperation with my class mates	0.223	0.139	0.254	0.417	0.114
19. I felt like it was not my own choice to do lesson activities (R)	0.150	0.115	0.150	0.058	0.728
20. I felt like I had to learn these things (R)	0.155	0.116	0.181	−0.044	0.664
21. I believe I had some choice about doing these activities	0.081	−0.122	0.231	0.126	0.386

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