When we talk about ‘complex dynamic systems’ within the socio-dynamic phase of L2 motivation research, we use the terms ‘complex’
and ‘dynamic’ in a specific sense, referring to complexity theory and espe-cially one key strand within this theory, dynamic systems theory. These approaches have been specifically developed to describe development in complex, dynamic systems (see Concept 4.3) that consist of multiple
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interconnected parts and in which the multiple interferences between the components’ own trajectories result in non-linear, emergent changes in the overall system behaviour (for overviews, see e.g. de Bot et al., 2007; Dörnyei, 2009b; Ellis and Freeman, 2006; Larsen-Freeman and Cameron, 2008a; van Geert, 2008).
Concept 4.3 Complex dynamic systems and the double pendulum A system can be considered dynamic if it has two or more elements that are (a) interlinked with each other and (b) which also change in time.
These two simple conditions can result in highly complex system behaviour – this is well illustrated by the bizarre movement of the
‘double pendulum’, which can be seen as the simplest dynamic system, consisting of only two components (the two arms of the pendulum): as we move the upper arm of the pendulum, the lower arm will soon go
‘wild’, moving all over the place, which in turn upsets the initially regu-lar movement of the upper arm, which causes further havoc in the whole system. Thus, in dynamic systems the ongoing interferences between the multiple system components’ developmental trajectories make the sys-tem’s behaviour highly complex and unpredictable.
We have already mentioned briefly in the previous chapters (in Sections 2.2.2 and 3.4.4) that a situated and process-oriented account of motivation inevitably leads us to a dynamic conception of the notion of motivation that integrates the various factors related to the learner, the learning task and the learning environment into one complex sys-tem whose ultimate outcome can be seen as the regulator of learning behaviour. How do we conceptualise motivation within this paradigm?
Traditionally, motivation was discussed within the framework of indi-vidual differences (IDs), which are conceived to be traitlike attributes that mark a person as a distinct and unique human being. Of course, people differ from each other in respect of a vast number of traits, of which ID research has traditionally focused only on those personal characteristics that are enduring, that are assumed to apply to everybody, and on which people differ by degree. In other words, ID factors concern stable and systematic deviations from a normative blueprint (Dörnyei, 2005).
IDs have been well established in SLA research as a relatively straightforward concept: they have usually been seen as background learner variables that modify and personalise the overall trajectory of the language acquisition processes; thus, in many ways, IDs have been
Quote 4.5 MacIntyre, Burns and Jessome on the need to extend the ID paradigm
Much of the previous literature on WTC has presented the concept as an internal attribute, an individual difference variable affecting the communi-cation process and an outcome of language learning. Although we believe that an individual differences approach retains its value, perhaps it is time to widen the scope of the WTC concept to more explicitly take into account moment-to-moment dynamics within the social situation and the key role played by the communication partner(s).
MacIntyre et al. (in press)
typically thought of as the systematic part of the background ‘noise’
in SLA. However, In a recent overview of the psychology of SLA, Dörnyei (2009b) has proposed that the seemingly comprehensive and straightforward picture of IDs being stable and monolithic learner traits that concern distinct learner characteristics is part of an idealised narrative that may not hold up against scientific scrutiny. The core of the problem is that if we take a situated and process-oriented perspec-tive of SLA, we cannot fail to realise that the various learner attributes display a considerable amount of variation from time to time and from situation to situation – in the way as we have argued in previous chap-ters motivation also does.
The fact that IDs are not independent of contextual and temporal variation considerably undermines the traditional view of IDs as being robust attributes that can be generalised across situations and time, but we also face a further complication: most human attributes are higher-order mental characteristics and are as such multicomponential, made up of the dynamic interaction of several lower layers of constituents (Kosslyn and Smith, 2000). Accordingly, many (if not most) learner characteristics mentioned in the literature involve at one level or another the cooperation of some components that are of a different nature from the general character of the attribute in question. For example, motivational factors may involve some important cognitive or emotional elements, thus creating ‘hybrid’ attributes. We have already mentioned the existence of such blended, ‘cross-attributional’ cooper-ation briefly in several places in this book, and in the following sections we will elaborate on this and give detailed illustrations.
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4.3.1 A tripartite framework of learner characteristics
Given the dynamics of learner characteristics and the complex and interlocking nature of higher-order cognitive human functioning described above, is there any justification for talking about distinct
‘motivational’ processes? That is, if we look at the tapestry of human mental characteristics as an interwoven and fluid system, does it make any sense to distinguish subsets of these characteristics and talk about, say, motivational or cognitive factors? In Dörnyei’s (2009b) view, the answer is affirmative, because from the phenomenological (i.e. experi-ential) perspective at least three broad distinctions can be made, between motivation, cognition and affect (i.e. emotions). They can be differentiated from each other because they ‘feel’ different: if we want something, we have the distinct experience of ‘wanting’ it and we can even grade this experience in terms of its strength (e.g. I can hardly wait . . . or I really-really-really want it!). People typically have no problem with distinguishing such a motivational experience from emotional experiences such as feeling happy or sad or angry, which are also grad-able. Finally, cognition/thoughts also have their distinct experiential feel, which is revealed in phrases such as ‘cold intellect’, capturing a key feature of cognition, namely that it has no valence (i.e. it is not grad-able in terms of intensity either in the positive or negative directions).
Thus, according to Dörnyei (2009b), the phenomenological dis-tinctness of motivation, cognition and affect warrant their use as pri-mary organising principles of learner-based characteristics, but in line with a complex dynamic systems approach, each should be viewed as dynamic subsystems that have continuous and complex interaction with each other and which cannot exist in isolation from one another (see also Dörnyei, 2010b). As Buck (2005: 198) has succinctly put it:
‘In their fully articulated forms, emotions imply cognitions imply motives imply emotions, and so on.’ Interestingly, scholars have tradi-tionally divided mental processes along this tripartite structure.
Scherer (1995) explains that already Plato proposed that the human soul contained three components: cognition (corresponding to thought and reason and associated with the ruling class of philosophers, kings and statesmen), emotion/passion (corresponding to anger or spirited higher ideal emotions and associated with the warrior class), and cona-tion/motivation (associated with impulses, cravings, desires and associ-ated with the lower classes). This division into ‘an appetitive part that produces various irrational desires, a spirited part that produces anger
Quote 4.6 Scherer on the significance of the ‘trilogy of mind’
Since people seem to like to think in threes, so the tripartite soul stayed with us till today. It seems to be the single most important classification principle in the field of psychology, judging from subdivisions in textbooks and professional associations, from journal titles, and from perceived affili-ations. This is true despite the fact that the distinction may sometimes get overshadowed by a dominant ideology – as during the heyday of behav-iorism, or in periods of cognitive imperialism.
Scherer (1995: 3)
Quote 4.7 MacIntyre, Burns and Jessome on the dynamic cooperation of learner and learning situation
Arguably, the key implication drawn from the diaries is that the situations in which learners are most willing to communicate are not radically dif-ferent from those in which they are least willing. Subtle features of the learner or the context can lead a student to speak up or remain quiet, and 4.3.2 Motivational conglomerates
In the light of the above, we have come to believe that rather than fol-lowing the traditional practice of trying to isolate distinct motives and examine their operation in isolation, a more fruitful way forward would involve taking a systemic approach by identifying higher-order ‘motiva-tion conglomerates’ that also include cognitive and affective factors and which act as ‘wholes’. We agree with Lubinski and Webb (2003), who conclude that examining learner attributes individually is often chal-lenging and unfruitful, because the manner in which each operates depends on the full constellation of personal characteristics (for an illustration, see Quote 4.7). In the following, therefore, we are going to describe four constellations that might serve as templates when looking for situated motivational conglomerates in specific studies: interest, motivational flow, motivational task processing and future self-guides.
and other feelings, and a reasoning part that permits reflection and rationality’ (Parrott 2004: 7) has traditionally been referred to as the
‘trilogy of mind’.
the psychological situation can change rapidly. It might be helpful for teachers to approach students as if they lived in a state of ambivalence toward learning – experiencing both reasons to approach and reasons to avoid speaking the L2.
MacIntyre et al. (in press)
Quote 4.8 Renninger, Bachrach and Posey on interest
Interest . . . describes both a state of heightened affect and a developing predisposition to reengage work with particular domain content (e.g.
music, science). Interest is identified based on learner’s feelings, prin-cipled knowledge, and value for particular domain content, and evolves over time through interactions with the others and objects/activities in the environment.
Renninger et al. (2008: 463)
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Interest
The term ‘interest’ in the psychological literature is used in a variety of contexts and meanings, usually referring to a broader concept than, for example, the ‘interest in foreign languages’ category in Gardner’s (1985) integrative motivation construct. In many ways, interest is a prime example of a motivational conglomerate: on the one hand, it has impeccable motivational credentials, as it features in expectancy-value theories (Section 2.1.1) under the rubric of ‘intrinsic/interest value’ denoting the anticipated enjoyment of engaging in the activity (Eccles, 2009), and intrinsic interest is also a central component of self-determination theory (Section 2.1.3), referring to the inherent satisfaction and enjoyment of a behaviour (for a recent discussion, see La Guardia, 2009). On the other hand, besides its obvious motivational connotations, the notion of interest also involves a salient cognitive aspect – the curiosity in and engagement with a specific domain – as well as a prominent affective dimension concerning the joy associated with this engagement.
In an influential analysis of interest, Hidi and Renninger (2006) specifically state that ‘interest includes both affective and cognitive components as separate but interacting systems, a position supported
by neuroscientific research’ (p. 112). As they explain, ‘Typically, the affective component of interest describes positive emotions accom-panying engagement, whereas the cognitive component refers to perceptual and representational activities related to engagement’
(ibid.). According to the authors, the dynamic nature of the concept is particularly salient in its development (p. 112):
[I]nterest is the outcome of an interaction between a person and a par-ticular content. The potential for interest is in the person but the content and the environment define the direction of interest and con-tribute to its development. Thus, other individuals, the organization of the environment, and a person’s own efforts, such as self-regulation, can support interest development.
Recently, Renninger (2009) has further analysed the change in a per-son’s phase of interest for content over time and concluded that this development was dependent on feelings as well as stored knowledge and stored values. Thus, interest in this sense ‘is both a cognitive and affective motivational variable that develops, is experienced-based, and is not necessarily age-related’ (p. 206). Lubinski and Webb (2003) have painted a similarly complex picture when they described interest as a broad orientational dimension that has been found to be defined by six general interest themes: ‘realistic’ (working with things and tools),
‘investigative’ (scientific pursuits), ‘artistic’ (aesthetic pursuits and self-expression), ‘social’ (contact with and helping people), ‘enterprising’
(buying, marketing, and selling), and ‘conventional’ (office practices and well-structured tasks).
Motivational flow
The experience of ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) is a theoretically intriguing and intuitively appealing phenomenon, entailing a state of intensive involvement in and focused concentration on a task that feels so absorbing that people often compare it to being outside everyday reality. This state is, however, not the kind of passive spiritual experi-ence that some people can evoke through meditation; on the contrary, flow is experienced while people are at their most active or creative, being engaged in performing an absorbing task. Thus, flow can be seen as a heightened level of motivated task engagement; in many ways it is the optimal task experience. It happens when, faced with a challenging activity, people are fully aware of what needs to be done and how, and at the same time they are confident that the task is do-able and their skills are sufficient to succeed. An often mentioned feature of a
Quote 4.9 Csikszentmihalyi on flow
Artists, athletes, composers, dancers, scientists, and people from all walks of life, when they describe how it feels when they are doing something that is worth doing for its own sake, use terms that are interchangeable in their minutest details. This unanimity suggests that order in consciousness produces a very specific experiential state, so desirable that one wishes to replicate it as often as possible. To this state we have given the name of
‘flow,’ using a term that many respondents used in their interviews to explain what the optimal experience felt like.
Csikszentmihalyi (1988: 29)
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fully-fledged flow experience is that the extent of absorption can be such that people even lose self-consciousness and track of time. While this may sound like science fiction fantasy, all we need to do is observe children (and even adults) playing computer games to realise that flow is a very real phenomenon.
In a pioneering study on the role of flow in SLA, Egbert (2003) found that the task conditions under which flow occurs can be organ-ised along four dimensions: (1) there is a perceived balance of task challenge and participant skills during the task, (2) the task offers opportunities for intense concentration and the participants’ attention is focused on the pursuit of clear task goals, (3) the participants find the task intrinsically interesting or authentic, and (4) the participants per-ceive a sense of control over the task process and outcomes. These underlying dimensions display a balanced mixture of motivational, cog-nitive and affective constituents (see also Guastello et al., 1999). While flow is usually discussed under the motivation rubric as a specific type of intrinsic motivation (explained by the experience of enjoyment that is one key feature of flow), it is fundamentally determined by cognitive factors such as the appraisal of the challenge of the activity; the self-appraisal of the level of the individual’s skills and competence involved in the activity; a firm sense of control over the completion of the task;
clarity about the task goals; and focused attention.
Motivational task processing
Looking at the motivational basis of student performance on learning tasks is probably the most situated lens we can adopt to study the
Figure 4.1 Schematic representation of the three mechanisms making up the motivational task processing system
motivational dimension of learning behaviours. In order to account for the state motivation that energises the learners’ moment-to-moment task participation, we need to examine how the participating learners process the various motivational stimuli they encounter and, as a result, how they activate certain necessary motivational strategies. Dörnyei (2003a) has proposed a simple model to describe the dynamics of this ongoing appraisal and response process that involves the learners con-tinuously monitoring and evaluating how well they are doing in a task, and then making possible amendments if something seems to be going amiss. Thus, this task processing system consists of three interrelated mechanisms: task execution, appraisal and action control (see Figure 4.1).
Task appraisal refers to the learner’s continuous processing of the multi-tude of stimuli coming from the environment regarding the progress made toward the action outcome, comparing the actual performance with the predicted or hoped-for ones or with the likely performance that alternative action sequences would offer. Action control processes denote self-regulatory mechanisms that are called into force in order to enhance, scaffold or protect learning-specific action; active use of such mechanisms may ‘save’ the action when ongoing monitoring reveals that progress is slowing, halting or backsliding.
In a recent study, Dörnyei and Tseng (2009) used structural equ-ation modelling to validate the proposed construct, and confirmed the circular relationship of the three components: signals from the appraisal system concerning task execution trigger the need to activate relevant action control strategies, which in turn further facilitate the execution process. Thus, a process that is primarily motivational in
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nature relies heavily on a cognitive appraisal component. Interestingly, the inclusion of appraisal in broader non-cognitive constructs is not unique to this example because, for example, most theoretical concep-tualisations of emotion contain a cognitive appraisal component that is responsible for the evaluation of the situation that evokes an emotional response (Lewis, 2005).
Future self-guides
Although earlier in this chapter (in Section 4.2) we discussed primarily the motivational capacity of future self-guides, let us highlight here the fact that possible selves present broad, overarching constellations that blend together motivational, cognitive and affective areas. Already the originator of the concept, Hazel Markus (2006), pointed out that the possible self-structure could be seen as a ‘dynamic interpretive matrix for thought, feeling and action’ (p. xi), and MacIntyre et al.
(2009a) also highlight the emotional aspect of possible selves, because without a strong tie to the learner’s emotional system, possible selves exist as ‘cold cognition, and therefore lack motivational potency’
(p. 47). As they further explain, ‘When emotion is a prominent feature of a possible self, including a strong sense of fear, hope, or even obli-gation, a clear path exists by which to influence motivation and action’
(ibid.).
Then, in Section 4.2.3 we discussed the prerequisites for the motiv-ational capacity of future self-guides, and a closer look at the list of necessary conditions reveals that the effective functioning of these self-guides is dependent on the operation of several underlying cognitive components, most notably the learners’ self-appraisal of their capabil-ities and evaluation of the affordances of their personal circumstances in order to anchor their vision in a sense of realistic expectations.
As Pizzolato (2006: 59) puts it, ‘The relation between what students want to become and what students actually become may be mediated
As Pizzolato (2006: 59) puts it, ‘The relation between what students want to become and what students actually become may be mediated