Essential motivational group dynamics: A 3-year panel study

Abstract

Using the lens of Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) we look at longitudinal survey results over a 3-year period for EFL students at Japanese universities. This panel study measured motivational changes across single semesters, using multiple measures. Our surveys contain questions to investigate what we call Present Communities of Imagining (PCOIz), which is an actively sharing and imagining classroom community, within which each individual’s three notional mind-time frames of English-learning motivation interact among themselves and among those of others inside the classroom. These mind-time frames are the antecedent conditions of the learners, present investments inside and outside of class, and possible future selves. Our teaching methods involve highly interactive activities that address the three mind-time frames explicitly, and we regularly return students’ information back to them through the process called critical participatory looping. We find that the dynamic system of interacting attractors of the three mind-time frames of motivation becomes more positive over time, given good group dynamics, and that the students’ motivations tend to resonate and harmonize with each other the longer they are together. These results seem to support our hypothesis that returning self-information back to students creates healthier Socially Intelligent Dynamic Systems (SINDYS) within the classroom.