In the master's thesis, we discuss the learning motivation of students who are homeschooled. In the theoretical part, we define homeschooling, parents' reasons for homeschooling, and the advantages and limitations of homeschooling. We also describe learning motivation and the components of learning motivation. We define some theories of learning motivation. We pay more attention to the self-determination theory which is the basis of our empirical work. The self-determination theory explains that, in addition to amotivation and internal motivation, different types of external motivation differ according to the student's level of autonomy and regulation of motivational behavior. The theory assumes that to develop truly self-determined behavior or internal motivation for learning, in addition to the psychological need for autonomy, the need for a sense of competence and the need for the connection must be satisfied. In the continuation of the theoretical part, we establish connections between learning motivation, learning, and learning success. In the process, we focus on learning motivation as a factor of the learning process and on the role of the teacher in the learning process. We are also interested in other studies of learning motivation among students who are homeschooled.
In the empirical part, we present the results of the research that we carried out utilizing the questionnaire on the self-regulation of students' motivational behavior in the academic field – Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-A). We included both homeschooled and public-schooled students in the research. The results of the research show that students who are homeschooled accept tasks or learning related to schoolwork to a lesser extent as important and perform it with interest or pleasure to a lesser extent. We also ascertained that a large proportion of children who are homeschooled learn to please their parents or gain approval from other important people in their lives. In the research, we were also interested in whether there are differences in learning motivation according to gender, class, and academic success. We ascertained that female students who study in a public school show a higher level of internal motivation for school work, that there are differences in the styles of regulating motivational behavior depending on the class, both among students who are homeschooled and those who are public-schooled, and that the students included in the sample showed a weak correlation between academic success in the previous school year and academic motivation. We also did not ascertain any connection between years of homeschooling and learning motivation.
|
