Examining change in motivation: The potential of sociocultural theory

MacCallum, J. and Pressick-Kilborn, K. (2011) Examining change in motivation: The potential of sociocultural theory. In: McInerney, D.M., Walker, R.A. and Liem, G.A.D., (eds.) Sociocultural theories of learning and motivation: Looking back, looking forward. IAP-Information Age Publishing, Inc., Charlotte, NC.

Abstract

In chapter 8, Judith MacCallum and Kimberley Pressick-Kilborn discuss the potential of sociocultural theory for examining change in motivation. While they acknowledge that the nature of motivation has been examined from many different perspectives, they argue that motivation research has rarely explicitly addressed the nature of change, how it is conceptualized, or how motivation develops over time in classroom contexts. In their chapter, MacCallum and Pressick-Kilborn discuss the limitations of traditional views of change and examine how sociocultural theory provides new ways to understand change in motivation. They then illustrate their argument by describing recent research using sociocultural theory to examine change in motivation to further explore the potential of sociocultural theory in motivation reserach.