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 CHAPTER 7
MOTIVATION THEORY IN
EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE:
KNOWLEDGE CLAIMS, CHALLENGES,
AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Avi Kaplan, Idit Katz, and Hanoch Flum
One important goal of scientific work in educational
psychology is the application of theoretical under-
standing to educational practice. The domain of
motivation is particularly relevant to this goal
because it is concerned with the processes underly-
ing the initiation, maintenance, and quality of peo-
ple’s action (Brophy, 2004; Schunk, Pintrich, &
Meece, 2008; Stipek, 1998; Wentzel & Wigfield,
2009; see Volume 1, Chapter 13, this handbook).
Motivation theory and research in educational set-
tings have dealt with a wide range of phenomena,
including the intensity and quality of student engage-
ment in schoolwork; learning and performance; off-
task behavior such as avoidance of engagement,
disruptive behavior, cheating, and procrastination;
and teacher satisfaction, engagement in teaching, and
burnout (Schunk et al., 2008; Wentzel & Wigfield,
2009). Hence, the application of motivational theory
in educational settings is of much interest to teach-
ers, principals, counselors, psychologists, parents,
curriculum designers, and policymakers (Wentzel &
Wigfield, 2007).
However, the application of theoretical under-
standings to educational practice is not a straight-
forward affair. There are multiple motivational
frameworks, with different underlying assumptions
concerning the nature of motivation. Those who
seek to apply motivational theory to motivate others
must carefully and critically evaluate these assump-
tions along with their own beliefs, values, and goals
and in relation to the particular educational setting
We thank Tresa Grauer for her valuable comments on various drafts of this chapter.
DOI: 10.1037/13274-007
APA Educational Psychology Handbook: Vol. 2. Individual Differences and Cultural and Contextual Factors, K. R. Harris, S. Graham, and T. Urdan (Editors-in-Chief)
Copyright © 2012 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.
because these assumptions have practical as well as
moral implications.
Moreover, even when a motivational theory has
been carefully evaluated and selected, it is very often
the case that theory-guided interventions in educa-
tional settings encounter obstacles of various sorts
and conclude with less-than-optimal results. Indeed,
the application of theory to educational practice is
itself a motivated action that involves the same com-
plex processes in which it attempts to intervene and
hence constitutes a motivational phenomenon wor-
thy of conceptualization and investigation in its own
right. Unfortunately, it is not often that motivational
theorists, researchers, policymakers, or administra-
tors attend to the systemic motivational implications
of the recommendations for applying motivation
theory to educational practice (Urdan & Turner,
2005). This inattendance is most clearly the case,
for example, when interventions aiming to change
instructional practice to promote students’ motiva-
tion disregard the motivation of the school adminis-
tration and of the teachers who are to implement the
new practices.
A decade into the 21st century, the relevance of
theory-driven motivational recommendations for
educational practice is seriously questioned along
theoretical, methodological, practical, and moral
terms (Berliner, 2006; Blumenfeld, 1992; Brophy,
2005; Hickey, 2003; Turner, 2010; Urdan & Turner,
2005). As we argue in this chapter, whereas research
of the past decades contributed tremendously to the
165
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
knowledge of motivational mechanisms, these chal-
lenges do seem to call for a reconsideration of some
underlying assumptions concerning the way theo-
rists, researchers, and practitioners have conceptual-
ized, investigated, and applied understandings about
motivation in educational settings.
We begin our chapter with a critical perspective
on contemporary knowledge claims regarding the
application of motivational theory to educational
practice. Our aim here is not to review the theories.
Extensive reviews of motivational theories, their
assumptions, and their applications to educational
practice can be found in other excellent sources
(e.g., Brophy, 2004; Schunk et al., 2008; Stipek,
1998; Wentzel & Wigfield, 2009; see Volume 1,
Chapter 13, this handbook). Rather, for the purpose
of this chapter, we highlight how assumptions that
underlie contemporary motivational perspectives
guide both theoretical explanations of motivational
phenomena and the approach to and principles for
applying these theoretical understandings to prac-
tice. We follow this discussion by pointing to episte-
mological assumptions about motivation and
educational research shared by several of the cur-
rently dominant motivational theories and by listing
theoretical, methodological, practical, and ethical
challenges to these assumptions that can undermine
the application of these motivational theories in
educational settings. Finally, we end by suggesting
possible directions for addressing these challenges
and for developing general principles for conceptu-
alizing, investigating, and applying motivational
theory in educational practice.
CONTEMPORARY MOTIVATIONAL
PERSPECTIVES AND THEIR APPLICATION
TO EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE
Motivation theory and research in education concern
phenomena that are central to the educational proj-
ect. Motivational theories aim to answer questions
such as “Why do some students engage deeply,
cooperate with others, enjoy learning, perform well,
and thrive in school, whereas others procrastinate,
avoid or fail to learn, disrupt the lesson, and drop
out?” These questions have spurred the development
of theory and programs of research for centuries.
166
Throughout the history of the scientific study of
motivation, numerous theoretical constructs and
models were developed in the attempt to explain
some or many of these phenomena (Brophy, 2004;
Schunk et al., 2008; Stipek, 1998; see Volume 1,
Chapter 13, this handbook).
Because the theorists and researchers who devel-
oped and continue to develop motivational theoreti-
cal models have different ideological views and have
been working within different zeitgeists and cultural–
historical contexts, the theories themselves represent
different sets of assumptions concerning motivation,
its operation, and its valued outcomes (Berliner,
2006; Hickey & McCaslin, 2001; Kaplan, 2008;
Weiner, 1992). Different theoretical assumptions—
for example, concerning the stability, locus, dimen-
sionality, and specificity of motivation—have
important implications for understanding human
motivation and for the practical application of theo-
retical understandings to practice.
For example, different theoretical assumptions
about the stability of motivation have guided different
attempts to intervene in these motivational processes.
For instance, in implicit need theory (McClelland,
Atkinson, Clark, & Lowell, 1953; Schultheiss &
Brunstein, 2005), and in some perspectives within the
achievement goal approach (Elliot, 2005), motivation
is conceptualized as being based in very stable per-
sonality attributes. The assumption of high stability
provides researchers little hope for changing students’
motivational patterns. Accordingly, the implication
for practice in these perspectives involves the princi-
ple of matching different environments or incentive
structures to students with different attributes (cf.
Barron & Harackiewicz, 2001; Durik & Harackie-
wicz, 2003; Schultheiss & Brunstein, 2005).
In comparison, theoretical perspectives that view
motivation as malleable allow more hope for chang-
ing people’s motivation. Behaviorists, for example,
assume that motivation is based in associations
between environmental stimuli and individuals’
reactions that are malleable and that are continu-
ously being shaped through classical and operant
conditioning (B. F. Skinner, 1935; Thompson &
Zeiler, 1986). Hence, application of behaviorist the-
oretical understandings to practice involves short-
and long-term environmental interventions that

employ discriminative use of reinforcements and
punishments that aim to increase the likelihood of
desired behavior and diminish the likelihood of
undesired behavior (Codding & Poncy, 2010;
Ertmer & Newby, 1993; Vargas & Vargas, 1991).
Similarly, social–cognitive perspectives that view
motivation as based in perceptions, beliefs, and
goals, such as self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), expec-
tancies and task values (Eccles-Parsons et al., 1983;
Wigfield & Eccles, 1992), and achievement goals
(Ames, 1992; Maehr, 1984; Nicholls, 1989), con-
sider these motivational variables to be malleable
and to be affected by social contexts and interac-
tions. Hence, application of these theories to prac-
tice commonly involves shaping the social
environment in ways that are meant to promote
adaptive cognitions such as higher perceived effi-
cacy (Usher & Pajares, 2008), higher task value
(Wigfield & Tonks, 2002), and mastery goal orien-
tation (Maehr & Midgley, 1996).
Different assumptions about the primary locus of
motivation—whether it is based in the individual,
the environment, the interaction of the two, or their
integration—also result in different practical appli-
cations. For example, the behaviorist assumption
that motivation resides primarily in the environmen-
tal reward system leads to applications that target
the environment, creating effective systems of con-
tingent rewards (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). In com-
parison, certain sociocognitive perspectives, such as
attribution theory (Dweck, 1999; Weiner, 1986,
2010), assign the primary role to the individual’s
cognitive characteristics. The consequent applica-
tions are interventions such as attributional retrain-
ing, which focus on transforming the individual’s
cognitive–motivational system (Perry, Hechter,
Menec, & Weinberg, 1993; Wilson, Damiani, &
Shelton, 2002).
Other motivational perspectives conceptualize
motivation as an interaction between the individu-
al’s motivational system and environmental affor-
dances. Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan,
1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000), for example, views moti-
vation as an interaction between the individual’s
organismic needs of autonomy, competence, and
relatedness and the environmental support for these
needs. This assumption guides application efforts
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
that focus on changing the environment with the
aim of nurturing the motivational resources of the
person (Reeve, 2004, 2009). Finally, there are moti-
vational perspectives that consider the individual
and the environment as integrated in motivated
action. The sociocultural perspectives on motivation
(Hickey, 2003; McCaslin, 2009; Turner, 2001), and
some cultural perspectives within the achievement
goal approach (Kaplan & Maehr, 2002; Maehr &
Nicholls, 1980), view motivation as being based in
people’s situated participation in communities of
practice. Applying this view to practice includes
interventions that aim to modify norms and proce-
dures for participation that increase opportunities
for adaptive modes of participation (Ames, 1992;
Hickey & Zuiker, 2005; McCaslin, 2009).
Similarly, differences in theoretical assumptions
concerning the dimensionality (i.e., viewing motiva-
tion as a unidimensional quantity as opposed to
consisting of multiple dimensions that vary in qual-
ity) or specificity of motivation (i.e., focus on dis-
crete actions vs. general patterns of reactions) have
had consequences for the application of theoretical
understandings to educational practice.
A final, noteworthy difference among motivational
theories that is relevant to application to practice con-
cerns their ideological basis, which involves assump-
tions with ethical implications. For example, some
motivational perspectives, such as the behaviorist
approach, are based in mechanistic metaphors of
human action that imply that motivational interven-
tions involve manipulating people like machines (Teo,
2009). Other perspectives, such as self-determination
theory, are grounded in humanistic ideology and met-
aphors that imply that motivational interventions
should attend first and foremost to people’s human
needs (Reeve, 2004).
Thus, epistemological, ontological, and ideologi-
cal assumptions concerning human action guide the
conceptualization and investigation of motivation and
consequently the principles for application to educa-
tional practice. In some cases, these different assump-
tions lead to quite different, at times contradictory,
recommendations for practice. This is the case, for
example, in the recommendations emanating from
self-determination theory, which focus on autonomy
support and avoidance of external controls
167
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
(Reeve, 2009), as opposed to recommendations ema-
nating from the behaviorist approach, which focus
solely on systems of contingent rewards (Ertmer &
Newby, 1993). However, a review of the motivational
literature suggests that, with the exception of the
behaviorist approach, theory and empirical research
from different motivational perspectives seem to
point to significant agreement concerning general
principles of educational practice that are expected to
promote adaptive motivation. Summarizing the rec-
ommendations of a variety of social–cognitive moti-
vational theories, Urdan and Turner (2005) noted the
following as shared by different perspectives:
1. Develop and assign academic tasks and activities
that are personally meaningful and relevant to
students.
2. Develop and assign moderately, or appropriately,
challenging tasks and material.
3. Promote perceptions of control and autonomy
by allowing students to make choices about
classroom experience and the work in which
they engage. Also, encourage students to view
intelligence, learning, and performance as per-
sonally controllable by attributing performance
to controllable factors such as effort and strategy
use. Avoid controlling or coercive language and
instructional practices.
4. Encourage students to focus on mastery, skill
development, and the process of learning rather
than just focusing on outcomes such as test
scores or relative performance.
5. Help students develop and pursue proximal,
challenging, and achievable goals.
6. Infuse the curriculum with fantasy, novelty, vari-
ety, and humor.
7. Provide accurate, informational feedback focused
on strategy use and competence development
rather than social–comparative or simply evalua-
tive feedback.
8. Assess students’ confidence, attributional ten-
dencies, and skill levels to help meet their
preferences for challenge and to help students
approach tasks with realistic expectations and
cope with difficulties adaptively. (pp. 306–307)
These recommendations provide logical, theoret-
ically coherent, and empirically supported specific
168
guidelines for promoting students’ motivation. Yet,
despite the decades of research and the seeming
commonality of these recommendations across theo-
retical perspectives, many concerns remain about
the relevance of theory-guided recommendations for
practice to motivational phenomena in schools and
other educational settings. Indeed, after listing the
preceding recommended practices, Urdan and
Turner (2005) went on to question the validity or
practicality of each and every one of them. Urdan
and Turner’s reservations join other challenges to
the current knowledge claims concerning the appli-
cation of current theoretical motivational under-
standings to educational practice.
CHALLENGES TO CONTEMPORARY
KNOWLEDGE CLAIMS ON APPLICATION
OF MOTIVATION THEORY TO
EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE
Motivation theory and research of the past decades
have contributed tremendously to scientific knowl-
edge concerning mechanisms and processes of
human motivation and engagement. However, in
matters of application to educational practice, moti-
vation theory—indeed, educational psychology
more generally—is in a rather dismal state. As Ber-
liner (2006) poignantly noted in addressing the rela-
tions of educational psychology research and
educational practice,
Irrelevance, sadly, may also be essence for
educational psychology . . . the scientific
work for which we are justifiably proud
seems not to translate easily into practice.
For whatever reasons, we do not affect the
lives of teachers in the ways we had hoped.
Our scientific work often has implications
for classroom practice, but does not end
up often changing practice. (p. 6)
There are likely many reasons for the relative fail-
ure of scientific educational psychological theories
to effectively change educational practice. In this
section, we list a few observations that we believe
constitute significant challenges to the relevance of
current theoretically driven recommendations for
applying motivational theory to educational settings

(see also Turner & Meyer, 2000; Turner & Patrick,
2008). The challenges are related to each other;
however, for purposes of presentation, we divide our
discussion into challenges anchored in theory, meth-
ods, practice, and ethics.
Theoretical Challenges: The Mismatch
of Theoretical Assumptions and
Motivational Phenomena in
Educational Settings
Most contemporary motivational theories were
developed during the 1970s and 1980s. The guiding
scientific paradigm during that period relied on
assumptions similar to those of Newtonian mechan-
ics: linearity and determinism (Radford, 2008).
With the exception of the sociocultural perspective
(Hickey, 2003; Stetsenko, 2008), motivational theo-
ries were developed along these assumptions. This
paradigm guided theorists to identify only a small
number of variables (e.g., self-efficacy, controllable
attribution, task value) and to specify their linear
relations with outcomes for the purposes of predic-
tion, control, and replication. Whereas contempo-
rary theorists abandoned the notion of modeling
motivational processes with linear mathematical
formulas—an important goal for the earlier genera-
tion of motivational theorists (Graham & Weiner,
1996)—they nevertheless aimed at specifying a few
predicted directional relations that are generalized
and hence replicable across situations, contexts, and
populations. Examples of such predictions may be
“higher self-efficacy leads to higher effort,” “higher
mastery goal orientation is associated with more
adaptive self-regulation strategies,” and “external
regulation is associated with negative emotions.”
The proliferation of motivational constructs and
models during this period also led researchers to
pose different predicted relations against or along-
side each other (e.g., learning goals vs. performance
goals, autonomous vs. controlled regulation), to test
the relative strength of constructs in predicting
motivational phenomena and outcomes (e.g., mas-
tery goals relative to self-efficacy), or to compare
various linear combinations of predictive relations—
specialized, additive, or interactive—between differ-
ent motivational constructs and outcomes (e.g.,
multiple achievement goals).
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
However, during the last 2 decades of the 20th
century, research that sought to investigate these
predictions began to pose challenges to this para-
digm. One such challenge emerged as researchers
interested in different aspects of educational experi-
ences (e.g., teachers, peers, parents, culture) began
to identify more and more antecedents to the central
motivational constructs, which led to the construc-
tion of models with a very large number of influ-
ences on motivational processes, and in turn on
outcomes (e.g., E. A. Skinner, Kindermann, Con-
nell, & Wellborn, 2009, p. 232). A review of recent
literature has suggested, for example, that influences
on motivational processes are likely to include vari-
ous different personality attributes (e.g., needs for
achievement, beliefs about intelligence), ethnicity,
gender, age, previous educational experiences, prior
knowledge, prior achievement, neighborhood char-
acteristics, school characteristics, classroom charac-
teristics, activity characteristics, the domain of
study, teacher characteristics (e.g., gender, ethnicity,
expertise, epistemological beliefs, motivation), par-
ent characteristics, peer characteristics, and their
interactions (Wentzel & Wigfield, 2009). The para-
digm that relies on assumptions of linear relations
implies that all of these operate simultaneously,
albeit with different strengths of influence, and
should be accounted for when attempting to under-
stand and intervene with motivational processes in
educational settings. Yet, although conceptually
acknowledging the complicated nature of motiva-
tional processes, these models are untenable meth-
odologically and practically. It is simply not feasible
to capture all these relations in an empirical study
that seeks to assess each of them separately. Because
such complicated theoretical models cannot be fully
tested, they cannot be validly informed by research
findings. Therefore, almost by definition, current
motivational theories present a very partial picture,
with questionable validity, of motivational processes
in actual educational environments.
Even more challenging to the underlying assump-
tions of linearity and determinism, and to the goals of
prediction, control, and replicability, are inconsistent
research findings concerning the predicted linear
relations between motivational variables and out-
comes under different circumstances. For example,
169
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
research has suggested that the relations of self-
efficacy and indicators of adaptive motivation are
not always positive. The findings suggested that
these relations might be different under different cir-
cumstances and for different outcomes and might
sometime even be negative (e.g., Salomon, 1984).
Divergent findings on self-efficacy were apparent, for
example, under circumstances of poor calibration
between students’ perceived self-efficacy and actual
skill level for the task, when students had different
levels of prior knowledge in the content, and when
perceptions of self-efficacy were assessed at different
units of analysis (e.g., situated task, curricular unit,
domain of study, college; Pintrich, 2003). A compre-
hensive review of research findings concerned with
perceptions of self-efficacy among students led
Schunk and Pajares (2004) to acknowledge the limi-
tations of linear predictions from self-efficacy theory
to account for students’ motivation and achievement
in actual educational settings:
Schools are complex environments in
which a multitude of sociocultural fac-
tors operate that can affect students’
performance independently of their self-
efficacy. Thus, highly efficacious and
skillful students who desire friendships
with less-talented peers may purposely
perform at a lower level to compare more
favorably with their peers and not appear
superior in ability. Students low in self-
efficacy may nevertheless work diligently
to avoid being criticized by their teachers
and thereby lose privileges. Students who
believe that their teachers perceive them
as lacking skills may work only as hard
as they must to meet the teachers’ stan-
dards, regardless of how self-efficacious
the students feel. (p. 131)
In natural educational settings, “conflicting
sociocultural pressures make direct application of
self-efficacy theory problematic” (Schunk & Pajares,
2004, p. 116). It is perhaps not surprising, then, that
similar patterns of results that diverge from the
expected ubiquitous linear, acontextual, replicable
1
Interested readers may find the Complexity and Education website useful (http://www.complexityandeducation.ualberta.ca/index.htm).
170
predictions were found for other motivational con-
structs such as control beliefs and perceived choice
(Pintrich, 2003).
Over the years, theorists and researchers also
began to realize that attempts to resolve competing
assumptions and hypotheses of different motiva-
tional perspectives about the nature of motivation—
for example, as conscious or nonconscious, fixed or
malleable, residing in the individual or emanating
from the environment—were not contributing to
comprehensive understanding of motivation. Moti-
vational processes manifest all of these characteris-
tics. However, the guiding paradigm underlying
current motivational theory and methods seems lim-
ited in its ability to support models that integrate
these dichotomies.
Acknowledging this limitation, Pintrich (2003)
called for the application of motivation theory mod-
els from related fields (e.g., cognitive connection-
ism) that operate under very different assumptions
than the “modern Newtonian” paradigm. Connec-
tionist models of cognition are one example of a
more general scientific paradigm that has been
developing in the natural and social sciences for the
past few decades and that has been referred to as
complexity science, complexity theory, self-organizing
systems, dynamic systems theory, and emergent sys-
tems (e.g., Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Lewis, 2000;
Morowitz, 2002; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Wal-
drop, 1992). Although it is still emerging, the com-
plexity paradigm has already been applied to address
challenges in a variety of social domains, including
psychology and human action (e.g., Fischer &
Bidell, 2006; Juarrero, 1999; Vallacher & Nowak,
1997), cultural systems (e.g., Strauss & Quinn,
1997; Urry, 2005), organizational behavior (e.g.,
Axelrod & Cohen, 2000; Stacey, 2001; Weick,
2005), and education1 (e.g., Jörg, Davis, & Nick-
mans, 2007; McMurtry et al., 2004; Osberg, 2005).
The complexity paradigm relies on several basic
assumptions that are markedly different from
the currently dominant paradigm in motivation
research. The assumptions relevant to our discus-
sion concern the view of psychological and educa-
tional phenomena as complex and emergent

systems, which have different characteristics than
simple systems and complicated systems
(McMurtry, 2008; Osberg, 2005; Radford, 2008;
Rowland, 2007).
A central assumption of the complexity paradigm
is that a complex system—for example, language,
economy, human society, personality, consciousness,
meaning, learning, and, arguably, motivation—is
made up of parts or elements; however, the parts
alone do not determine its nature and characteristics.
The brain is not simply an aggregation of neurons; a
classroom is not simply an aggregation of an adult,
children, and materials; and an individual’s motiva-
tion is not simply the aggregation of the numerous
singular antecedents listed earlier. Rather, the prop-
erties of the complex system are a function of the
parts as well as of their interrelationships, which
involve “multiple interdependencies with varying
types and strengths of interconnections and complex
patterns of positive (deviation amplifying) and nega-
tive (deviation reducing) feedback, which defy sim-
ple cause–effect logic” (Rowland, 2007, p. 10).
Another important characteristic of complex
systems is that their “behavior” (e.g., a student’s sit-
uated engagement in a task; a student’s domain-
specific self-perception of ability; a classroom’s
autonomy-supportive culture) is in a perpetual pro-
cess of emergence—continuous, dynamic, and con-
text-sensitive change. Hence, a complex system is
forever in the process of becoming. The emergence
involves the continuously changing interrelations
among the system’s constitutive parts. Every turn
in the emergence process is based in the system’s
history—the earlier state of the system. The emer-
gence is, therefore, a “bottom-up” process to which
the various constituting parts contribute, albeit with
different weights, by activating their interrelation-
ships. The interrelationships change dynamically as
the system responds to external (i.e., environmen-
tal) and internal (i.e., within-system) events. Hence,
to understand a system, it is imperative to be famil-
iar with both its history and its context (McMurtry,
2008). However, although complex systems can be
investigated and learned, the nature of the emer-
gence process—the idea that the system is in an
almost continuous mode of dynamic change, with
shifting weights of the interrelations, and with the
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
possibility of the creation of new subnetworks
through the process—means that the behavior of
complex systems cannot be predicted. Moreover, it
cannot be influenced in a deterministic manner,
although some external elements may have more
weight in influencing the emergence process (e.g.,
a charismatic teacher; a strongly enforced rule of
behavior) and may have different influence at
different times in the life of a system (Newman &
Newman, 2007).
Additionally, any system is, itself, an element in
its environment—in effect, a part of a complex sys-
tem of a higher unit of analysis (e.g., a person in the
social dynamics in the situation)—and is coupled
with the larger system in the simultaneous, mutually
influencing dynamic change. In this way, the para-
digm allows a conceptualization of collective moti-
vation (e.g., the motivation of a team) that is made
up of, but different from, the motivation of each of
its members or their simple summative aggregate
(Juarrero, 1999; McMurtry, 2008).
Complex systems are different from simple sys-
tems in that simple systems are characterized by a
small number of parts and few interconnections that
are assumed to have cause–effect relations (e.g., a
doorbell). Simple systems are easy to comprehend, to
predict, and to control. Complex systems are also dif-
ferent from complicated systems; although both are
characterized by many parts, in the former the inter-
connections among the parts are relatively few and
are also characterized by cause–effect relations (e.g.,
an airplane). Such systems are more difficult to com-
prehend; however, with enough computational
power, they can be modeled and tested, and their
behavior can be predicted and controlled. Current
theoretical models in motivation tend to treat motiva-
tional processes as complicated systems. Most moti-
vational research has operationalized motivational
processes as simple systems. However, research find-
ings as well as attentive observation and experience
seem to question these assumptions and practice.
The complexity paradigm may be able to repre-
sent empirical findings concerning motivational pro-
cesses better than models that are based on linearity
and determinism. Moreover, the complexity para-
digm may be able to guide researchers in conceptu-
alizing and investigating motivational phenomena in
171
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
ways that are more compatible with their manifesta-
tions in educational settings. In calling for the appli-
cation of complexity assumptions to motivational
theory, Pintrich (2003) expressed the hope that it
would allow the “build[ing of] integrated models
of the cognitive—motivational—affective self-
system . . . that transcends some of the traditional
false dichotomies between stable-changeable, ratio-
nale-irrational, consistent-inconsistent, conscious-
unconscious, controlled-automatic, and agentic-
routinized descriptions of the individual” (p. 680).
Applying complexity theory to motivational phe-
nomena may also help to “bridge the current gap
between social-cognitive and situated models of
motivation that differentially emphasize the individ-
ual or the context” and “to link our more psycholog-
ical models to the biological and physiological
processes involved in cognition, motivation, and
affect” (p. 680). Such models may also be able to
account for other motivational phenomena, such as
intentional but inconsistent behavior and serendip-
ity (Bandura, 1982; Merton & Barber, 2004) that
current theoretical models find hard to incorporate.
It is important to note that the complex science
paradigm is still changing and taking shape. There
are also multiple and differing ideas within this body
of work (cf. Witherington, 2007). Moreover, com-
plexity science emerged from the natural sciences,
and its translation to understanding human phe-
nomena has been primarily metaphorical, although
some applications have been tried (see the NetLogo
website: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/), even
in educational research (Maroulis et al., 2010).
Researchers still need to develop language that
would be relevant to psychological and educational
processes (Rowland, 2007) and to develop and test
complex models to account for empirical phenom-
ena (Human-Vogel, 2008). Some more and less suc-
cessful attempts have been taken (Jörg, Davis, &
Nickmans, 2008; Jörg et al., 2007; Osberg, 2009),
and more are needed. However, as some theorists
have argued, the risk to conceptual understanding
and application to practice of mistakenly treating a
simple system as complex is far smaller than treating
a complex system as simple (Rowland, 2007).
Hence, arguably, it would be better for motivational
researchers, and for educators, to adopt assumptions
172
of the complexity paradigm and have the humility of
uncertainty rather than the overconfidence of pre-
diction and control in their attempts to intervene
with teachers’ and students’ motivation.
Acknowledging the limits of the current underly-
ing assumptions of motivational theories for
explaining and informing practice regarding natu-
rally occurring motivational phenomena is a first
step in the development of a complexity paradigm of
motivation that could organize current knowledge
claims in motivation and integrate the different
research findings into more comprehensive,
dynamic, contextual, and practice-relevant theoreti-
cal models.
Methodological Challenges: The
Mismatch of Prevalent Research Methods
and the Nature of Educational Settings
The paradigm underlying current motivational theo-
ries has also guided the methods by which motiva-
tional theories have been empirically tested. In
correspondence with the assumptions of linearity
and determinism, the most prevalent research meth-
ods in the domain of motivation have been experi-
ments and correlational studies. In recent years,
researchers have raised questions concerning the
relevance of findings from studies using these meth-
ods to educational settings (e.g., Berliner, 2006; Bro-
phy, 2005; Urdan & Turner, 2005). The critics have
argued that recommendations for application that
are based on these findings may not be relevant to
educational settings because the experimental meth-
odology and conditions are very different from the
complex contexts of classrooms and schools. Theo-
rists have noted that lab simulations and experi-
ments commonly represent simple systems, which
are far less common in the world than complex sys-
tems, which are much more prevalent (Rowland,
2007; Strogatz, 2003). In relation to self-efficacy, for
example, Schunk and Pajares (2004) noted that
“schools are a far cry from controlled laboratory set-
tings, which makes the operation of self-efficacy
more variable and its mediational and predictive
power more complex” (p. 131).
By definition, experiments involve short-term sit-
uations that are designed to control for the myriad
influences that exist in natural settings to focus on

one particular motivational process. In regular edu-
cational settings, such control does not occur. Fur-
thermore, those influences that in experiments are
considered disturbances or errors to be controlled
for constitute inherent and highly relevant processes
in regular educational settings. Whether one adopts
a complexity system perspective on classrooms or
not, it is clear that, unlike experimental conditions,
classrooms involve personal, social, and organiza-
tional histories; short- and long-term perspectives;
and multiple, sometimes conflicting perceptions,
values, goals, and practices, which are interrelated
and relevant to teachers’ and students’ motivation
(Urdan & Turner, 2005). This observation does not
invalidate the contribution of basic experimental
research that seeks to understand the operation of a
particular motivational mechanism. Rather, it high-
lights that there is an important difference between
research that focuses on the operation of a particular
motivational mechanism and research that focuses
on the same motivational mechanism within the
complex context of human social action. An analogy
may be the difference between a focus on the seman-
tic definition of a word in a dictionary and a focus
on the word’s pragmatic meaning in an actual con-
versation, or the difference between research focus-
ing on understanding the mechanical operation of
the human heart valve and research focusing on the
adaptive procedures for a human heart transplant—
related, but different.
The other main methodology that has contrib-
uted to the development of motivational theories
and to the recommendations for application has
been correlational self-report studies. Most often,
such research uses measures that are researcher gen-
erated and that organize students’ responses to
reflect the researcher’s notion of what classroom life
is about. Moreover, the common analytic proce-
dures for correlational data rely on linear statistical
modeling (e.g., hierarchical linear modeling, struc-
tural equation modeling), which subscribes to the
linear, deterministic paradigm that is incompatible
with classroom life. Hence, recommendations for
application that are based on theoretical under-
standings developed through correlational research
“may offer a distorted view of the classroom” and be
of little relevance to educators (Urdan & Turner,
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
2005, p. 310). Indeed, research that looks at what
naturally occurs in classrooms has often found some
differences between the a priori theoretical assump-
tions investigated with self-report surveys and the
motivational processes that manifest in these class-
rooms (e.g., Patrick, Anderman, Ryan, Edelin, &
Midgley, 2001; Turner et al., 2002; Urdan, Kneisal, &
Mason, 1999).
Another aspect of self-report survey methodolo-
gies that poses a methodological challenge to current
motivation theories and their recommendations for
practice is the fact that these methods are, and are
perceived to be, intrusions on regular classroom
activity. It is not uncommon for researchers who
request class time for administering surveys to meet
administrators’ and educators’ concerns that the
research will take too much time away from educa-
tional activities. The discrepancy itself provides addi-
tional strength to the validity concerns mentioned
earlier. In addition, the sense of intrusion and the
boring experience of filling in a survey are likely to
influence the motivation of the teachers and the stu-
dents who are asked to provide the data. The solu-
tion is to monitor and seek incidents that indicate
inappropriate reporting and to conduct analyses of
reliability and validity. Yet, these practices are less
than optimal to address data biases that are a result
of low motivation for participation. Perhaps more
important, the fact that research on motivational pro-
cesses in education is itself incongruent with class-
room life, intrusive, and unmotivating constitutes a
challenge to researchers as scientific practitioners.
Practical Challenges: The Mismatch
of Recommendations for Practice and
Classroom Life
In addition to the theoretical and methodological
challenges to the current knowledge claims concern-
ing application of motivation theory in educational
settings, researchers have also pointed to practical
challenges to such recommendations for practice.
One important challenge comes from the realization
that, in the same classroom, different students may
be motivated by different processes:
Some students may be motivated and
sustained through their self-efficacy
173
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
beliefs, whereas others are motivated to
try hard, persist, and achieve because
of their goals, their personal interests,
their value beliefs, or contextual factors
that motivate, support, and direct their
behavior. (Pintrich, 2003, p. 671)
Another important challenge is the complexity of
processes involved even in a particular motivational
construct. For example, Skaalvik and Skaalvik
(2002) noted the immense complexity of the pro-
cesses by which students combine multiple internal
and external sources of information that vary with
personal attributes and preferences, age, grade level,
classroom composition, school system, and educa-
tional practice, which are interpreted along different
frames of reference and which may be providing
conflicting information, for constructing their aca-
demic self-concept. This complexity prevents
straightforward assessment of and intervention in
students’ motivation.
At least as important is the realization that simi-
lar educational settings may actually provide differ-
ent motivational contexts to different students,
with some motivational processes such as exercis-
ing choice, decision making, and control more
available to some students than to others (McCas-
lin, 2009; McCaslin & Lavigne, 2010). The poten-
tial for such diversity of motivational processes in a
single classroom poses serious practical and moral
challenges to the application of motivational theory
in educational settings. Such an understanding sug-
gests that no set of recommendations for practice
from a particular motivational theory would pro-
mote adaptive motivation among all the students in
the context.
One possible solution may be to target recom-
mendations for practice that are common to various
motivational theories (e.g., Urdan & Turner, 2005,
pp. 308–309). However, the practicality of these
recommendations also has to be questioned. For
example, one shared understanding by several
motivational theories is that moderate challenge is
motivating. Hence, motivational theorists and
researchers have recommended that teachers
“develop and assign moderately, or appropriately,
challenging tasks and material” (Urdan & Turner,
174
2005, p. 306). Urdan and Turner (2005) noted,
however, that in the current educational culture,
with its emphasis on testing and grades, many stu-
dents would be likely to resist tasks of moderate
challenge because they pose a risk for failure and for
lower achievement. Moreover, Urdan and Turner
noted that teachers are not very good at assessing
students’ differential skills and designing or select-
ing appropriate tasks for them.
Another recommendation made by theorists
from various perspectives is that teachers “develop
and assign academic tasks and activities that are per-
sonally meaningful and relevant for students”
(Urdan & Turner, 2005, p. 306). However, as Hidi
and Renninger (2006) noted, students’ interests are
idiosyncratic and diverse. Teachers would find it
extremely difficult to succeed in matching task con-
tent to students’ meaningful interests and goals.
Moreover, Urdan and Turner (2005) pointed to the
common curricular constraints that teachers experi-
ence and that would limit their ability to cater to
students’ interests. The pressure teachers and stu-
dents experience in terms of curricular guidelines
and emphasis on testing would also limit teachers’
ability to provide students choice and control and
support their autonomy. This mismatch between the
theory-driven recommendations and the practicality
of classroom life constitutes another challenge to the
ecological validity of motivational theories and their
application to educational settings.
Moral Challenges: The Ethical Dilemmas
Inherent in Influencing Others’ Actions
Moral and ethical considerations are another impor-
tant domain of challenge to the application of moti-
vation theory to educational practice. Researchers
and educators aiming to apply motivational pro-
cesses in educational practice need to reflect on their
role in influencing others’ lives. Not the least of
these concerns is the way the interventionist is per-
ceived. McClelland (1978) worried that “the motiva-
tional psychologist has acquired in some quarters
the negative image of someone who can use infor-
mation to motivate people to do something they
don’t want to do” (p. 201). This moral and practical
issue should be of concern to researchers and practi-
tioners who seek a collaborative relationship with

the people they are trying to study and affect—a
desirable and perhaps necessary state of affairs, both
motivationally and morally, and one recognized
even by behaviorist psychologists (e.g., Fantuzzo &
Atkins, 1992).
Clearly, the moral issues involved in changing
others’ motivation go much beyond the concern
with perceptions of the interventionist. Motivational
researchers and practitioners should seriously con-
sider the moral implications of the goals and the
means of applying motivational theory in educa-
tional settings. For example, noting the possible
implications of adopting a behaviorist approach,
Bruner (1990) quoted Wolfgang Kohler’s hypotheti-
cal worry about a situation in which the postman
and the prime minister would also come to make
decisions and treat others on the basis of the belief
that “human nature is . . . nothing but the concate-
nation of conditioned reflexes, associative bonds,
[and] transformed animal drives” (p. 31).
But the most significant moral dilemmas in this
domain concern people’s actual lives—those people
whose motivation is the target of the study and
intervention and others who are in their social net-
works. The core dilemma can be phrased in terms of
the level of confidence that the researchers or practi-
tioners have that their goals and means of studying
and influencing motivational change will indeed
improve people’s lives and not cause them harm. As
we emphasized earlier, the goals and means of theory-
driven motivational interventions are inextricably
coupled with underlying ideology and assumptions
regarding what is worthy and desirable. The history
of science generally, and of social science and educa-
tion particularly, are rich with ideological debates
and paradigmatic shifts that positioned against each
other values and goals relating to the issues under
investigation, as well as to the scientific project itself
(Latour, 1987). The domain of motivation theory in
education is no exception and is clearly manifested,
for example, in the debates around the policy and
practical implications of empirical findings regard-
ing the relations of performance-approach goals and
student outcomes (e.g., Elliot & Moller, 2003; Har-
ackiewicz, Barron, Pintrich, Elliot, & Thrash, 2002;
Kaplan & Middleton, 2002; Midgley, Kaplan, &
Middleton, 2001) and the effect of extrinsic rewards
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
on intrinsic motivation (e.g., Cameron, 2001; Deci,
Koestner, & Ryan, 1999a, 1999b, 2001; Deci, Ryan, &
Koestner, 2001; Eisenberger & Cameron, 1996;
Eisenberger, Pierce, & Cameron, 1999; Lepper,
Henderlong, & Gingras, 1999). Notably, the world-
view held by some scientists that science should
focus on discovering objective empirical truth and
be devoid of ideology and values is itself, paradoxi-
cally perhaps, an ideological stance with serious
moral implications.
The understanding that the development of sci-
ence and of scientific theories is infused with ideo-
logical debates cautions against viewing theoretical
assumptions about what educational goals are wor-
thy and desirable as ontological truths. Hence, the
confidence that goals and means that are based on
these assumptions would necessarily improve peo-
ple’s lives is tentative and should be the subject of
deliberation. Whereas such tentative confidence
may not be completely irreconcilable with the orien-
tation of motivational theorists working with the
current perspectives, it does stand at odds with the
underlying scientific paradigm that assumes deter-
minism and seeks prediction and control.
More important, entertaining the understanding
that the goals and the means of motivational change
are not absolute is far from advocating a relativist
outlook on ideology and values or suggesting inac-
tion (cf. Bruner, 1990). Scientists should be highly
reflective of their values and strive to explicitly align
them with their research questions, methods, and
interpretation. However, in addition, scientists
should consider (a) the likelihood that the people
whom they are trying to influence may not share
their ideas about the worthy goals of education and
development; (b) how the different values held by
those people might reflect valid and important cir-
cumstances in their lives; and (c) how the interven-
tion might need to change to accommodate these
values. If ignored, the practical problem of intrusion
into classrooms may pale relative to the potential
implications of interventions that may harm teachers
and students by inadvertently limiting their current
or future opportunities or by facilitating discrimina-
tion or differential treatment and access to resources
despite the most noble intentions (Delpit, 1995;
McCaslin, 2009; McCaslin & Lavigne, 2010).
175
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
At least according to the democratic principles
hailed by many if not most educators in the Western
world, the principles and practices that foster adap-
tive motivation should not be incompatible—and
desirably should coalesce—with principles and
practices that foster tolerance, appreciation of differ-
ence, and self-determination of the “other” (cf.
Gates, 1995). However, any practice provides higher
legitimacy to certain behaviors and experiences and
less legitimacy to others (Giroux, 1985). Theory-
driven motivational interventions explicitly aim at
creating experiences, subjective perceptions, identi-
ties, and behaviors of certain kinds—the kinds
favored by the theorists. A moral dilemma exists
when considering the possibility that although pro-
moting some valued motivations, the interventions
might delegitimize the actualization of different
teacher and student experiences, particularly those
who traditionally have been suppressed.
Solutions to these challenges would include
becoming deeply familiar with the culture and con-
text of those whose motivation is to be influenced,
attending particularly to those domains of experi-
ence that might come into conflict. Additionally,
motivation researchers and practitioners should
involve the voices of those whose motivation is to be
changed in a constructive negotiation over the val-
ues and goals of the program. Teachers and students
should be made aware of the decision-making pro-
cesses and the underlying reasons for developing
practices, and they should be taught skills for criti-
cally evaluating these reasons, goals, and processes
(cf. Giroux, 1985). Teachers and students should
become critics and coconstructors of the motiva-
tional change (e.g., Colsant, 1995; Delpit, 1988; Lee,
1995; Nicholls, 1989; Nicholls & Hazzard, 1995;
Sarason, 1990; Thorkildsen & Nicholls, 1991). As
several of the motivational theories already pro-
claim, students’ opinions and decision making play
an important role in their engagement in academic
activities, as well as in their well-being in school.
Becoming aware of and listening to students’ inter-
pretations and voices in designing motivational
interventions would make the programs more
democratic as well as more meaningful to students
(Corbett & Wilson, 1995; Flum & Kaplan, 2006;
Sarason, 1990).
176
However, once again, such practices seem
incompatible with the scientific paradigm that val-
ues acontextual and generalized theoretical knowl-
edge claims. How may researchers incorporate their
own theory-driven ideas about what is valued into
potentially conflicting ideas held by the practitioners
and students in the context? For example, what
might be done if researchers aim to promote auton-
omy and relatedness, whereas teachers and students
value teachers’ authority and students’ conformity
(cf. Delpit, 1988; Triandis, 1989)?
Summary
The guiding paradigm on which most contemporary
motivational theories were founded and developed
is facing some serious challenges. The modern-era
Newtonian assumptions of linearity and determin-
ism and the goals of prediction and control that
stand at the foundation of this paradigm can be chal-
lenged on theoretical, methodological, practical, and
moral grounds. Whereas the paradigm calls for spec-
ifying a few central variables and their linear, cause-
and-effect relations, the reality of motivation in
educational settings may be more compatible with
complexity models that assume that phenomena
such as motivation continuously emerge from con-
text-sensitive and dynamic interrelations among a
very large number of elements. Whereas contempo-
rary theories were developed primarily with experi-
mental and correlational methods, experimental
conditions are quite different from characteristics of
educational environments, and researcher-generated
self-report measures may provide a distorted picture
of processes occurring in natural settings. Recom-
mendations derived from contemporary motiva-
tional theories are found to be impractical or
unfeasible to implement in real classrooms. Finally,
the underlying paradigm guiding contemporary
motivational theories seems to be limited in its abil-
ity to address moral considerations that call for only
tentative endorsement of theoretical convictions and
for practices such as incorporating participants’ per-
spectives on the goals and means of motivational
change programs into those programs.
The challenges suggest different assumptions as
guides for developing motivational theory and research
that would be relevant to educational settings. In the

next section, we consider a few of these assumptions
and their implications for motivational theory,
research, and educational practice.
ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES:
DIRECTIONS FOR PROMOTING
APPLICATION OF MOTIVATION THEORY
IN EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS
The challenges we have listed highlight assump-
tions that would be conducive for developing
motivational theory and research more relevant for
application in educational settings and practice. In the
final section of this chapter, we propose how some of
these assumptions may be translated into guidelines
for the development of practice-relevant motivational
models and research. We anchor the assumptions in
guidelines for the core practices of empirical research:
generating research questions, adopting a research
orientation, and selecting and using a specific
research methodology. We believe that these guide-
lines could, and arguably should, frame future scien-
tific action in the domain of motivation in education.
Practice-Relevant Research Questions
Commonly, theoretical developments under the cur-
rently dominant motivational paradigm follow theo-
ry-driven research questions that aim at the central
theoretical constructs rather than at the naturally
occurring motivational phenomena. Such questions
constrain empirical investigations and theoretical
interpretation and keep them within the boundaries
of the theory. This is one reason for the very partial
capacity of current motivational theories to compre-
hensively depict the complexity of motivational phe-
nomena in educational settings. Therefore, one
critical understanding for developing practice-relevant
motivational theory is that practice-relevant theory
emerges from practice-relevant research. In turn,
practice-relevant research begins with practice-
relevant research questions. Hence, the first guide-
line for conducting practice-relevant research is to
generate practice-relevant research questions.
A little more than a decade ago, in his presiden-
tial address at the American Educational Research
Association annual meeting, Schoenfeld (1999)
noted the need for educational theory to become
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
more user inspired (cf. Stokes, 1997). Schoenfeld
called for breaking the distinction between basic and
applied research to create a synergy between theory
and practice. He argued that “educational research
has evolved to the point where it is possible, much
of the time, to conduct research in contexts that are
of practical import, working on problems whose
solutions help make things better and contribute to
theoretical understanding” (p. 5). Schoenfeld con-
tended that “finding and working on such problems
is a high-leverage strategy for making a difference in
the years to come” (p. 5) and called for the pursuit
of research questions that are context sensitive, such
as “What does it take to really be able to do X?” with
X being a specific skill or “How do teachers manage
to do what they do, ‘on line,’ in the classroom?”
(p. 6). Moreover, he urged educational researchers
to construct their research questions along the fol-
lowing principles: “How can the issues under inves-
tigation be framed so that the contributions to
fundamental understanding are as large as possible?
And, how can we situate this work so that the
contributions to practice are as large as possible?”
(p. 9). To this, we may add, “And how can this
investigation be sensitive to the life conditions of
the participants?”
Other theorists and researchers have similarly
emphasized the great need for scientific research
that is conducted in natural settings and that
addresses practice-relevant research questions. In
his review of the state of the field of educational psy-
chology, Berliner (2006) pointed to a resurgence of
interest in practice as a valid and important anchor
for psychological theory building. He perceived this
trend of practice-relevant research as a turning point
in the field of educational psychology, saying,
It is not just respect for practice that makes
this turn of our field so exciting. It is the
understanding that theory building in situ,
in the real world, constitutes our greatest
scientific challenge and the most exciting
opportunity to affect practice. (p. 22)
Berliner argued that what educational psychologists
should focus on is “psychologizing the problems of
practice, that is, making them more often the source
of our inquiries” (p. 24).
177
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
Endorsing the guideline of generating practice-
relevant research questions means a significant shift
to a focus on practical concerns from the currently
normative practice of generating research questions
that focus on theoretical constructs. For example,
instead of a theory-centered research question such
as “What is the relationship between utility task
value and self-regulated learning?” the researcher
may ask a question that focuses on educational
action in context, such as “What needs to occur for
students in this educational context to engage in
self-regulated learning?” Instead of a construct-
focused question such as “What is the effect of
maintained situational interest on persistence in the
face of difficulty?” the researcher may ask a practice-
relevant question such as “What may promote per-
sistence in the face of difficulty among students in
this context?” Instead of a correlational question
such as “What is the relationship between teachers’
achievement goals for teaching and students’
achievement and well-being?” the researcher may
pose a practice-relevant question such as “What
teachers’ attitudes and actions would promote stu-
dents’ achievement and well-being in this educa-
tional context?” As noted before, research that
follows theory-centered research questions makes
important contributions that advance knowledge
about motivational constructs and processes such as
utility task value, situational interest, and achieve-
ment goals. However, this knowledge may have little
relevance for practice if these particular motivational
processes are not the ones that meaningfully capture
the motivational phenomena in the particular con-
text. From a practice-relevant perspective, acontex-
tual theoretical knowledge concerning the operation
of particular motivational constructs could and
should inform analysis, interpretation, and educa-
tional practice if and when it is found to be relevant
to the phenomena in question. Yet, this relevance
can only be determined through analysis of rich,
context-sensitive, and practice-relevant data that are
generated through research guided by a practice-
relevant research question.
Practice-Relevant Research Orientation
Another insight from the challenges outlined in the
previous section is that alongside the change in type
178
of research questions, there will need to be a change
in the epistemological perspective regarding the
nature and purpose of empirical research. The
understanding that motivational phenomena are
highly context bound and complex and that engag-
ing in research and intervention has important
moral consequences points to several assumptions
about the research practice itself that should frame a
practice-relevant orientation to motivational theory
and research.
For example, the understanding that motiva-
tional phenomena are context bound calls for adopt-
ing the assumption that each investigation is a case
study. Regardless of whether the study is an experi-
ment conducted in the computer laboratory of an
Ivy League university with 90 undergraduate stu-
dents taking Introduction to Psychology, an obser-
vation study conducted in five science kindergarten
classrooms, or a survey administered to a nationally
representative sample of 14,000 high school stu-
dents, each set of data represents the characteristics
of the context, the historical period, and the particu-
lar participants—a case (cf. Cronbach, 1982). Under
the current dominant paradigm, findings from these
studies (and in practice, unfortunately, most com-
monly from the findings on undergraduate students)
would be interpreted as indicating acontextual gen-
eralized psychological mechanisms. In contrast, the
assumption that each study is a context-bound case
highlights the fact that the data are unique. Follow-
ing the practice of case-study research, empirical
findings would not be generalized to others in the
population but to the theory, while taking account
of the unique characteristics of the case (Yin, 2008).
When the case-study approach is combined with
practice-relevant research questions about contextu-
alized motivational action, the findings can be gen-
eralized to motivational theory, provide relevant
information to practitioners and students, and
inform practice in the particular context.
Another important understanding from the chal-
lenges posed that should frame the researchers’ ori-
entation is that motivational processes—and the
educational research process itself—are complex,
emergent systems and hence cannot be fully pre-
dicted or controlled. The traditional orientation
toward research seeks to predict and control all

aspects of the study, from schedule through partici-
pants, data collection, and analysis to the hypothe-
sized motivational outcomes. In contrast, the
understanding that motivation and the educational
research process are complex systems implies that
expectations for prediction and control need to be
relinquished. More important, relinquishing the
assumption of predictability and controllability of
the research process and its outcomes does not
imply passivity or helplessness. On the contrary,
constituents of complex systems may indeed influ-
ence their emerging process, sometimes with unex-
pected ferocity. Whereas complex processes may
counter the intended effects of any action, highly
informed actions are more likely to influence the
system in the intended direction. Thus, whereas it is
impossible to fully predict the effect of action, it is
possible to anticipate it (cf. Geertz, 1973, p. 26). An
important difference between researchers who
expect to control and predict and researchers who
anticipate is that the former perceive unexpected
events as problems and unpredicted outcomes as
failure, whereas the latter perceive unexpected
events and unanticipated outcomes as natural occur-
rences to be integrated into theoretical understand-
ing of the motivational processes in the context. The
derived assumption for a practice-relevant research
orientation may be that the research process and its
outcomes may be anticipated but not predicted.
A third important understanding about research-
ing and intervening with motivational phenomena
that emerges from the challenges posed earlier is that
the researcher is not the ultimate authority on what
takes place in the educational context—practically,
methodologically, or even conceptually (Turner,
2010). Researchers have much expertise—in theo-
retical knowledge, systematic data collection,
rigorous analysis of data, and interpretation and
conceptualization of findings. However, these skills
are acontextual. The researcher has little or no
knowledge of the characteristics of the context: the
history and characteristics of participants and of the
organization, their values and goals, and the actual
and perceived constraints on their decision making
and action. It is the participants who have expertise
in this information, which is crucial for understand-
ing the motivational processes taking place in that
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
context and for informing practice. Clearly, the par-
ticipants themselves often do not have all of the rele-
vant information, or know which information is
important. Yet, without the participants’ expertise
and intentional collaboration, the research will not
produce the ecologically valid understandings of the
motivational processes most relevant to the context.
There is also a motivational rationale for partici-
pants’ full involvement in practice-relevant research.
After all, it is the participants—the principals, teach-
ers, coaches, and students—not the researchers,
who will be applying understandings to educational
practice. They need to endorse the value of the
inquiry and its relevance to their practice to apply
its understandings. On the basis of experiences in
motivational interventions, David McClelland (iron-
ically, the scholar most associated with a view of
motivation as an unconscious, stable personality
attribute) observed that
it is extraordinarily difficult to get people
to do what they don’t want to do. If you
want to change what they want to do, you
had better let them in on the desires you
want them to have—and that, of course,
gives them the freedom to refuse your
assistance. (McClelland, 1978, p. 209)
Forming a collaboration between researchers and
participants in which participants assume an equal-
status role in negotiations and decision making
regarding the study—from posing the research ques-
tions to the design of data collection and its analysis
to the interpretation and translation of findings to
practice—is likely to support their autonomy, com-
petence, and relatedness (Deci, 2009) and to
increase the anticipation that they internalize the
value of the study, endorse its findings, and apply
its implications.
Finally, the crucial role of participants’ voice in
the design and conduct of the research is not only
for purposes of efficient data collection, ecological
validity, and motivated involvement and implemen-
tation, it is also a moral imperative. When partici-
pants take an authoritative role in the research
design, the ethical convictions regarding support of
participants’ autonomy are exercised and concerns
about potential harm to participants are somewhat
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Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
alleviated. Therefore, the implication is the assump-
tion that research should be grounded in research-
ers’ and participants’ equal-status collaborative
relationships (cf. Turner, 2010).
Practice-Relevant Research Methodology
Practice-relevant research questions and orienta-
tions should be pursued with a compatible method-
ology. Clearly, theory-driven laboratory experiments
or self-report correlational methods would not suf-
fice. What is required is a methodology that would
be flexible enough to provide a rich outlook on the
complex dynamic of action in natural settings. Not
surprisingly, various kinds of qualitative research
methods come to mind. Several motivational theo-
rists who have found experimental and correlational
research to be limited have also made this observa-
tion (e.g., Kaplan & Maehr, 2007; Patrick & Mid-
dleton, 2002; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2002; Turner &
Meyer, 2000). For example, in noting the limitations
of current theory and research to understanding the
complexity of self-efficacy processes, Usher and
Pajares (2008) commented,
Qualitative investigations hold great
promise for providing a rich under-
standing of the genesis of students’
self-efficacy beliefs, as they have the
potential to describe the heuristic tech-
niques students use to attend to, weigh,
and appraise the degree of influence the
sources have on their self-efficacy. . . .
Qualitative approaches such as grounded
theory, ethnography, classroom obser-
vations, interview techniques, and case
studies, particularly when conducted
over time, would offer new perspectives
about the low or high self-efficacy beliefs
students come to hold. (p. 784)
However, whereas qualitative methods have a
clear advantage in their ability to richly portray
complex processes, quantitative data should not be
ignored. Such data may, in fact, be imperative for
describing certain phenomena that can only be cap-
tured with numbers (e.g., trends in students’ grades,
amount of time spent on different activities, preva-
lence and frequency of different types of behavioral
180
incidents). Moreover, some quantitative analytical
techniques are compatible with constructivist and
nondeterministic epistemological assumptions about
the phenomenon measured (e.g., Guttman, 1968;
Rasch, 1960/1980; although see Trendler, 2009).
Ultimately, research should collect the data that are
relevant to the research question—whether they be
qualitative, quantitative, or both.
This understanding highlights the distinction
between different methods (e.g., surveys, observa-
tions, interviews) for collecting different types of
data (i.e., quantitative and qualitative) and the
methodologies within which these methods are used
(e.g., experiments, ethnography, case studies, self-
report correlational studies, interventions). The
incompatibility of laboratory experiments and self-
report correlational studies with practice-relevant
theory and research lies not only in the type of data
they generate but in the epistemological assump-
tions concerning the purpose of research that guide
the methodology: the overall approach to collection,
analysis, and interpretation of the data. Therefore,
the challenges to contemporary motivational theory
and research posed earlier call for reconsidering the
general methodological approach to research meth-
ods that has been normatively used (rather than just
the data collection instruments). What practice-
relevant research should use are methodological
approaches that are compatible with the theoretical,
methodological, practical, and ethical assumptions
and guides that are highlighted by the challenges—
methodologies that correspond with a broad case-
study approach that pursues practice-relevant
research questions through nondeterministic
equal-status collaborations of researchers and
practitioners.
Arguably, the most direct way to investigate a
practice-relevant research question is to enact the
practice in question and evaluate it, which points to
interventions as a methodology of choice. Interven-
tions aim to apply and test the consequence of practice
in a natural setting. However, interventions are an
umbrella category for many different types of research.
Not all interventions are compatible with the assump-
tions and guides we have highlighted. For example,
some intervention studies that are set to test very spe-
cific researcher-generated, theory-focused questions

and hypotheses; do not involve an equal-status collab-
oration between researchers and practitioners in the
research process; use quasi-experimental designs that
are similar to experiments in their focus on a single
motivational process for a short period of time; are
deterministic in their expectation of controlling dis-
turbances; and target statistical significance of differ-
ence between the experimental and the control groups
to support theoretical predictions, with little insight
into the actual psychological processes taking place
during engagement. As such, these types of interven-
tions do not constitute adequate approximations of
natural educational environments, and their findings
will be of limited relevance to practice. As Schoenfeld
(1999) noted, the methodology that should guide
practice-relevant research is
not a pre-determined comparison study
in which one randomly selected group
of students receives Treatment A and
another receives Treatment B, but a good
faith effort that draws upon available
knowledge to make needed change in a
real world context. (p. 12)
Taking this conclusion seriously means that
research that addresses the challenges and is rele-
vant to educational practice is research that is inte-
grated with the educational practice itself. As
Schoenfeld (1999) emphasized, “This kind of
approach does not represent a weak alternative to
conducting controlled experiments, but a different
option altogether. Sometimes the only way you can
understand complexity is to study complex things”
(p. 12). In such research, the dichotomy between
research and practice breaks down (Schoenfeld,
1999). It is research that uses the natural educa-
tional practice as the foundation for investigating
how that practice in context gives rise to motiva-
tional phenomena (cf. Hickey, 2003). Such research
methodology values the authenticity of the practice
because it is this authenticity that provides for the
simultaneous pursuit of ecologically valid theoreti-
cal knowledge as well as high relevance for practice.
This type of research methodology, and the theory
that it informs, speaks to those people whose lives it
2
See Tabak (2004) for a more elaborate discussion on how design-based methods may address some of the challenges to contemporary motivational research.
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
aims to explain and improve. In its authenticity, this
type of research can be promoting scientific knowl-
edge while at the same time constructively critiqu-
ing the day-to-day social practices and inviting
the agents-in-context to see themselves in the scien-
tific portrait that they effectively draw together
(cf. Bruner, 1990, pp. 31–32).
Such a research methodology would be quite dif-
ferent from the traditional methodology commonly
used in psychological research. Yet, researchers
interested in pursuing this type of practice-relevant
research do not need to invent the methodological
wheel. There are methodologies that correspond
with the assumptions and guides we have listed and
that cater specifically to research that aims to make
significant contributions to theory as well as to prac-
tice. Two such methodologies are design-based
research and participatory action research.
Design-based research.2 The terms design experi-
ments or design-based research methods (Brown, 1992;
Collins, 1992; Kelly, 2003; Sandoval & Bell, 2004)
refer to a rather diverse group of research methods
that share the methodological approach of using
design principles for developing theoretical under-
standings about adaptive learning in context and
about the instructional technology, curricula, and par-
ticipation structures that support such learning. The
premise of design-based methods is that researchers
“can learn important things about the nature and
conditions of learning by attempting to engineer and
sustain educational innovation in everyday settings”
(Bell, 2004, p. 243). Perhaps the essence of design-
based methods can be captured by what Schoenfeld
(1999) considered to be the “maxim that lies at the
heart” of the approach: “Sometimes you have to build
something to see if it will work . . . and then you have
to study the hell out of it” (p. 12).
Whereas the roots of design-based research can
be traced to the traditions of program evaluation
and curricular design, the impetus for the contem-
porary approach to design-based research has been
the work of Ann Brown, Allan Collins, Roy Pea, and
Jan Hawkins (Kelly, 2003). These researchers’ grow-
ing frustration with the ability of traditional research
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Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
methods to represent learning processes in complex
environments led them to develop alternative
research procedures (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992).
Their work spurred the development of several
research programs that focus on the investigation of
theories of learning through the design of learning
activities in authentic educational contexts (Kelly,
2003; Sandoval & Bell, 2004).
Despite differences in various strands of design-
based methods in educational research (Bell, 2004;
O’Donnell, 2004), Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer,
and Schauble (2003) pointed to five cross-cutting
features (p. 9) that, in combination, distinguish
these methods from other forms of research:
1. Design-based methods aim to investigate and
develop theory (diSessa & Cobb, 2004; San-
doval, 2004). The research process begins with
a theoretical idea about affecting an educational
process, progresses through the investigation
of the theoretical idea in a particular natural
educational context, and results in more devel-
oped theoretical understandings that can be
generalized to other contexts. Each design, and
the processes it aims to promote, “are viewed
as instances of broader classes of phenomena”
(Cobb et al., 2003, p. 10)—in effect, cases with
unique characteristics that can inform a more
general theory.
2. Design-based research is centered on an interven-
tion that concerns particular functional actions.
More specifically, in design-based research, the
research team enacts actions in the educational
context that are theoretically hypothesized to
promote desirable educational processes.
3. The implementation of the design and the inves-
tigation of its effect are both “prospective and
reflective” (Cobb et al., 2003, p. 10). The imple-
mentation is guided by the prospect of affecting
the hypothesized processes, and the data collec-
tion and analysis are guided by reflective inves-
tigations of the hypotheses concerning both the
target processes and the means to affect them.
4. The research process involves iterative cycles of
“invention and revision” (p. 10) or “design, enact-
ment, analysis, and redesign” (Design-Based
Research Collective, 2003, p. 5), in which refutation
182
of hypotheses in one cycle leads to the generation
of new theoretical understandings and hypotheses
that guide the next cycle.
5. Finally, the theoretical understandings that
result from design-based research are practice
based—they “do real work” (Cobb et al., 2003,
p. 10) and are easily communicable to practitio-
ners. As such, “the theoretical products of design
experiments have the potential for rapid pay-off
because they are filtered in advance for instru-
mental effect. They also speak directly to the
types of problems that practitioners address in
the course of their work” (p. 11).
Design-based methods are guided by research
questions that originate in a theoretical idea and are
commonly focused on relatively specific instruc-
tional actions. Design researchers see this focus as
providing an anchor that helps in coping with the
messiness of the educational environment (Joseph,
2004). The following research steps, however, posi-
tion and investigate the focused theoretical hypothe-
sis within the complexity of authentic practice. For
example, a concern with the motivation of urban
middle school students in the domain of world his-
tory may lead to the following hypothetical research
phases:
1. Design: Researchers will use the model of interest
development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006) to design
software with features that are hypothesized to
trigger and maintain urban middle school stu-
dents’ situational interest in world history.
2. Enactment: The researchers would then collabo-
rate with history teachers in an urban middle
school in implementing the software as part of
the world history curriculum.
3. Analysis: The collaboration would also involve
collecting multiple forms of longitudinal, multiple-
level, qualitative, and perhaps also quantitative
data about the broad processes involving trigger-
ing and maintaining students’ situational interest
and about the use of the software in the class-
rooms. These rich data may range from microge-
netic engagement with the software of individual
students to more macro-level classroom dis-
course taking place throughout the curricular
unit to students’ continuing engagement in

world history beyond the classroom context
(cf. Cobb et al., 2003). Analysis of these data
would support or refute the initial hypothesis,
but, in addition, would provide insight into
the broader, naturally occurring motivational
processes taking place while the teachers and
students were using the software. These analyses
would inform the theoretical underpinnings of
triggering and maintaining situational interest in
world history among urban middle school stu-
dents, as well as the features of the software that
could effectively be changed for this purpose.
4. Redesign: The results of the analysis would then
lead to the revision of the software design so that
it fits better with the emerging theoretical under-
standings and the characteristics of the particular
educational context.
5. Additional cycles: New hypotheses would be
generated about the effect of the software, and
another cycle of enactment and data collection
would ensue. Further iterations would take
place until a decision was made to stop—either
because the researchers and teachers reached the
conclusion that the software was in a state that
satisfied the need of motivating the students or
because of other constraints (e.g., the funding
ended).
6. Summative analysis: A retrospective analysis
would then trace the multiple forms of longitudi-
nal data collected through the research to gener-
ate “rigorous, empirically grounded claims and
assertions” (Cobb et al., 2003, p. 12) concerning
the use of the software for the triggering and
maintenance of situational interest in world his-
tory among urban middle school students. More
important, theories that are developed through
design-based research are humble, “not merely in
the sense that they are concerned with domain-
specific learning processes, but also because they
are accountable to the activity of design” (p. 10).
This is also their power—they are able to explain
the operation of instructional actions on psycho-
logical processes in complex settings.
The methodological domain of design-based
research is still emerging (O’Donnell, 2004). It has
also encountered challenges and criticism. For
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
example, a National Research Council committee
that examined research practices in education with
the aim of recommending those that provide high-
quality scientific evidence criticized the ability of
design-based methods to provide scientific “war-
rants” (Shavelson, Phillips, Towne, & Feurer,
2003). The committee members criticized the narra-
tive form that commonly frames the findings of
design-based research and questioned the ability of
such research that lacks “more traditional controls
on extraneous variables” (p. 27) to produce valid,
warranted, replicable, and generalizable causal
claims. The committee members recommended that
design-based researchers introduce randomized
experiments in appropriate stages into the design
research with the aim of testing specific causal
hypotheses.
An extensive discussion of current challenges
and criticisms of design-based research methods is
beyond the scope of this chapter. These issues not-
withstanding, more important to the current project
is that even the critics realize the potential of this
research approach to address contemporary chal-
lenges to traditional educational research:
The strengths of design studies lie in
testing theories in the crucible of prac-
tice; in working collegially with practi-
tioners, coconstructing knowledge; in
confronting everyday classroom, school,
and community problems that influ-
ence teaching and learning and adapt-
ing instruction to these conditions; in
recognizing the limits of theory; and in
capturing the specifics of practice and
the potential advantages from iteratively
adapting and sharpening theory in its
context. (Shavelson et al., 2003, p. 25)
Participatory action research. Action research is
another broad category referring to a very diverse
set of research methods aimed at investigating prac-
tice in natural settings. The action research category
includes approaches to inquiry that vary both in
label (e.g., action science [Argyris, Putnam, & Smith,
1985; Friedman, 2001], action inquiry [Torbert,
2001], appreciative inquiry [Ludema, Cooperrider, &
Barrett, 2001]) and in emphasis on the primary
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Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
purpose and methods of inquiry (e.g., a primary
emphasis on description vs. transformation of prac-
tice, the centrality of the purpose to promote social
justice, the balance in the voice of researchers and
practitioners, the salience of theory building as a
goal, the emphasis on rigor in methods; Cassell &
Johnson, 2006; Chandler & Torbert, 2003; Dick,
Stringer, & Huxham, 2009; Heron & Reason, 2001;
Rapoport, 1970; Zeichner, 2001). However, similar to
design-based research, action research “seeks to bring
together action and reflection, theory and practice”
(Reason & Bradbury, 2008, p. 4). Moreover, action
research is also centered on an iterative cyclical pro-
cess of inquiry and intervention, which includes the
investigation of actions through the collection of
multiple-form, longitudinal, rich data whose analy-
sis generates theoretical understanding and revision
of action that lead to a new action research cycle.
Indeed, when broadly defined, the variety of design-
based methods can be viewed as representing specific
types of action research.
In this discussion, we focus on a particular type
of action research labeled participatory, collabora-
tive, or cooperative action research (Heron & Reason,
2001; McIntyre, 2008; Whyte, 1991). Unlike some
other types of action research (e.g., practitioners’
self-study), and similar to design-based methods,
participatory action research involves the collabora-
tion of researchers and practitioners who apply their
combined expertise to the investigation of authentic
practices in natural contexts. However, whereas par-
ticipatory action research and design-based methods
share many features, they also differ in some ways
that seem to be based in their different historical tra-
ditions. The action research traditions, which
include the work of psychologists and educators
such as John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, members of the
Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, Paulo
Freire, and Gregory Bateson, framed action research
as inquiry with the mission of “generating knowl-
edge that is both valid and vital to the well-being of
individuals, communities, and for the promotion of
larger-scale democratic social change” (Brydon-
Miller, Greenwood, & Maguire, 2003, p. 11; Dick
et al., 2009). Hence, action research is embedded in
an epistemology that views any scientific action as
expressing values and that explicitly pursues the
184
promotion of well-being and social justice (Heron &
Reason, 2001). Accordingly, action research is most
often guided by research questions that concern
social challenges and aim to improve the human
condition. Thus, unlike the researcher-generated,
theory-guided research question and innovative
design that are common in design-based methods,
action researchers begin with an open-ended and
wide-ranging research question that is based in prac-
titioners’ concerns with naturally occurring social
phenomena of practice.
Furthermore, as part of its value-based founda-
tion, action research is guided by the premise “that
human systems could only be understood and
changed if one involved the members of the system in
the inquiry process itself” (Brydon-Miller et al., 2003,
pp. 13–14). Thus, rather than a pragmatic necessity,
the equal-status researcher–practitioner collaboration
is an integral and highly valued aspect of participa-
tory action research, and it involves both researchers
and practitioners in all stages of the research process,
from generating the research question to deciding on
the research methods and collection of the data, to
the analysis and interpretation of the findings, to the
design of the intervention in all cycles of action and
research (Heron & Reason, 2001).
For example, teachers’ concern with the motiva-
tion of urban middle school students in the domain of
world history may lead to the following hypothetical
action research phases (cf. Heron & Reason, 2001):
1. Creating a collaborative inquiry team and concep-
tualizing a research question: Researchers and
practitioners form a collaborative inquiry team
in which the roles of researcher and practitioner
are somewhat blurred. People from both groups
bring to the inquiry process their expertise in the
conceptualization of motivation, instructional
practice, and knowledge of the context. The team
decides on the domain of inquiry and frames a
research question, such as “How can we motivate
urban middle school students in this context to
engage deeply in the domain of world history?”
This question then leads to a conversation about
the meaning of motivation and deep engagement
in world history in the particular context, with
the issues of equal opportunity for success of

both teachers and students taking an important
role. The conversation would involve decision
making about the unit of analysis for the study.
Depending on various contextual opportunities
and constraints, the team may decide to keep
the question at the initial unit of analysis of the
school or focus the question on a more specific
context (e.g., particular student group, specific
curricular unit, certain teaching practice).
2. Choosing data collection methods: The team would
then decide on instruments and procedures for
collecting open-ended, multiple-form, rich data
on the focal contextual practice of world his-
tory instruction. The methods for data collec-
tion would include a mix of instruments such as
demographic characteristics of school, teachers,
and students; quantitative and qualitative data on
students’ products and achievement; examina-
tion of curricular demands and materials; longi-
tudinal observations of lessons and of teachers’
team meetings; focus groups with students and
teachers; interviews with administrators, teach-
ers, parents, and students; and diaries or jour-
nals of teachers. The selection of these methods
would take into account contextual opportuni-
ties and constraints.
3. Enacting practice and collecting data: The data col-
lection tasks would be divided among the inquiry
team members as appropriate, and data would
be collected on the focal practices. This phase
may involve smaller unit-of-analysis cycles of
formative evaluation as a result of the heightened
awareness of the practitioner–researchers enact-
ing the instructional practice and participating
in data collection (Heron & Reason, 2001). This
heightened reflection on and transformation of
practice is an integral and desirable element of
the process and should be documented through
the data collection procedures.
4. Analysis and reflection: The data would then be
organized, coded, and interpreted collaboratively
by the inquiry team. All members suggest themes,
concepts, and processes that they perceive to be
useful for understanding patterns in the data.
Multiple data sources would be used and triangu-
lated to arrive at rich, multilevel, and sophisticated
understandings of the motivational processes
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
taking place in the context. The multiple perspec-
tives and the multiple forms of data contribute
to the validity of the interpretations. Validity is
enhanced when different ways of knowing—for
example, experiential, theoretical, and practical
(cf. Heron & Reason, 2001)—converge. When
desired, people external to the inquiry group may
be brought in to propose conceptualization of the
data for further validation. However, the funda-
mental premise is that validity is tested in practice.
Therefore, the team would modify instructional
and other types of practice on the basis of the new
understandings. The team would also make deci-
sions about the instruments and procedures by
which new data on the enactment of the new prac-
tices would be collected.
5. Additional cycles: Another cycle of action and
research would ensue. Further iterations would
take place until a decision was made to stop.
6. Summative analysis. A reflective analysis would
be written, highlighting the theoretical under-
standings from the particular case about the
motivation of urban middle school students for
world history, as well as about the organizational
transformation process in practice and how both
led or did not lead to the promotion of teachers’
and students’ motivation.
Notably, whereas the inquiry process just
described depicts rather linear steps that clearly dis-
tinguish between phases of action and reflection, in
reality the phases may be more or less distinct,
depending on the approach of the inquiry team
(Heron & Reason, 2001). Indeed, some researchers
have considered a more diffused process as better
compatible with complexity perspectives on human
systems and practice (Reason & Goodwin, 1999).
The action research approach has been criticized
as unscientific, as lacking methodological rigor,
and for being no different from consultation (Bask-
erville & Wood-Harper, 1996). For example, as with
design-based methods, action research was criticized
for failing to generate replicable and generalizable
causal knowledge claims. As discussed earlier, these
criteria for social science are incompatible with
emerging understandings of the nature of human
systems and action. Nevertheless, because science is
185
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
concerned with the development of valid knowledge
that has relevance beyond the research context,
action researchers have developed criteria for such
transfer that are more compatible with the epistemo-
logical assumptions of the approach. For example,
Checkland and Holwell (1998) suggested that action
researchers adopt a “recoverable” criterion: “enact a
process based on a declared-in-advance methodol-
ogy (encompassing a particular framework of ideas)
in such a way that the process is recoverable by any-
one interested in subjecting the research to critical
scrutiny” (p. 18). Schön and Rein (1994) argued
that generalizability in action research is similar to
people’s application of past experiences to new situ-
ations. They termed this generalizability reflective
transfer: “the process by which patterns detected in
one situation are carried over as projective models
to other situations to generate new causal infer-
ences” (p. 204; in Friedman & Rogers, 2009). Fried-
man and Rogers (2009) noted that reflective transfer
“is not simply seeing the new situation in terms of
the old one, but using the comparison to become
more sharply aware of the key differences that need
to be addressed” (p. 45).
However, some action researchers have acknowl-
edged the need to develop more explicit procedures
for theoretical development (e.g., Dick et al., 2009;
Friedman & Rogers, 2009) and methodological
rigor (e.g., Baskerville & Wood-Harper, 1996). The
tensions of the dual focus on the transformation of
practice and maintaining reflective distance for theo-
retical development and on the need to proceed
quickly with practical changes versus the systematic
application of research methods stand at the founda-
tion of this research approach and need to be explic-
itly acknowledged and negotiated (Rapoport, 1970).
Summary
The theoretical, methodological, practical, and ethi-
cal challenges facing contemporary motivational
theory and research that aim to inform practice call
for a change in researchers’ practice. We propose
that to develop practice-relevant motivation theory,
researchers should pursue practice-relevant research
questions that address practitioners’ concerns, adopt
a practice-relevant research orientation that values
practitioners’ perspectives and constraints, and use
186
practice-relevant research methods that involve
practitioners as equal-status collaborators in the
investigations of their own practice. This scientific
approach is better suited to generating theoretical
knowledge that is practice relevant because it
encourages researchers to adopt an “insider” per-
spective through their collaborative dialogue with
the agents of action in the context. Moreover, it
encourages practitioners to adopt an “outsider”
perspective on their educational processes, thus
facilitating systematic reflection and exploration
and contributing to professional identity develop-
ment and improvement of educational practice
(Zeichner, 2003; cf. Flum & Kaplan, 2006; Turner &
Patrick, 2009).
CONCLUSION
There is a growing perception that current motiva-
tional theories—indeed, educational psychology
theories more generally—are failing to effect a
meaningful change in educational settings (Berliner,
2006; McCaslin & Lavigne, 2010; Turner, 2010;
Urdan & Turner, 2005). In this chapter, we pro-
posed that the currently prevalent epistemological
assumptions that guide the theoretical conceptual-
ization of motivational phenomena, the procedures
to investigate them, and the recommendations for
applying theoretical understandings to educational
practice may be incompatible with theoretical devel-
opments, methodological approaches, and practical
and moral considerations that are relevant for the
complex, nonlinear, and unpredictable nature of
human phenomena. Similar challenges have been
posed in other psychological domains (e.g., Cron-
bach, 1982; Fox, Prilleltensky, & Austin, 2009; Hill,
2006; Tuffin, 2005). These challenges call for the
adoption of different assumptions and correspond-
ing guidelines for research and development of
motivational theory that are more compatible with
characteristics of motivational phenomena in
natural educational settings. We proposed three
such guidelines: asking practice-relevant research
questions, adopting a practice-relevant research
orientation, and using practice-relevant research
methodology. We also proposed the design-based
and the participatory action research approaches as

examples of methodologies that simultaneously pro-
mote practice-relevant motivational theory building
and its application to practice.
One challenge to these recommendations is the
need to let go of a common conception about the
role of motivational theory in affecting educational
practice. Specifically, the argument in this chapter
implies the need to set more modest goals for affect-
ing educational practice than those promised by the-
ories denoting deterministic cause–effect laws. It
seems, however, that such modest goals may be
a more realistic approach to adopt. More than 3
decades ago, McClelland (1978) argued that the fail-
ure of psychology to effect meaningful social changes
and reform social institutions, including education,
was because of the orientation of those leading the
reform efforts: “power-oriented people setting
impossible goals that they have attempted to reach
by powerful though inappropriate means” (p. 203).
Instead, McClelland argued, “Somehow . . . we have
got to learn to be patient and to proceed step by
modest step to develop a behavioral technology that
will contribute significantly to human betterment”
(p. 209). We believe that this advice is as relevant
today as it was then.
A second challenge to the recommendations we
make for developing practice-relevant motivational
theory and research is that they go against some
strong traditions in academic politics. Design-based
and action research studies may be harder to publish
because the criteria for their quality are different
from those commonly guiding the manuscript
review process. Moreover, studies with multiple
cycles of design–enactment–analysis–redesign are
much more laborious and time consuming than the
short-term experiment or the easily administered
survey. Scholars—particularly those in the early
stages of their career—may be reluctant to engage in
such intensive research, the academic fruits of
which could only be published years later. To
encourage this type of research, a significant change
needs to take place within the educational psychol-
ogy research community (cf. Berliner, 2006). This
chapter joins increasing criticism of the contempo-
rary motivational research practices and their result-
ing knowledge claims (Blumenfeld, 1992; Brophy,
2005; McCaslin, 2009; Turner, 2010; Turner &
Motivation Theory in Educational Practice
Patrick, 2008; Urdan & Turner, 2005). We hope
that the growing number of critical voices will sup-
port change in corresponding publishing patterns
and promotion criteria. This challenge notwith-
standing, if the mission of educational psychology
research is to develop knowledge beyond what is
known and to contribute to the betterment of
human society, it is worthwhile to reflect on Kurt
Lewin’s (1949) contention that
to proceed beyond the limitations of a
given level of knowledge the researcher,
as a rule, has to break down methodolog-
ical taboos which condemn as “unscien-
tific” or “illogical” the very methods or
concepts which later on prove to be basic
for the next major progress. (p. 275)
That being said, the proposed practice-relevant
approach to motivational theory and research is only
a beginning. Many issues central to this approach
were touched on very briefly or not mentioned at all.
Issues that need to be addressed seriously include
epistemological issues such as distinctions between
different types of motivational knowledge and their
status, construction, and importance (cf. Fenster-
macher, 1994); methodological issues concerning the
great diversity of design-based and action research
methods and their contribution to different aspects of
the scientific motivational field; and political issues
such as the status of the researchers who use these
research methodologies and of the theoretical knowl-
edge that is produced by this research. This chapter
provides an invitation for continuous dialogue about
these multifaceted theoretical, methodological, and
practical questions with the purpose of promoting
practice-relevant motivational theory and research.
An initial step in this dialogue, perhaps, may be
the acknowledgment that the argument in this chap-
ter calls on motivational researchers to engage in par-
ticipatory action research on their own practice, from
the metatheoretical epistemological beliefs about the
subject matter to the practical enactment of the pro-
cedures of our trade. Arguably, the scientific project
itself is a kind of communal action research—an
interdisciplinary global community that, for genera-
tions, has been addressing meaningful questions con-
cerning the actual practice of scientific research as
187
Kaplan, Katz, and Flum
well as the professional identity of its own practitio-
ners through collaborative efforts between practitio-
ners (i.e., researchers) and theorists (i.e.,
philosophers of science).
A FINAL POINT ON THE APPLICATION
OF MOTIVATION THEORY TO
EDUCATIONAL SETTINGS
For this chapter, we were charged with the mission
of reviewing the ways in which motivational theory
can be successfully applied to educational settings.
The conclusion of our review is that recommenda-
tions for the application of current motivational the-
ories to practice have theoretical, methodological,
practical, and ethical problems. We concluded fur-
ther that to promote successful application, motiva-
tional research and theory building will need to
adopt a practice-relevant research approach.
It might seem to the reader that this conclusion
amounts to an overall dismissal of contemporary
motivational theories or that we consider it impossi-
ble to apply these theories and recommendations to
educational settings. This is not the case. The fact is
that the approach to motivational theory building and
research proposed here—asking practice-relevant
research questions, adopting practice-relevant
research orientations, and using practice-relevant
research methodology—constitutes, itself, an apt
application of contemporary motivational theory to
educational settings because it actually incorporates
the recommendations summarized so succinctly by
Urdan and Turner (2005) and listed earlier in this
chapter. This research approach involves guided
engagement in collaborative learning of meaningful
issues that promotes the relevance of the topic to the
participants, supports their autonomy and control,
focuses them on the purpose of learning from mis-
takes, and provides methodical feedback that empha-
sizes attributions to effort and strategies about
progress toward proximal (and distal) goals of learn-
ing and growth. Despite the limitations of contempo-
rary theoretical recommendations for the application
of motivational theory to practice, they do have
merit. More important, however, the research
approach that we propose goes beyond the recom-
mendations to address their limitations through the
188
integral inclusion of the participants’ voices and per-
spectives in a flexible open-ended inquiry process.
These features allow situational and contextual char-
acteristics to affect both the content and the process
of inquiry. Even more significant, these features of
the research approach call on the participants—re-
searchers, educators, and potential participating stu-
dents alike—to engage in constructive exploration of
their own beliefs, values, roles, and practices. We
believe that developing such exploratory orientation
and skills is becoming imperative for success in
school, work, and society at large (Flum & Kaplan,
2006; Kaplan & Flum, 2009).
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