Insecure student’s motivation in project-oriented teaching

Several studies indicate that high structuring of the content reinforces the motivation of the students and that lower structure of the content causes the motivation to fall (Andersen 2010, Hansen et al. 2016, Jang, Deci og Reeve 2010, Nielsen et al. 2017).
Project-oriented teaching is characterized by both having a relatively low teacher management of content and method - and a low teacher management of the students collaboration. Motivation of insecure students in projectoriented teaching could accordingly be assumed influenced by their experience of confirming opportunities and experiencing loss of opportunities. Likewise, the nature of the teacher's scaffolding opportunities can reinforce and promote the students' motivation.
This study focuses on how teachers scaffold students' needs for both structure and autonomy, and how it influences the motivation of the students. The purpose is to analyze the student’s motivation related to specific phases of project and to provide some examples of opportunities for scaffolding of insecure students in project-oriented processes.
Theory: Pintrich (2003) highlights students' experience of mastering, control, interest, relevance as well as experience of goals and responsibilities as sources of motivation. This conceptual framework can be useful in analyzing student’s statements about experiencing complications in the process, solutions in the process and experience of meaning and quality in the process. The student’s statements are sorted through a structural, narrative analysis of student interviews. The concept of scaffolding needs is substantiated and operationalized with a) Wood et al.'s concept of scaffolding, b) Mercer and Mortimers on Interactive Dialogue (2003) and c) Alrø and Skovsmose concepts on explorative dialoque (Alrø og Skovsmose 2005).
Method: The empirical material has been studied with focus on a group with one insecure student through two different analyzes: 1) A narrative analysis of the student's motivation based on interviews of students and teachers; 2) A didactically analysis of the group's scaffolding needs, as they can be deduced from their own statements , and as they can be identified through observation.
Results: The weight of inductive and abductive approaches strengthens the students' experience of interest and their experiences of goals and responsibilities. On the other hand, students' motivation (coping and control) decreases when inductive and abductive approaches are not supported through substantive and deductive structuring. This indicates the need for teachers to mark critical features of the study and to demonstrate how the content can be structured. In this perspective, the study suggests that insecure students in project-oriented processes need ongoing cognitive support to model the content.