Extracurricular Activities: The Role of Motivation
Irina Kerimova, Elena Aripova, Uzbekistan
Irina Kerimova is a lecturer at Westminster International University in Tashkent. Her current professional interests are gender studies, bilingualism, feedback giving and mentoring.
E-mail: ikerimova@wiut.uz
Elena Aripova is the English language teacher at Westminster International University in Tashkent and enjoys working with students of different ages. The current research interests are related to the correlation of motivation of students and their performance.
E-mail: earipova@wiut.uz
Menu
Introduction and background
Literature review
Current study
Data collection and analysis
Conclusions and recommendations
References
Westminster International University in Tashkent (WIUT) delivers the education according to international standards particularly blending British education with Uzbek traditions. The language of instruction is English. The Pre-university courses and the university undergraduate programme operate on self-designed curriculum, moderated by British counterparts to ensure the quality; the assessment is also approved by external examiners from London in summer. To enter WIUT students must meet the following requirements: to get minimum 5.5 in IELTS exam and minimum 40 in mathematics entrance exam. There is also another option which is attending pre-university courses where qualified university staff prepares future entrants for two years (level one and two) in both modules: Basics of English for Academic Purposes and Basics of Quantitative Skills . After successful completion (minimum 40 marks in each module) a student transfers to the next level, which is university level three. At level three students continue improving their English competency via English for Academic Purposes module (EAP) for one academic year. It is evident that one academic year is not sufficient for mastering the language to be able to freely express oneself in the academic world. F Upper level students also are required to have good English writing skills. Thus, to help students who needed to improve theirEnglish proficiency, some free extracurricular activities were introduced by the institution.
The project was first launched in pre-foundation course and introduced various club activities, which were aimed at developing English speaking, writing and reading skills. The age of level one students varied from 15 up to 21. The type of educational environment that most of them had experienced prior to attending the university was strongly based on the concept of reward and penalty. Yet, the university environment did not suggest any compulsion, and therefore,. the transition to university environment was a long process and should be smooth. Therefore, it was initially decided to make attendance at extracurricular activities compulsory. Eventually, the attendance indicators were surprisingly high (about 97%). According to the questionnaire, which was distributed to level one students at the end of 2013-2014 academic year the majority if the students were in favour of all the activities and expressed their preference to participate in the same clubs at level two.
Many researchers have acknowledged the importance of extracurricular activities In the academic life of students. Mahoney, et al (2005), for example, believe that the promotion of social engagement, building self-confidence and ultimately, through extracurricular activities provides a smooth transition to adulthood. They also believe that learners are responsible for making their academic decisions and therefore, they should be willing to attend the activities. In another study conducted by Spratt, et al (2002) the participants were asked to rate the perception of the rate of their responsibility and and that of their teachers’. The results showed that students expected teacher to be responsible for language instruction in the classroom, while they felt more responsible for outside of the classroom arrangements. This, in turn, can indicate that students participating in that study were intrinsically motivated to take part in after school activities.
The definition of intrinsic motivation as opposed to extrinsic one is described by Deci and Ryan (1985). Intrinsically motivated students are doing the task with a personal wish and interest as a contrast to extrinsically motivated ones who complete the task due to external factors such as a reward or punishment. Meanwhile, they also believe that students do not usually wish to learn something which is necessary but not attractive to them and they recommend that to develop intrinsic motivation at the earlier stages some extrinsic devices should be involved.
The current study was somehow the follow up of the successful experience with the pre-foundation students concerning extra-curricular activities. This time it was aimed at the university students of Westminster University in Tashkent. These after classes lessons were organised by university and delivered for free. However, the attendance was not compulsory based on the assumption that students would already be intrinsically motivated to attend.
After class activities project was named Academic English Laboratory (AEL). AEL involved face-to-face tutorials, workshops, video and article discussions. Twice a month AEL offered one event.
Before running the AEL, an online survey was organized to see the demand of students for Academic help. An e-mail communicating that a new support centre was being launched was sent to all students. There was also a questionnaire asking for the types of services students wished to take part in. Data collection indicated that 85 out of 195 self-selected participants were interested in the English language as an academic service provided by the university. AEL immediately started operating. The invitation to the first workshop to take place in a month was sent to all students. The next day 45 students subscribed to participate in the first event. It was a workshop on topic “Do you use proper academic English?”
Very close to the first workshop date it was revealed that there was a timetable clash with another arrangement. The symposium which took place at the time was planned for first year students only, so all of the other applicants were supposed to attend the workshop. An individual reminder was sent to all of the 45. Surprisingly, on the day of the workshop only three students showed up. The organisers were sure that the other event was to be blamed and decided to reschedule the workshop for the following week. That time the session was delivered to two students.
The coming fortnight another workshop on the topic “Having problem with vocabulary learning? Come and get a strategy!” was arranged. The AEL again saw only three people. The similar unpromising tendency was observed during the whole semester.
Meanwhile, one of the more popular services was face-to-face tutorial where students could bring their writing piece for proofreading. There were still some students who signed for an event and did not come; however, the situation for this service was a little better.
In order to discover the reason for the lack of participation of the students in the events that they had asked for and were thought to improve their language proficiency, we decided to conduct a short study. We were particularly interested in investigating the motivation of the students, believing that if there was extrinsic motivation like a reward, they might have attended.
To know the reasons for such relatively poor attendance 25 subscribed students were interviewed. The following patterns were observed:
The first reason the students gave was that invitations to AEL events had been sent through WIUT web-mail, while many students did not check their e-mails regularly. Some students commented that they received so many e-mails everyday on irrelevant topics that they had filtered their inbox only to receive certain emails.
Another reason many provided was the lack of time to attend extracurricular activities due to the heavy workload at university.
Several not shown up participants complained that some lectures were rescheduled and thus clashed with AEL.
One respondent mentioned that the topics were not relevant to students. workshop
One of the respondents also believed that WIUT Students’ Union ran certain similar activities such as ‘Movie night’ and ‘Conversation club’. Meanwhile, the attendance of Students Union (SU) events was relatively high. Based on this comment, the interviewees were asked to give their explanation if any. It seems that the high level of participation in SU activities is the reward involved. Since students are involved in the process of arranging the events, they receive letters of acknowledgement that they can later put in their Curriculum Vitae to apply for future jobs. Some extrinsic motivation is thus involved.
Having analysed the issues, it can be assumed that at least in our context extrinsic motivation is important even for university students. Students even in upper levels expect some external rewards for participation in extracurricular activities (e.g. a certificate). Thus, it is necessary to think of motivating students, though it seemed quite paradoxical to encourage people to get an aid that they need.
As per recommendations, students, even those who had not attended the event, unanimously agreed that academic support was needed. Therefore, AEL should continue.
Running face-to-face tutorials based on students’ personal requests is still demanded. Students believe that through these tutorials they can improve the quality of their coursework and obtain higher marks.
Finally, students have suggested the announcements for the events should be more diversified, e.g., posters hung on the university notice boards and WIUT Facebook page.
Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M. (1985) Intrinsic Motivation and Self Determination in Human Behaviour. New York, NY: Plenum Press
Mahoney, J. L., Larson, R. W., & Eccles, J. S. (Eds.). (2005). Organized activities as contexts of development: Extracurricular activities, after school and community programs. Psychology Press. Robson, C. (2002). Real world research (Vol. 2). Oxford: Blackwell publishers.
Spratt, M., Humphreys, G., & Chan, V. (2002) Autonomy and Motivation which comes first? Language Teaching Research 6,3
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