Measuring Chinese Middle School Students’ Motivation Using the Reduced Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (RIMMS): A Validation Study in the Adaptive Learning Setting

Abstract

Valid measures of student motivation can inform the design of learning environments to engage students and maximize learning gains. This study validates a measure of student motivation, the Reduced Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (RIMMS), with a sample of Chinese middle school students using an adaptive learning system in math. Participants were 429 students from 21 provinces in China. Their ages ranged from 14 to 17 years old, and most were in 9th grade. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) validated the RIMMS in this context by demonstrating that RIMMS responses retained the intended four-factor structure: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. To illustrate the utility of measuring student motivation, this study identifies factors of motivation that are strongest for specific student subgroups. Students who expected to attend elite high schools rated the adaptive learning system higher on all four RIMMS motivation factors compared to students who did not expect to attend elite high schools. Lower parental education levels were associated with higher ratings on three RIMMS factors. This study contributes to the field's understanding of student motivation in adaptive learning settings.

Workplace Learning in China: Transferring Training Into Practice to Improve Performance

“…The usage of the Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction (ARCS) (Keller, 2009) model of motivation to utilize learned material RIMMS scale (Loorbach et al, 2015) may have been ineffective in the Chinese context. While the present study used an adapted version of the scale already translated into Mandarin Chinese (Wang et al, 2020), representatives reported high levels of transfer intention across all conditions. This could be due to several factors.…”

“…Representatives in the active reflection condition were given access to the instructional material, plus participated in brief active reflection sessions with a manager after each learning session. Representatives in the feedback condition were given access to the instructional material, participated in brief active reflection sessions with a manager after each learning session (Villena Taranilla et al, 2019;Wang et al, 2020), and they also received feedback on how they performed, as well as ways to improve going forward, from their manager in a group setting.…”

“…Intent to transfer learned material was assessed using a Mandarin Chinese version of the 12item Reduced Instructional Materials Motivation Survey (RIMMS) scale, adapted from prior research which has validated its use (Villena Taranilla et al, 2019;Wang et al, 2020) to the workplace training context. The RIMMS scale contains items concerning four facets of motivation to learn/utilize training: Attention paid to the training, perceived Relevance of the material to work, Confidence in their ability to improve their performance using what they have learned, and their Satisfaction with the training process as a whole.…”

Can Students’ Computer Programming Learning Motivation and Effectiveness Be Enhanced by Learning Python Language? A Multi-Group Analysis

“…People’s actions, desires, and needs are all derived from motivation to drive people’s behaviors or arouse someone’s desire to do something ( Elliot and Covington, 2001 ; Vansteenkiste et al, 2020 ). Learning motivation is the degree of students’ willingness to continue to learn hard ( Wang et al, 2020 ). Motivation is one of the primary factors that drive students to learn.…”

Computer Programming Students’ Learning Motivation in Programming Courses

“…Learning and motivation are overly complex aspects of human behaviour (Law et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2020). Motivation is a key factor that encourages students to learn (Ling et al 2020).…”