The effectiveness of self-determination skills training on academic incivility and academic engagement

Abstract

Background: In many studies, the association of self-determination skills with academic incivility behaviors and academic engagement has been assessed. However, neither has investigated the effectiveness of self-determination skills training on academic incivility behaviors and academic engagement. Aims: The current research was conducted to determine the effectiveness of self-determination skills training on academic incivility behaviors and academic engagement. Method: A pre-test/post-test control group design was performed in this quasi-experimental study. The population consisted of all-male junior high school students in the city of Borujen in the year 2018-2019, of whom 43 subjects were selected through a random cluster sampling and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The participants were then given the intervention program of self-determination skill training (Field & Hoffman, 1994) for ten 60-minute sessions. The research tools included Clark et al (2015) the academic incivility questionnaire and the Reeve academic engagement questionnaire (2013). Data analysis was performed using a multivariate analysis of covariance. Results: It was observed that the self-determination skill training significantly decreased academic incivility and increased academic engagement of the junior high school students (p= 0/001). Conclusions: Such finding suggest that implication of self-determination skill training in educational settings can positively influence the academic engagement and academic incivility. As practically possible, curriculums should include self-determination skills training and textbooks should contain motivational steps of self-determination skills

Keywords

• academic engagement
• academic incivility
• self-determination skills training
• students.