Relationships between motivation to use social network sites, relational interdependent self-construal, achievement goals, social goals, and academic performance among Malaysian adolescents

This thesis investigates the relationships between adolescents’ motivation to use social network sites (SNS), relational interdependent self-construal (RISC), social goals, achievement goals and academic performance in a Malaysian context. Motivation to learn in school is vital in energising and directing students’ learning behaviour, which is closely related to academic achievement. Besides, students’ social, cultural and environmental contexts can influence their learning motivation. Therefore, as young people spend considerable time on SNS, it is crucial to investigate the association between their SNS context, motivation to learn, and academic performance. The study explores students’ motivation to learn by examining the goals students pursue, i.e., achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, performance-avoidance) and social goals (social approval, social affiliation, social concern, social responsibility, social status). Both goals refer to the desire to do well in schools but stem from individual or social reasons. Academic performance was represented by self-reported scores of the Malay and mathematics subjects in this study. The study uses a mixed-method research design across three phases: semi-structured interviews in phase one (n= 18; Mage= 15; 50% female), instrument development in phase two using pilot survey data (n=201; Mage= 15.24; 65.7% female), and a survey in phase three (n=468; Mage= 14.87; 61.8% female). Phase one interviews explored the relational dynamics of students’ SNS context, unpacked the reasons and purposes of adolescents for using SNS, and probed into the different ways for adolescents to use SNS. The analytical process in phase one led to the decision to focus on motivation to use SNS as an aspect of students’ SNS context, which became one of the primary constructs in this thesis. In the present study, motivation to use SNS was defined as the purposes and reasons for using SNS. Simultaneously, phase one’s results were used to develop an instrument that assesses adolescents’ motivation to use SNS in phase two. Lastly, a survey was conducted in phase three to investigate the relationships between the variables. In phase one, the present study reported six motivations for using SNS, i.e., social interaction, participation, stimulation, content-subscription and exploration, emotional support, and self-expression. The survey identified content-subscriptions and exploration, and stimulation as the primary motivations for Malaysian adolescents to use SNS. This thesis spelt out the psychological needs associated with each motivation to use SNS through a more comprehensive needs framework, i.e., Dweck’s psychological needs framework (2017). Adolescents’ motivation to use SNS appeared to link with basic and compound psychological needs, which collectively serve the needs for self-coherence. Subsequently, this study suggested that psychological needs partly drove adolescents’ motivations to use SNS, and adolescents used it to strive for self-coherency. Also, it was argued that students’ developmental needs are a part of their psychological needs that drove them to use SNS. Besides, Malaysian adolescents used SNS frequently and differently in three aspects: deliberate use (purpose of use and time spent on SNS), content-selective, and audience-selective. In phase three, the present study reported positive indirect effects of motivations to use SNS on all five social goals and three achievement goals through RISC, which is the extent to which adolescents take relationships with close others into account of self-definition. Social approval goals were significantly and negatively associated with self-reported Malay language and mathematics grade scores. In contrast, mastery-approach goal was a significant positive predictor for the mathematics subjects, and performance-approach goals were significantly and positively associated with Malay and mathematics. Lastly, the performance-avoidance goal significantly negatively predicted students’ self-reported mathematics grade scores. In conclusion, this thesis argued that the SNS environment should be considered as one of the sources of social influence for adolescents’ motivation to learn. It also highlights the importance of self-construal and social goals in understanding achievement motivation among collectivist students. These findings contribute to the literature on achievement motivation and adolescents’ SNS uses in various ways.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Wong, Shu Ling

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• McLellan, Ros

• Social network sites
• Social networking sites
• Adolescents
• Motivation to learn
• Social goals
• Achievement goals
• Self-construal
• Academic performance

Licence

• https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/3a56902a-a4ec-47fc-908a-bc094ba709bb/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.113337

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/375816