Investigating the Influence of Motivational Strategies on Accounting Students' Metacognitive Self-Regulated Learning: The Case of E-Flipped Classrooms

Introduction

The issue of self-regulation has long been acknowledged as a primary obstacle to the effective implementation of flipped classrooms (Wong, Yap & Md Deni, 2019; Zheng & Zhang, 2020). This challenge is even more pronounced in the fully online environment of an e-flipped classroom, where both the pre-class and in-class activities are conducted virtually. Ensuring student engagement and motivation in the e-flipped classroom becomes more complex (Wong, 2022) as it is crucial for instructors to establish a learning environment that fosters motivation and supports the use of metacognitive self-regulated learning strategies. This can significantly impact the success of students’ learning experiences in an online setting. Instructors need to be cognizant of the unique challenges posed by online learning environments and implement appropriate interventions that facilitate students’ self-regulated learning. The effective use of teaching strategy can facilitate the learning process and help students to develop self-regulatory skills that are essential for academic success (Cho & Kim, 2013; Hettiarachchi et al., 2021). Previous studies have shown that the most important component of learning in any educational environment is motivation. Even if students possess the necessary skills and strategies for self-regulated learning, their lack of motivation may hinder their willingness to employ such strategies. It is evident that simply possessing knowledge of metacognitive strategies is insufficient to promote students’ academic success. They must also be motivated to use these strategies in regulating their learning (Pintrich, 1988, 1989; Wolters, 1998; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2004).

This study which was inspired by Pintrich’s metacognitive learning strategies and was developed using a constructivist, social-cognitive view of motivation and learning strategies, assumed that students can learn the learning strategies and these strategies can be controlled by the students and the student’s motivation is dynamic and contextually bound (Duncan & McKeachie, 2005). This implies students’ motivation varies for different courses, with the same individual might report different levels of motivation or strategy use depending on the course (e.g. more interest or value in an elective course vs. a compulsory course; more efficacy for an easier course in comparison to a difficult course) and the student will use different strategy depending on the nature of the academic tasks (e.g., multiple-choice question vs. essay question). This study adopted Motivation Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) from Pintrich, Smith, García, and McKeachie (1993) which focuses on student motivation and behaviors in a specific course rather than in general, makes it a useful tool to examine how course modality, such as e-flipped instruction implemented in a course, influences student motivations to learn and the strategies they use to achieve better learning experiences.