Motivational shifts when moving from face-to-face to distance learning

ABSTRACT

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, science instruction in many countries, including Israel, shifted from face-to-face (F2F) instruction to distance learning (DL). DL made new professional demands on the teachers, who were largely unaccustomed to teaching in this environment. Using goal orientation theory and the TARGETS framework, this study investigated shifts in Israeli junior high school students’ science motivation, their perceptions of their science teachers’ motivational practices, and the relations between them, shifts that were associated with the transition from F2F instruction to DL. We surveyed (n = 137) and interviewed (n = 11) students who learned with the same six science teachers before (F2F instruction) and after (DL) the pandemic began. A significant drop in students’ science motivation was identified when they compared their motivation during F2F instruction to that during DL. Several changes to the students’ perceptions of their science teachers’ motivational practices in the Task, Autonomy/Authority and Time dimensions of TARGETS were identified as possible antecedents to the decline in the students’ science motivation. Recommendations are made regarding motivational practices that may support students’ science motivation, in both F2F and DL environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Motivation
• remote/online teaching/distance education (CC)
• teaching practices

Introduction

During the COVID-19 pandemic schools closed, then opened, then reclosed, and so on. Teachers in many countries, including Israel, were required to shift back and forth from face-to-face (F2F) instruction to distance learning (DL). DL made new professional demands on Israeli junior high school (JHS) science teachers, many of who were unaccustomed to teaching in such an environment (Fortus et al., 2023). In addition to the repeated closures, the general atmosphere of uncertainty and the distancing from their friends and daily routines (Uskola & Puig, 2023), it is possible that the shift from F2F instruction to DL also affected students’ motivation to study. The motivation to study science may have been particularly affected, due to the difficulty of engaging students in experimentation and other types of hands-on investigations, which have been shown to often be students’ favourite type of classroom activity in science (Bae et al., 2020). Adolescents’ science motivation has been repeatedly shown to decline during adolescence (e.g. Lofgran et al., 2015; Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2012), even in ‘normal’ (F2F) conditions. Thus, we were concerned that the pandemic may have led to an even greater decline in students’ science motivation.

There is a paucity of research into the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic affected the teaching and learning of science. This study takes a step to fill this lacuna by investigating whether Israeli (JHS) students’ science motivation changed due to the shift from F2F instruction to DL, how the students perceived any changes to their science teachers’ motivational practices, and whether there were any connections between the changes to the science teachers’ practices and their students’ science motivation.

Theoretical framework

Although students tend to enjoy science studies when they are young, in adolescence their interest in science usually declines and they may develop negative attitudes towards science (Archer et al., 2010; Jenkins, 2019). The decrease in adolescents’ motivation to engage with science is concerning as it can lead to a decline in science literacy and less interest in possible careers in science (Fortus et al., 2022).

Achievement goal theory and targets

Motivation is the process that initiates, directs and maintains goal-oriented behaviours (Schunk et al., 2012). Achievement Goal Theory is one of the main motivation theories; it has been widely used in the past decades (Bae et al., 2020), including in science education studies (Kubsch et al., 2023; Mupira & Ramnarain, 2018) and it has been shown to be an effective theory in understanding the motivation to learn at every age group (Utman, 1997). Its key construct is goal orientation, which refers to the reason why students engage in academic activities. Several versions of the theory exist (Elliot et al., 2011). In this study, we used a relatively simple version of the theory that uses two goal orientations, mastery goals and performance goals since this version of the theory has been used successfully and productively in several other JHS science motivation studies (e.g. Fortus & Touitou, 2021; Kubsch et al., 2023; Vedder-Weiss, 2017). Mastery goals refer to an individual’s purpose of developing competence, understanding or achieving a sense of mastery (Wormington & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2017). Mastery goals are associated with a range of positive characteristics, such as persistence, use of in-depth learning strategies, long-term memory, transfer of problem-solving strategies, and increased conceptual understanding (Lee et al., 2016). Performance goals refer to an individual’s purpose of demonstrating competence. Performance-oriented students are concerned with others’ perceptions of their competence and with perceptions of their ability relative to others (Wormington & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2017).

Teachers’ motivational practices are related to their students’ goal orientations (Schunk et al., 2012). Kaplan and Maehr (2007) indicated that students’ perceptions of their teachers’ goal emphases are related to their adoption of different goal orientations. Thus we assumed that if students’ perceptions of their science teachers’ motivational practices changed during the shift from F2F to DL, it is likely that we would also see changes in their goal orientations. Seven dimensions of motivational practices through which teachers convey their goal emphases to their students have been identified (Vedder-Weiss, 2017). These dimensions may also be employed by researchers to identify the motivational goals that underlie teachers’ instruction. These seven dimensions of motivational practice are represented by the acronym TARGETS: Task refers to the way in which teachers structure classroom tasks and learning activities. Authority/Autonomy refers to the degree to which the teacher dictates what happens in a lesson, or conversely, the autonomy students have in influencing classroom activities. Recognition refers to the criteria and methods that the teacher uses to recognise students in the classroom, such as if feedback is given on achievement or effort and whether this is done in private or in public. Grouping refers to the purpose, size, frequency of use and characteristics (e.g. heterogeneous or homogenous) of learning in groups. Evaluation refers to the means of the teacher's formal and informal assessment of students’ learning and behaviour. Time refers to the time that the teacher allocates for various activities, such as asking questions or preparing for exams. Social refers to teacher–student interactions – supportive personal comments, addressing conflicts, sharing personal experiences – and the teacher’s attitude to student–student interactions during lessons. For example, the following motivational practices convey the message that learning is about developing mastery: designing challenging, varied, high-order thinking assignments (Task), allowing students to choose between projects (Autonomy), and providing sufficient time to work in-depth on a project (Time).

Students’ perceptions of their teachers’ goal emphases, rather than the teachers’ actual goal emphases, are critical to understand students’ adoption of different goal orientations (Meece et al., 2006). Vedder-Weiss (2017) found that the Task, Authority/Autonomy and Time dimensions were the most prominent dimensions in students’ perceptions of their science teachers’ motivational practices; therefore, we chose this study to focus on these three dimensions. In the rest of this article, we refer to science teachers’ Task-, Autonomy/Authority-, and Time-related practices as STTATP.

Transition from F2F to DL due to COVID-19

When the COVID-19 pandemic began and many countries went into lockdown, JHS science instruction in Israel moved from F2F to DL (Our World in Data, 2023). JHS science teachers and students worldwide suddenly had to deal with a new reality, often with no past experience to draw upon in deciding how to proceed (Diaz-Clark et al., 2024; Fortus et al., 2023; Rannastu-Avalos & Siiman, 2020). Many aspects of F2F instruction are fundamentally different than DL (Wright et al., 2022). Teacher training in some countries, including Israel, dealt until then almost entirely with F2F instruction. Following the shift to DL, teachers had to find and learn new teaching strategies (Feldman & Alsultan, 2023; Fox, 2004; Wright et al., 2023). DL had existed previously in many different countries, but it usually did not include synchronous teaching, especially in K-12 education. Online instruction mainly consisted of asynchronous teaching, in which the students learned with the help of online tasks in their own time and at their own pace, without the involvement of a teacher in real-time, but only afterwards when feedback was provided (Dipietro, 2010). The main use of DL was to complement synchronous F2F instruction by granting students access to asynchronous course materials (Barbour, 2018).

During the lockdowns that took place in Israel, due to safety concerns, the Ministry of Education forbade teachers to instruct students to perform experiments at home, even if they were to be done with materials and tools that are readily available at home. Later on, after this study was completed, these regulations were changed and home experiments were permitted, as long as the parents had given their written agreement.

Online training sessions were provided to teachers to help them deal with the new situation. Many teachers collaborated and shared teaching materials, most of which were ready-made and found online and were characterised as being teacher-focused, rather than student-focused (Aslan et al., 2021). Due to the shift from F2F instruction to DL, university students reported being easily distracted, complained of reduced interaction with their teachers, and difficulties in discipline and self-management (Sahin & Shelley, 2020), issues that could have been even more challenging for JHS students. Chiu (2021) showed that the most important needs for students in DL are strong relationships between teachers and students and between the students themselves.

To summarise: during the COVID-19 pandemic, instruction shifted from F2F to DL. Due to this shift, we hypothesised that science teachers’ motivational practices, in particular, reflected by the nature of the tasks they introduced, their ability to provide their students a sense of autonomy and their management of time, may have led to changes in their students’ perceptions of their teachers’ goal emphases, with this driving changes to the students’ personal goal orientation in science.

Research questions

1. How did students’ goal orientations towards science learning change during the shift from F2F to DL during the COVID-19 pandemic?

2. How did STTATP, as perceived by their students, differ during F2F instruction and DL?

3. Which of the STTATP, as perceived by the students, were significant predictors of students’ goal orientations towards science learning in both F2F instruction and in DL?

4. Which shifts in STTATP, as perceived by the students, predicted shifts in students’ goal orientations towards science learning?

Methods

Participants

So that any changes we might identify would be due primarily to the F2F/DL transition and not to having different science teachers, we enlisted six 8th-grade science teachers from 4 different JHSs in Israel who had taught the same students (n = 137) before and after the pandemic began, meaning that they had taught the participants F2F in 7th grade for about 2/3 of the school year (until the pandemic began) and then in DL for the rest of 7th grade and in 8th grade, until the study was held. We contacted the Israeli national JHS science teacher’s centre and received from their names of teachers who had the reputation of being excellent teachers in F2F instruction, and teachers who were known to foster their students’ motivation to engage with science in F2F instruction. We assumed that the potential of learning from these teachers about the motivational challenges related to the F2F/DL transition would be greater than if we worked with teachers whose students were not as motivated to engage with science learning to begin with in F2F instruction. That is, we assumed that the odds of seeing a significant shift in students’ motivation to engage with science would be greater if we studied students who were, to begin with, motivated to engage with science in F2F instruction than if we looked at students who were not as motivated to begin with in F2F instruction. So, we focused on teachers whose student was reputed to be motivated in F2F instruction.

We contacted these teachers and six of them agreed to participate in the study. The teachers’ teaching experience was varied; however, all their experience was in F2F teaching: one male teacher with nine years’ experience, five female teachers, two with three years’ experience, one with 14 years’ experience, and two with twenty years’ experience. We interviewed 11 of their students (eight females and three males), two students per teacher except for one teacher from whom we interviewed a single student. All the interviewees were recommended by their teachers as being verbal and expressive, with average learning abilities.

Instruments

Students’ survey

A survey consisting of Likert-type items, each with 5 levels, was administered online in the middle of the 2020–2021 school year, during January 2021, while instruction was being done through DL. The survey consisted of two parts, consisting of 26 paired items in total. One part focused on students’ goal orientations towards science learning in both F2F and DL environments (6 paired items on mastery orientation, 4 paired items on performance orientation). The second part focused on students’ perceptions of their STTATP in both F2F and DL environments (7 paired items addressed the Task dimension, 4 addressed the Autonomy/Authority dimension, and 5 addressed the Time dimension). All items were presented as paired statements, one addressing F2F instruction and the other DL. For example, ‘It’s important to me that I look smart compared to others in my F2F/DL science lessons.’ Thus, students’ responses to each item were always given while contrasting F2F and DL. All the items were drawn from existing validated scales that had been used before with a similar population (Vedder-Weiss, 2017; Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2012), except that until this study they had been used only for F2F instruction. All items were re-validated using the cognitive pretesting procedure (Karabenick et al., 2007). Sample items are available in online supplement S1.

Students’ interviews

We interviewed each student once online. The interviews aimed to identify any shifts that may have occurred, from the students’ perspective, in their STTATP. The interviews were semi-structured and audio-recorded, began with questions that probed students’ likes/dislikes of science lessons, and moved on to their perceptions of their teachers’ behaviours and motivational practices in DL and F2F lessons. The interviews lasted 25–45 minutes. Example questions asked of the interviewees are available in online supplement S2.

Analyses

Survey

Interclass correlation (ICC) was calculated for each item to determine whether the nesting of students under different teachers led to significant variation at the class level. ICCs were less than 10% for all the items except for 3. These were excluded from further analysis. Of the remaining 23 items, 20 had an ICC smaller than 5%. The data from these 23 items were combined into a single data set.

To validate the structure of items addressing personal goal orientation, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was run with varimax rotation. Two factors were identified: one focusing on mastery orientation and one focusing on performance orientation. Individual student values for these factors were calculated.

Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for each construct, giving .87 for the mastery orientation construct and .90 for the performance orientation construct. Paired t-tests were run to identify whether changes had occurred during the F2F/DL transition (RQ1 & RQ2). Multiple linear regression was used to identify significant relations between the students’ perceptions of their STTATP and their goal orientations in the different learning environments (RQ3) and between the shifts to these variables (RQ4).

Student interviews

The interviews were transcribed, read several times, and segmented into analysis units, each expressing either a student’s experience or attitude towards science learning in F2F and DL environments or their perceptions of their STTATP (Chi, 1997). Based on their content, the segments were clustered into categories drawn from the literature – the TARGETS instructional dimensions, the F2F or the DL environments, goal orientations towards science learning, and whether the statement expressed a positive, negative, or neutral attitude or experience. Each segment could be located in more than one category. The categorisation of the segments was semantically validated by two additional researchers (Bauer & Gaskell, 2000). Disagreements were discussed until all were resolved (Bishop, 2021; Cypress, 2017).

Results

RQ1: How did students’ goal orientations towards science learning change during the shift from F2F to DL?

Paired t-tests identified a significant decrease in students’ mastery orientation in science during the shift from F2F to DL, t(135) = 3.90, p < .001, ES = .33, and in their performance orientation in science, t(135) = 2.74, p = .007, ES = .24.

RQ2: How did STTATP, as perceived by their students, change during the shift from F2F to DL?

We compared student’s survey responses to each item, one relating to F2F instruction and the other relating to DL, to see where significant changes had occurred to their perceptions of their STTATP. The results are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Comparing students’ perceptions of F2F and DL environments^a

Targets dimension	Item	t	p – value	ES
Autonomy/authority	Our science teacher lets us choose how to submit assignments	0.76	n.s.	0.07
Autonomy/authority	Our science teacher lets us choose with whom to work	5.04	***	0.43
Autonomy/authority	Our science teacher decides with whom we shall work	−3.09	**	0.27
Autonomy/authority	Our teacher decides on which topic we will focus	1.52	ns	0.13
Time	I don’t fully understand things and already the teacher moves on	−4.58	***	0.39
Time	Our teacher spends lots of time preparing us for tests	2.36	*	0.20
Time	Our teacher says: ‘We don’t have enough time’	−1.65	n.s.	0.14
Time	We have time to ask questions	2.59	*	0.22
Time	I have time to understand what we are learning	4.68	***	0.40
Task	Most of the time the teacher talks and we have to listen	−3.56	***	0.30
Task	Our teacher gives us workbook assignments	7.90	***	0.68
Task	Our teacher lets us do experiments or make observations	14.5	***	1.24
Task	Our science teacher lets us prepare a presentation	0.83	n.s.	0.07
Task	Our teacher lets us make models	6.97	***	0.60
Task	Our science teacher lets us work in groups	3.97	***	0.34
Task	Our teachers gives us outdoors assignments	10.83	***	0.93

^a Positive t-values indicate a decrease in the perception from F2F to DL. df = 135 for all comparisons. *** < .001; ** < .01; * < .05; n.s. = non-significant.

The following subsections are organised by categories identified from the analysis of the student interviews. The quantitative results from the analysis of the students’ survey for each category are accompanied by a description of the qualitative findings and example quotes.

Task dimension

Task diversity.

The survey included items dealing with the frequency of different types of tasks: ‘Our teacher gives us outdoor assignments during F2F/DL science lessons.’ A paired t-test identified a significant decrease in the frequency of this type of task from F2F do DL, t(135) = 10.83, p < .001, ES = .93. Also, ‘Our teacher gives us workbook assignments in F2F/DL science lessons.’ A paired t-test identified a significant increase in the frequency of this type of task from F2F do DL, t(135) = −7.90, p < .001, ES = 0.68.

The students were asked in the interviews about activities and assignments they did in science lessons. Regarding the F2F environment, they mentioned games, drawing in their notebooks and on the board, watching informational videos, an embodied demonstration using the students as particles, and preparing presentations and experiments.

In class the teacher would always see that if a lot of lessons we did not do something active and experiential enough, she would do an experiment.

For the DL environment, they mentioned fewer tasks, such as teacher demonstrations, informative videos, and drawings.

The teachers are less creative in DL. They are more fixed on things that can be done through the screen. At school we had the class and we had the lab where we could do all kinds of experiments. DL is more superficial, like presentations and stuff.

Experiments.

The survey included an item dealing with experimentation as a task dimension: ‘Our teacher lets us do experiments or make observations in F2F/DL science lessons.’ A paired t-test identified a significant decrease in the frequency of this type of task from F2F do DL, t(135) = 14.5, p < .001, ES = 1.24.

All the students referred to experiments as a central part of F2F lessons and something they enjoyed. Some said they did the experiments themselves; others said the teacher demonstrated them.

I like science lessons because we do lots of experiments. We look at the experiments in disbelief and then the teacher goes to the board and explains to us how this happens, why it happens.

Some students spoke of teacher-led demos as an activity they especially liked in DL. Some showed students a video of an experiment. One teacher let her students do experiments at their homes and share them with the rest of the students. But in general, the students said that they missed the experiments they had done in F2F learning: ‘In DL there are no experiments, even though we like experiments.’

Personalising instruction.

The students emphasised the disadvantages and challenges of DL, such as sitting in front of a computer for hours, the fact that most of the lesson the teacher talks, that the learning is superficial, and that there is almost no communication between peers: ‘The teacher has more ways to explain and reach individual students in the F2F lesson. In DL it is difficult to understand what is being taught’. The survey included this item: ‘Most of the time in F2F/DL science lessons the teacher talks, and we have to listen.’ A paired t-test identified a significant increase in this task from F2F do DL, t(135) = −3.56, p < .001, ES = 0.30.

Some students said that in DL the teacher could teach students individually, helping them internalise what was being learned and gain confidence: the teacher gave the class a task and then opened a separate breakout room for a personal lesson with one or more students.

I wrote to her that I was having a bit of a hard time with the subject we were studying, so she invited me to a personal lesson and explained things to me … suddenly I realized it wasn’t that complicated.

Autonomy/authority dimension

Choosing a topic or an assignment

When students were asked about the possibility of choosing a topic to study or the way of submitting an assignment, they answered negatively for both environments: ‘There was no real choice, but we probably wouldn’t have known what to choose anyway.’ There was no item on the survey that addressed this issue.

Choosing with whom to work

The survey included two oppositely worded items dealing with the choice with whom to work: ‘Our science teacher lets us choose with whom to work during F2F/DL lessons’ and ‘Our teacher decides with whom we will work in F2F/DL science lessons.’ Paired t-tests identified a significant decrease in the frequency of students being given this choice, t(135) = 5.04, p < .001, ES  = 0.43 and a significant increase in the teacher making this choice, t(135) = −3.09, p = .001, ES = 0.27.

Half of the students said that they could choose with whom to work on an assignment or in a lab in F2F lessons: ‘Most of the time the teacher allows us to choose whom to work with so that we can have fun while learning.’ On the other hand, in DL they were hardly allowed to choose with whom to work: ‘We don’t choose whom to work with in Zoom breakout rooms, there is an automatic division.’ Or ‘The teacher divides us into Zoom breakout rooms because if we would choose, it would be a mess.’

Choosing when to eat, drink or go to the bathroom

Students said that when they learn from home, they have the freedom to eat, drink or use the bathroom, which they do not have while learning in class. This issue was not addressed in the survey.

Time dimension

The students were asked in the interviews if they have time limitations, time pressure, and whether the teacher is flexible with time. Almost all felt that in F2F instruction the teachers taught calmly, without time pressure: ‘Sometimes the teacher said: “Oh, we did not do that,” “I wanted to do that,” and that's it. Then she would say, “We'll do that in the next lesson.”’

This calmness was typical of DL lessons as well:

She sometimes says what she plans for today’s lesson and a lot of kids get stuck, don’t understand, get stressed and ask lots of questions, so she says: “We didn't get to learn everything, we’ll continue in the next lesson.”

Opportunities to ask questions

The survey included the following item: ‘We have time to ask questions during F2F/DL science lessons.’ A paired t-test identified a significant decrease from F2F to DL, t(135) = 2.59, p = .005, ES = 0.22.

The students said their teachers gave them many opportunities to ask questions in F2F learning: ‘In class you raise a hand to ask a question, the teacher chooses who to answer first, and after a few minutes everyone is satisfied.’

Some students reported there is enough time in DL lessons for the teachers to respond to their questions.

She asks if anyone did not understand, if she needs to repeat the explanation … She does not give us too many tasks, she allows us to rest, gives us time to write everything down, asks us questions to see if we have understood, and if not, she repeats the material.

However, some students said they do not ask questions during DL lessons: ‘It’s less convenient to ask questions in Zoom’; ‘It gets stuck and I get upset’; ‘It is not pleasant to ask another question because there are many more students waiting to ask questions’; and ‘It's not the best thing in the world to stop the teacher during a Zoom lesson, because she's in the middle of sharing her screen or something.’

You raise your hand if you have a question in a Zoom lesson, but no one really notices, because the teacher sees a bunch of small squares, then someone talks and suddenly everybody wants to talk. It takes a lot of time until everyone asks what they want.

Deadlines for submitting assignments

The students said that in DL there are deadlines for submitting assignments in all subjects. Assignments were regularly given in DL, as opposed to not always getting homework in science when studying F2F: ‘In DL there is a time allocated to each task, in contrast to F2F learning, where if students do not complete a task, we can continue working on it the next lesson.’ ‘In F2F there is no pressure to get things done as there is in DL because you know that there is a routine, unlike DL which is full of unexpected distractions.’

However, the students reported that their science teachers were attentive and allowed them to submit the assignments late if there was a valid reason:

I submitted late … she (the science teacher) told me it's better for me to submit late than not to submit at all. She understands the pressure, unlike other teachers who will fail you if you do not submit on time. She even gave me a good grade for the assignment! It really made me happy.

Time to understand

Although students said that their teachers gave them enough time to understand the material in both F2F and DL, they emphasised that this was more possible in F2F lessons.

In F2F, if you don’t understand, you have this personal eye contact with the teacher, he sees that you don’t understand, and you don’t have to say a third time “I didn’t understand.” He explains it to you again, maybe another way or maybe again the same way.

The survey included two items dealing with this issue: (A) ‘I have time to understand what we are learning in F2F/DL science lessons.’ A paired t-test identified a significant decrease from F2F do DL, t(135) = 4.68, p < .001, ES = 0.40; and (B) ‘I don’t fully understand things and already the teacher moves on in F2F/DL science lessons.’ A paired t-test identified a significant increase from F2F do DL, t(135) = −4.58, p < .001, ES = 0.39.

RQ3: Which of the STTATP were related to students’ goal orientations towards science learning in both learning environments?

Multiple linear regression was run on students’ mastery orientation and performance orientation, first looking at these constructs in F2F, then in DL, using the students’ perceptions of their science teachers’ mastery-emphasising and performance-emphasising practices, respectively, as predictors.

Mastery orientation

Three items significantly predicted students’ mastery orientation in F2F instruction: (A) ‘Our science teacher lets us choose with whom to work during F2F lessons,’ β = .18, t(134) = 1.90, p = .030 – Autonomy/Authority; (B) ‘I have time to understand what we are learning in F2F science lessons,’ β = .26, t(134) = 2.07, p = .002 – Time; and (C) ‘Our teacher lets us do experiments or make observations in F2F science lessons,’ β = .17, t(134) = 1.83, p = .035 – Task.

Two items significantly predicted students’ mastery orientation in DL: (A) ‘Our science teacher lets us choose how to submit assignments in DL,’ β = .16, t(134) = 2.10, p = .019 – Autonomy/Authority, and (B) ‘I have time to understand what we are learning in DL science lessons,’ β = .44, t(134) = 4.52, p < .001 – Time.

Performance orientation

Two items significantly predicted students’ performance orientation in F2F instruction: (A) ‘Our science teacher lets us choose with whom to work during F2F lessons,’ β = .20, t(134) = 2.07, p = .020 – Autonomy/Authority, and (B) ‘Our teacher lets us do experiments or make observations in F2F/DL science lessons,’ β = −.18, t(134) = 1.75, p = .041 – Task.

No items significantly predicted students’ performance orientation in DL.

RQ4: Which shifts in STTATP were related to the shifts in students’ goal orientations towards science learning?

Multiple linear regression was run on the shifts to students’ mastery orientation and performance orientation, using the shifts to students’ perceptions of their STTATP as predictors. A shift is defined as the difference between the value of a variable in F2F and its value in DL.

Mastery orientation

The changes to two items were significant predictors of the change to students’ mastery orientation: (A) ‘Our science teacher lets us choose with whom to work during science lessons,’ β = −.22, t(134) = 2.79, p = .003 and (B) ‘I have time to understand what we are learning in science lessons,’ β = .46, t(134) = 4.67, p < .001.

Performance orientation

No changes to any items significantly predicted the changes to students’ performance orientation.

Discussion

During the COVID-19 pandemic instruction shifted from F2F to DL. Due to this shift, we hypothesised that science teachers’ motivational practices, in particular, reflected by the nature of the tasks they introduced, their ability to provide their students a sense of autonomy and their management of time, may have led to changes in their students’ perceptions of their teachers’ goal emphases, with this driving changes to the students’ personal goal orientation in science. The following sections first discuss the shifts to students’ goal orientations towards science during the transition from F2F instruction to DL and then their perceptions of their STTATP, changes to their STTATP during the transition from F2F instruction to DL, and the relations between STTATP and the students’ goal orientations.

Changes to students’ goal orientations towards science during the shift from F2F to DL

The survey indicated that both the students’ mastery orientation and their performance orientation towards science decreased significantly during the F2F/DL transition. While students’ mastery orientation towards science usually declines during late elementary school and during JHS, the decline identified in this study was larger than those that were found in past studies with a similar population (Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2011, p. 2012). Because the magnitude of the decline in mastery orientation we identified is larger than typical, and because past studies showed that students’ performance orientation towards science does not typically change during JHS (Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2012), while we identified a significant decline in performance orientation, we doubt that our results are the result of the typical changes that occur during adolescence. Thus, we believe that the transition from F2F instruction to DL led to a bigger decline in students’ goal orientations towards science than typically occurs during JHS.

Students’ perceptions of changes to STTATP in the F2F/DL transition and their relations to changes in the students’ goal orientations towards science

Task dimension

During the lockdowns that took place in Israel, the Ministry of Education forbade teachers to instruct students to perform experiments at home, even if they were to be done with materials and tools that are readily available at home. Many students reported that experiments were a particularly favourite part of their F2F classroom experience and that their teachers did significantly fewer experiments in DL than in F2F instruction. Bolte et al. (2013) and Bryan et al. (2011) claimed that motivation in school can be enhanced by attractive activities, such as experiments. The frequency of experimentation was identified in this study as a significant predictor of students’ mastery orientation and performance orientation in F2F instruction, but not in DL, presumably because there was very little experimentation at all in DL.

Experimentation was not the only type of activity that students reported appearing less in teachers’ DL repertoire. Students reported that in general, F2F instruction offered more diverse teaching possibilities than DL. Research has shown that using diverse lesson tasks fosters mastery orientation (Marshall & Weinstein, 1984). The students also reported that their teachers spent less time preparing them for tests. Presumably, because the Ministry of Education in Israel cancelled all external high-stakes assessments in JHS shortly after the outbreak of the pandemic, the teachers decreased the amount of time they spent preparing the students for tests. Emphasising tests less in DL than in F2F instruction may have led to a decline in the students’ performance orientation in science (particularly with respect to their competitiveness).

The students mentioned that the teachers used their time differently during DL than during F2F instruction and identified the benefits of the flexibility provided by DL, which could support individual student needs (Bishop, 2021); they reported that the teachers were able to give personal lessons to students when needed, either to improve their understanding of the material being learned or even for enrichment, and they were able to answer question in private rather than in public, using the Breakout Rooms or Chat feature in Zoom or WhatsApp. This was in contrast to F2F instruction, which required the teacher to occupy and be attentive to all students at the same time (Kaden, 2020).

Students noted a significant advantage in teaching F2F: it was easier for them to understand the teachers’ explanations when they were in an F2F environment than when they were following the teacher through a screen. Haataja et al. (2019) claim that students and teachers benefit greatly when making eye contact and seeing others’ gestures in F2F teaching. This interaction with students helps to improve students’ learning. This type of interaction does not exist in DL, even if all the students’ webcams are active.

The students emphasised many of the disadvantages of DL. The students perceived the teaching as being more superficial, they felt that in-depth learning was not done as in the past, in F2F instruction.

Niess and Gillow-Wiles (2021) found that during the transition to DL, teachers were engaged in learning how to use new technological tools, but did not always pay attention to other changes in their teaching that were required to take advantage of these tools. The students felt that the teachers spoke more of the time in the DL lessons than in the F2F lessons. These two points made them feel less active and may have reduced their mastery orientation. Active student involvement in lessons is a central feature of mastery goal lesson structure (Lüftenegger et al., 2014).

Autonomy dimension

Both in the survey and in the interviews, the students noted a significant decrease in the autonomy given to them by their teachers, primarily regarding the choice with whom to work. If the teachers decide to give an assignment in pairs or in groups, in F2F instruction they often let the students choose with whom to work, while in DL, they usually let the online system (Zoom) divide the students automatically into breakout rooms rather than doing so manually. The autonomy to choose with whom to work was a significant predictor of both the students’ mastery orientation and their performance orientation in F2F instruction. Autonomy-supportive teaching can lead to higher motivation (Hofferber et al., 2016). Letting students choose with whom to work in groups increases their motivation to learn (Ciani et al., 2008). The change to this sense of autonomy was a significant predictor of the decline in the students’ mastery orientation in the F2F/DL transition. Past studies have indicated that fostering students’ sense of autonomy is an important motivational practice (Anderson, 2016; Vedder-Weiss, 2017). Due to its significance in predicting students’ mastery orientation in both learning environments and the changes between the environments, we conclude that this aspect of autonomy played a central role in shaping students’ motivation and should be given serious consideration by teachers in the future.

Thanks to a change in the physical space in which the lessons were held, learning in classes at school versus learning at home, a new kind of autonomy was given to students: the freedom to choose to get a drink or to go to the bathroom whenever the student wanted, something which is often not allowed in F2F learning, where students typically need to receive the teacher’s permission before they can get a drink or go to the bathroom.

Time dimension

All of the interviewed students said their teachers created a relaxed atmosphere, answered their questions, repeated explanations as needed, and adapted their lesson plans if the students stated a need to repeat something they learned. This feeling of a relaxed atmosphere, with time for the students to develop understanding, was present in both F2F and DL. The creation of a pleasant and peaceful atmosphere that supports the development of understanding leads to enhanced mastery goal orientations (Urdan & Schoenfelder, 2006). However, there was a disconnect between the teacher's intention to allow questions to be asked and answered, as perceived by the students, and described in their interviews, and a decrease in the availability of enough time to ask questions and understand what is being learned in the transition from F2F instruction to DL, according to the survey results.

Some of the interviewed students emphasised that asking questions and constructing understanding were more possible in F2F instruction than in DL lessons. They reported that they sometimes felt unpleasant interrupting the teacher to ask a question, to stop or slow down the progress of the lesson. If many children wanted to ask questions, you had to wait patiently until your turn came. The process of asking questions and getting an answer takes longer in DL than in F2F instruction, so if you were not one of the first children to ask a question, you may have felt uncomfortable that so much time was being spent on questions and choosing not to ask your question. Sometimes there were internet connection problems that prevented the students from asking questions or that caused them to miss an explanation, and they didn’t feel comfortable asking the teacher to repeat it again. Sørum et al. (2021) found that in DL even college students have a higher threshold to asking questions and overall become much less active.

In addition, students said in the interviews that if they did not complete a task during a F2F lesson, the teacher would usually allow them to continue in the next lesson. Regarding DL, they raised the difficulty of time pressure in submitting assignments in science and all other topics which created a sense of pressure. However, they all reported that their science teachers, in contrast with many of their other teachers, allowed them, if the need arose here and there, to submit assignments late, stating that the teachers were considerate and conveyed a message of calmness and flexibility, which encourages mastery orientation.

An advantage of F2F that was mentioned was the personal eye contact the teacher has with the students. This way, she can see who does not understand, who is not focused and who needs to be encouraged; she can see every raised hand which is often very difficult to do on a screen (Haataja et al., 2019).

The survey results indicate that students’ mastery orientation, both in F2F instruction and in DL, was predicted by the time they felt they had to make sense of the topics being learned, to develop understanding. In addition, the decrease in students’ mastery orientation, when transiting from F2F instruction to DL, was significantly related to the decrease in students’ perceptions of the time they had to develop this understanding. Thus, it appears that time plays a central role in shaping students’ mastery orientation, both in the time available to ask questions and in the time available to develop understanding. No doubt there is an overlap between these times. As students feel less comfortable or less able to ask questions, they may become frustrated at not fully understanding. This frustration can decrease the drive to ask additional questions (to prevent further states of frustration) and the drive to understand (a decrease in their mastery orientation). According to Ryan and Pintrich (1997), mastery-oriented students seek help and ask questions, because they recognise it as a useful strategy for learning, unlike performance-oriented students that believe that seeking help may be an indication of a lack of ability and lead to negative judgments of themselves. A student who wants to seek help by asking questions but feels that the teacher is less accessible in DL, may, with the passage of time, lose the drive to ask questions. From the interviews and the survey, it appears that even if the students felt that there was enough time to ask questions, they still chose to ask questions less frequently in DL, due to discomfort and a reluctance to interrupt the lesson.

Recommendations

Past studies have shown that science teachers play central roles in shaping students’ motivation to engage with science (Swarat et al., 2012; Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2013). This raises the question to what degree the decline we identified resulted from constraints imposed on the teachers and the students by the instructional environment that could have been rectified if the teachers had more preparation and experience in teaching through DL. Our findings indicate that some of these constraints could have been rectified, had the teachers received proper guidance. While none of the motivational practices discussed above are new, it appears that some play a greater role than others in shaping JHS students’ goal orientations towards science and are relevant in both F2F instruction and in DL, and likely also in hybrid teaching (a combination of F2F and DL).

The recommendations we provide are:

Task dimension

1. JHS students like experiments. It is important to integrate experiments in instruction, both F2F and DL. The relative paucity of experiments in DL was indicative of students’ decreasing motivation. It is important for teachers to provide opportunities for students to be actively engaged, also in DL environments (Carrillo & Flores, 2020).

Autonomy/authority dimension

• 2. It is important to allow students to be able to choose with whom to work when they work in groups or in pairs. The freedom to choose with whom to work is a predictor of mastery orientation. Practices associated with the Authority/Autonomy dimension exert a significant influence on adolescents’ motivation for science learning in classroom settings, particularly those emphasising mastery goals (Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2018).

Time dimension

• 3. Students need time to ask questions. It is important to allow students to ask questions also outside of lesson time, especially in DL, because they may feel uncomfortable asking questions and disrupting the flow of the lesson. Having the time and the ability to ask questions was a major predictor of students’ mastery orientation.

• 4. Students want to understand, but developing understanding takes time. It is important to provide enough time for students to fully understand before moving; not doing so is frustrating and dampens students’ mastery orientation. In Hebebci and colleague’s (2020) review of DL, the time dimension received prominence as a challenge in understanding the subject matter and Insufficient time.

General

• 5. Science teachers should be patient, considerate and create a pleasant classroom atmosphere. These characteristics are supportive of, and may be crucial, to the value of the motivational practices listed below. Numerous studies of DL indicate the predominant significance of social presence, underscoring the impact of this factor on the efficacy of teaching and learning processes (Carrillo & Flores, 2020).

Limitations

Unlike past studies that measured goal orientations at two different time points (e.g. Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2012), this study is based on measurements made at a single time point, with the students reflecting on their goal orientation now, at the time the survey was administered (DL) in comparison to how they remembered their goal orientations about nine months ago (F2F). This is often called the retrospective pre-test model (Allen & Nimon, 2007). This model has advantages over the traditional pre-posttest model, primarily by providing the same frame of reference for both pre – and post (i.e. F2F and DL) goal orientations. On the other hand, it relies on recall rather than one’s present perceptions (Howard, 1980). Studies have shown (e.g. Pratt et al., 2000) that when there is a potential for shifts in one’s frame of reference, which is the case in this study, a retrospective model is preferable, especially when one is interested in participants’ perceptions of changes that have occurred.

We realise that the three TARGETS dimensions on which we focused cannot entirely explain the changes to the participants’ goal orientations, but that additional variables such as social isolation, inconvenience interacting in online environments, and other variables that were not school – or teacher-driven likely played a role in the participants’ shifting goal orientations. This study does not claim that the three TARGETS dimensions on which we focused were the sole, or even the main predictors of student’s declining goal orientations, just that these dimensions played statistically significant roles in these declines.

Ethical approval

This study was approved by the Ministry of Education, number CRM: 020001000001031. We informed all participants’ parents of the study; none objected to their child’s participation. Written consent was received from the parents of each interviewed student.

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by Miel de Botton.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).