Abstract

This paper explores the effects that different approaches to schooling may be having on students’ motivational beliefs underlying learning. In recent decades there has been an increase amount of evidence showing the relevance learning motivational beliefs have on students’ learning achievements. Within this area of research there is a perspective that has been looking at how different classrooms’ motivational climates, as promoted by teachers, may be having a role in the type of learning motivational beliefs students endorse. This study expands the latter tradition by including culture in the equation. It puts the English and Chilean schooling approaches to the test, comparing them in terms of the type of learning motivational beliefs they promote. In particular, this paper explores young students’ beliefs related to personal epistemologies (beliefs about knowledge and knowing), beliefs about intelligence (what is it and what is to be intelligent), as well as their learning orientation towards mastery versus performance (learning for improvement versus learning for demonstrating personal capacities to others). Two weeks of observation and participation in the classroom life of the participating students provided information enabling a description of the Chilean and English schooling approaches. In order to explore students’ learning motivational beliefs, semi-structured interviews were carried out with six students from each participating classroom. These students were regarded by their teachers as low and high in relation to the frequency in which they demonstrated learning attitudes and behaviours coherent with learning to learn abilities. The study includes a total of 36 eight to nine years old belonging to six different classrooms. The classrooms were from six different schools that attended children from different socio-economic realities in both Chile and England. As the data analysis is being carried out, results will be addressed in the symposium.