Undergraduates’ motivations to engage in extracurricular research: Evidence from Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This qualitative case study examined a group of undergraduate students’ motivations towards extracurricular research in a Hong Kong university. Drawing upon data from semi-structured interviews, this study analysed the students’ motivation change from the cognitive, social, and affective perspective. The findings revealed that the students were externally and internally motivated to join informal research activities and that their motivation change was intertwined with their cognitive learning, social interactions, and emotional experiences in the research process. The paper concluded with practical implications on supporting and sustaining undergraduates’ motivations in extracurricular research activities to benefit their academic studies and future work.

KEYWORDS:

• Undergraduate students
• motivation
• extracurricular research activities
• higher education

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on a research project supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China [EdUHK 18603618].

Notes on contributors

Rui Yuan

Rui Yuan is an associate professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Macau. His research focuses on teacher education and English medium instruction in higher education.

Min Yang

Min Yang is an assistant professor in The Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Chung Cheng University. Her research focuses on academic writing and language teacher education.

Pauline Mak

Pauline Mak is an assistant professor in the Department of English Language Education at the Education University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include second language writing and language teacher education.