Study of the Self-Determined Motivation among Students in the Context of Online Pedagogical Activities

This article explores the self-determined motivation of a firstyear students' group in the Ben M'sik Faculty of Science as part of formative assessment in the form of quizzes using the Moodle platform. This evaluation deals particularly with the case of the "Language and Terminology" course. We used Deci and Ryan's (1985, 1991, 2000) [1, 2, 3] Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to better assess motivation in our target audience in this ICT-based learning environment. The choice of a quantitative research methodology resulted in the administration of a questionnaire at the end of Semester 1 and 2, the latter is based on the motivation scale in education [4, 5]. The results show that the use of ICTbased formative assessment in university pedagogy appears to energize the selfdetermined motivation among learners. Keywords—Motivation, Self-Determination, Formative assessment, Moodle, ICT, Interactive Quiz. 1 Context of the Study and Problem In a society where an emerging digital economy is developing, ICTs are constantly evolving, enabling collaboration, interaction or individualisation [6]. They offer enormous potential for teaching and learning [7], particularly in terms of performance, competence, motivation and academic success. Several studies have shown that learners show higher motivation for a learning activity that uses ICT than for customary approaches in the classroom [8]. This interest comes from the fact that ICTs can diversify objectives, methods, supports, projects and learning outcomes. In fact, motivation can be defined as the process by which a goal-directed activity is generated and supported [5]. In the academic environment Karsenti and al. (2001) [9] define motivation as a dynamic state whose origins lie in the perceptions that a learner has of himself/ herself and his/ her environment and which encourages him to iJET ‒ Vol. 15, No. 5, 2020 17 Paper—Study of the Self-Determined Motivation among Students in the Context of Online Pedagogical... choose an activity, carry it out and perform it ideally in order to achieve a goal or an objective In this context, the pedagogical environment and the learning model implemented by both the teacher and the social context are the determinants that are likely to significantly influence his / her behavior and his / her commitment, especially when it comes to a situation of learning marked by the integration of ICT, in this case the learner not only involved in the construction of his / her knowledge, by participating actively through the many digital tools available to him / her, but also develops his /her self-determination [10]. Nowadays, the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into the teaching and learning process is no longer an option in the Moroccan higher education system, but it becomes an obligation among the priority measures and projects included in the 2015-2030 reform’s strategic vision [11], in order to improve the quality of learning and promote the transition from a knowledge-based society to a society that produces and disseminates it. From this perspective of improving the quality of student learning and motivation within the Ben M'sik-Casablanca Faculty of Science, particularly the case of the "Language and Terminology" course where students are passive and are not motivated to learn. Our purpose so is to make the teaching of this course dynamic and motivate students. To achieve this, we adopted an innovative educational strategy based on the implementation of interactive quizzes through the tools of the Moodle platform. To deal with this new pedagogical practice, it becomes important to measure the impact of the educational use of interactive formative quizzes on the self-determined motivation of a group of students. To achieve this, we will try to answer the following research question: What influence do interactive quizzes have on the self-determined motivation in students in teaching the Language and Terminology module? 2 Theoretical Framework


Context of the Study and Problem
In a society where an emerging digital economy is developing, ICTs are constantly evolving, enabling collaboration, interaction or individualisation [6]. They offer enormous potential for teaching and learning [7], particularly in terms of performance, competence, motivation and academic success. Several studies have shown that learners show higher motivation for a learning activity that uses ICT than for customary approaches in the classroom [8]. This interest comes from the fact that ICTs can diversify objectives, methods, supports, projects and learning outcomes.
In fact, motivation can be defined as the process by which a goal-directed activity is generated and supported [5]. In the academic environment Karsenti and al. (2001) [9] define motivation as a dynamic state whose origins lie in the perceptions that a learner has of himself/ herself and his/ her environment and which encourages him to choose an activity, carry it out and perform it ideally in order to achieve a goal or an objective In this context, the pedagogical environment and the learning model implemented by both the teacher and the social context are the determinants that are likely to significantly influence his / her behavior and his / her commitment, especially when it comes to a situation of learning marked by the integration of ICT, in this case the learner not only involved in the construction of his / her knowledge, by participating actively through the many digital tools available to him / her, but also develops his /her self-determination [10].
Nowadays, the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into the teaching and learning process is no longer an option in the Moroccan higher education system, but it becomes an obligation among the priority measures and projects included in the 2015-2030 reform's strategic vision [11], in order to improve the quality of learning and promote the transition from a knowledge-based society to a society that produces and disseminates it.
From this perspective of improving the quality of student learning and motivation within the Ben M'sik-Casablanca Faculty of Science, particularly the case of the "Language and Terminology" course where students are passive and are not motivated to learn. Our purpose so is to make the teaching of this course dynamic and motivate students. To achieve this, we adopted an innovative educational strategy based on the implementation of interactive quizzes through the tools of the Moodle platform. To deal with this new pedagogical practice, it becomes important to measure the impact of the educational use of interactive formative quizzes on the self-determined motivation of a group of students. To achieve this, we will try to answer the following research question: What influence do interactive quizzes have on the self-determined motivation in students in teaching the Language and Terminology module?

2
Theoretical Framework

The motivation
In literature on learning, motivation is a key concept [12]. It can be defined as «a process of action steered towards a goal» [13] (p.5), or, more fully, as a «hypothetical concept representing physiological and psychological processes» [14] (p.215). It is generally characterized by internal and / or external forces that, depending on whether or not a goal-guided context, can influence an individual on different levels (cognitive, emotional or behavioral). This definition indicates the presence of a hypothetical construct and a process triggered by the inner behavior that depends on personal characteristics and by an external motivational force that depends on the environment that encourages him / her to engage, and external to the person himself. The degree of motivation may be «either weak or strong, varying both between individuals at specific times, and at the same person at different times, and depending on the circumstances» [15] (p.8).
According to Viau (1995) [16], the context in which the student is situated and the way he perceives it determine his motivation which, according to him, is influenced by three types of factors: the interest that the student perceives for the task or the activity to be carried out, its capacity to carry it out and finally the sources of control it holds over its course and its consequences. This idea joins the motivation theory of Deci and Ryan (1985) [1], which shows that a student's motivation is essentially influenced by his needs for self-determination, competence and affiliation.

Self-determination theory
This research concentrates on the self-determination theory developed by Deci and Ryan (1985, 1991, 2000 [1,2,3] who have focused on personality development and behavioral self-motivated change. This is an approach of human motivation and personality which sees every person as an active organism who seeks continuously and naturally to improve his/ her human potential through the discovery of new thoughts, mastery of new skills and satisfaction of his /her requirements [3]. This organism seeks to understand and explain the motivational dynamics and reasons the reasons why people choose to engage or not in an activity and to define the passive, alienated individuals carrying out their activities and / or their tasks mechanically [17]. What distinguishes active individuals from those who are passive is the result of the interaction between the active nature inherent to every individual and the different environments that fill or frustrate it. According to Deci and Ryan (1985) [1], the motivation is considered as self-determined if it reflects the actor's capacity to feel that he is responsible for his choices rather than being determined by internal or external constraints. Deci and Ryan (1985) [1] argue that there are different forms of motivation that are differentiated by their degree of self-determination, that is, the degree to which an activity is carried out with a sense of free choice, self-determination and internal consistency. They conceive three major forms of motivation organized along a continuum: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation. Each form of motivation is associated with a level of self-determined and autonomous behavior.

a) Intrinsic motivation (IM):
Is the most self-determined level of motivation that an individual can reach. This form of motivation can be defined as the desire to carry out an activity for the pleasure and satisfaction inherent in the practice of this activity [18,19]. This commitment is generally voluntary and can be explained by the personal interest that the activity represents for the individual [4].
In the field of education, it can be explained by a natural and innate tendency of the student to explore new knowledge and skills and meet new challenges [20]. The student is intrinsically motivated when he/ she performs voluntarily an activity that he / she interested in. This type of motivation is derived from the student's need to feel competent and self-determined [21,1].
According to Vallerand and Blais (1987) [22], there are three types of intrinsic motivations: the intrinsic motivation for knowledge, fulfillment and stimulation.
In this research, these three forms of intrinsic motivations are integrated into one element since they are strongly correlated [23]. b) Extrinsic motivation (EM): This form of motivation is considered as an external charge related to all that is bonus and reward. According to Deci and Ryan (1985) [1], extrinsic motivation refers to involvement in an activity for a purpose not inherent in the activity, either to remove something pleasant, or to avoid something unpleasant, once the activity is over. According to Ryan (2002, 2008) [24,17], the extrinsic motivation is sub-divided into four types of motivations based on the degree of interiorization of the reasons or causes that drive the individual to perform an activity. Among these, Vallerand and al. (1989) [4], retain only three forms classified from the highest to the lowest degree of self-determination, namely: the identified regulation; introjected regulation and external regulation.
The first extrinsic motivation has internal motives for commitment, while the two latter ones have external motives for commitment.
 Motivation with identified regulation: Is a form of regulation in which the behavior of the individual depends not only on his / her interest in a given activity, but also on the intended purpose of the activity. It implies that « the subject performs the activity because he / she considers it a worthwhile activity and recognizes the importance of his commitment» [3] (p.62). As a result, he / she then estimates whether the activity is useful or not and freely chooses to perform it in order to achieve his / her personal goals [25].  Motivation with introjected regulation: This type of motivation implies that the individual performs an activity « to avoid negative feelings, such as guilt, or to seek the approval of others» [26] (p.29). As a result, the person gradually internalizes the sources of control that were previously external to him / her. The resulting behaviors are experienced as relatively restrictive, but the individual must respect them in order to avoid feelings of guilt [27]. c) Motivation with external regulation: The most striking feature of this form is that the individual is motivated «by elements external to the activity such as material rewards or the avoidance of punishments» [3] (p.61). In this case, the individual performs an activity under the influence of external pressure such as the fear of punishment, the search for a reward, or controlled by a supervisor. The commitment is completely dependent on the presence of these external factors, as soon as they disappear; participation fades [28]. d) Amotivation: It can be defined by «the absence of any motivations in the individual» [3] (p.61). This type of motivation shows that the individual does not perceive any link between his / her behaviors and the consequences that may arise.

2.3
Interactive quizzes of formative nature to promote self-determined motivation The use of interactive quizzes is not likely to support student motivation if they return to the traditional concept of evaluation with grade. In addition, the quiz within a perspective of formative evaluation that requires especially the memorization, intellectual activity located at the base of the taxonomy of Bloom, through five types of items [29]: short answer, long answer, multiple choices, true-false, and matching. Certainly, they can motivate students to do the activities to gradually learn pedagogical content for the quiz [30]. In fact, the formative evaluation is among the most effective learning approaches, regardless of the subject area explored [31]. It aims to measure learners' level of achievement and difficulties to give feedback to the teacher and the student [32]. It can be considered as a lever to support and develop the selfregulation of learners' learning [33,34], in addition it constitutes a relevant help for teachers in order to regulate the teaching / learning process [35]. It is through repeated formative evaluation and at different degrees of difficulty that learners will come to develop their autonomy. Awareness of their own judgment encourages them to redo the activity and focus on learning [36]. Moreover, the use of technologies to make the formative quizzes is a key skill to enable students to be more successful in an educational context [7,37] and to be motivated to learn [38]. For example, the integration of ICT into the learning of university students may help motivate them if they feel more self-determined, more competent or if learning with ICTs increases their sense of affiliation [3].

3
Practical Framework

Methodology
It is to be remembered that the main goal of this research is to determine the level of self-motivation of students in the evaluation quizzes using Moodle as a platform for formative assessment. For this purpose, we opted for a quantitative approach to collected data. We present in this section the approach followed, the field of study, the target audience, the instrument used, and the techniques used to collect and process data.
The digital environment for formative assessment and the scenario adopted: To answer our problematic, we have designed a digital formative assessment space on Moodle to provide effective help to produce evaluation situations that will allow each learner to know at any time where he or she is in the construction of knowledge, as the course progresses. The scenario is based on the implementation of face-to-face courses " in-person classes" and series of tests in the form of quizzes filled in under Moodle after each course. Access is limited in time (one week to perform test) with only one attempt. Automatic feedbacks are also offered to students for continuous improvement of learning.
The experimentation was conducted for the teaching of the Language and Terminology classes for the first and second Semester in the academic year 2018-2019.
During in-person classes, students follow the course with the teacher and after each class, students are invited to perform the distance learning quizzes via Moodle. With a total of 13 tests for the first semester and 10 tests for the second semester.
The questions in each test range from 10 to 26 questions depending on the content being evaluated.

Fig. 1. Screenshot shows the number of questions (26) proposed in this quiz
In addition to the formative tests, courses and their supplements such as a glossary in relation with the themes of the subjects, are available on the platform to give students all the necessary media for learning and performing quizzes.  Formative distance assessment with feedbacks: The students take a quiz, automatic feedbacks adapted to their results advices on activities to complete the study  Regulation for improving and completion of the study: The students examine the test feedbacks and complete their lessons according to the instruction given.
The types of quizzes proposed: We proposed to the students quizzes in the form of multiple choice questions (MCQs), True / False, open questions with short answers, mad libs, drag and drop on text and matching.

Measuring instrument and data collection:
We chose as a reference the scale of motivation in education [4,5]. This scale evaluates the various forms of motivation proposed by the self-determination theory [1,2,3]. We developed a short scale (18 items) that contains five subscales: intrinsic motivation for learning (IM, for example, "because I have fun doing it."), Three subscales evaluated the extrinsic motivation, is extrinsic motivation with identified regulation (IDEN, for example, "because I think that technology will help me better understand the notions of course."), the extrinsic motivation by introjected regulation (INTRO, for example, "I do the activities on the platform to prove to me that I am an intelligent person that is able to learn by means of the platform") and the extrinsic motivation by external regulation (EXT, for example, "allows me to work better."). Finally, a subscale evaluated amotivation (AMO, for example, "I do not understand the relevance of doing activities on the platform"). A total of 18 items, including three items for the extrinsic motivation subscale, six for the extrinsic motivation by identified regulation, three for the extrinsic motivation by introjected regulation, three for the extrinsic motivation by external regulation, and three for the subscale, evaluated the amotivation.
The items describe possible reasons for doing the activities on the platform. Participants indicate their degree of agreement with the statements using a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (they do not agree with) to 7 (they agree entirely with). Participants have been formed on the scale one week before the end of semesters 1 and 2 via the Moodle platform.
Sample: This experiment was carried out for the teaching of the module "Language and Terminology" within the Faculty of Sciences Ben M'sik. Casablanca.
The subjects that make up our sample are 112 and are students enrolled in the first year of the same university:

Reliability of the measuring instrument:
We appreciate the internal consistency of the scales using Cronbach's alpha coefficient (1951) [39]. This one allows totest the coherence of each item with all the other statements of the scale to which it belongs [40] (p.183). For exploratory research, a coefficient of 0.5 or 0.6 may be considered acceptable [40]. In this study, the indices of internal coherence of subscales range from 0.54 to 0.85:  All of Cronbach's alpha coefficients (Table 1) demonstrate a very acceptable reliability of the subscales of our measuring instrument. Thus, it's a coherent instrument from a measurement point of view Average score for student motivation: The results of student motivation calculated through the analysis of the questionnaire are summarized in Table 2 and classified by type of motivation.  Table 2 shows that the identified regulation motivation score is higher than all other types of continuum motivation, which implies a preponderance of students' allocated autonomous motivation [41,42]. For Deci and Ryan (1985, 1991, 2000 [1,2,3] and Karsenti and Larose (2001) [9], these self-determined motivations foster greater interest in learning among students.
As for intrinsic motivation, students scored 4,82. This value shows that students are engaged in performing online quizzes for the sake of pleasure and satisfaction they feel when they are learning new things through the platform.
As for motivation by identification (IDEN), students obtained a score equal to 4,94. This result shows that learners are engaged in performing the quizzes because they think that this learning activity is important enough to achieve their long-term personal goals such as passing the final exam. As for the introjected regulation (INTRO), the students obtained a score of 4,85. This result shows that there were internal pressures that drive students to perform this learning activity such as fear and feeling of guilt.
As for the extrinsic motivation with external regulation (EXT), the study shows that students obtained a score of 4,73. This value shows that students 'behavior is regulated by external sources of control such as the personal goals they have already set at the beginning of the activity (having a good score on the final exam), and the teachers' feedbacks and encouragements.
Finally, for amotivation (AMOT), the sore obtained is 2,91. This value could characterize the discouragement observed among some students. It could also be explained by the fact that learners face a new learning environment they have never been used to it or by technical problems.

Discussion
The values taken from the external regulation (4,73) and the introjected regulation (4,85) remain close to remain close to those obtained through identified regulation (4,94). This means that, while the students are engaged in carrying out learning activities that they think are an important tool for achieving their personal goals (selfdetermined), they feel, on the one hand, obliged to do, since they will be rewarded (external regulation) and, on the other hand, because of internal pressures, they have decided to carry out the learning activities (introjected regulation). The study showed that the use of the platform as a means of formative assessment in teaching the language and terminology courses has increased students' feelings of self-determination. This conclusion comes to confirm the results other research we conducted on the assessment of the learners' behavioural commitment with regards to the realization of formative quizzes, this assessment relied on the analysis of trace files provided by Moodle. The choice of indicators is based on the motivation model in the educational context of [43]. We have adopted measurable and observable indicators in the digital context such as: participation and punctuality in the performance of the evaluation tests, the number of attempts (the effort) and the follow-up and completion of tests.
The data that we have collected from the traces of assessment (manifestations of behavioural commitment) show that students are positively committed themselves to perform the quizzes. In addition, the formative evaluations that are based on ICTs promote positive behavioral commitment among students [44].

Conclusion
The analysis of all the data collected showed a positive level of self-determination among students engaged in performing online quizzes, this leads us to the conclusion that ICT learning through the Moodle platform has promoted a sense of selfdetermination among students and created favorable conditions for learning.
This perception of students that establishes the positive impact of using these quizzes on their self-determination broadly implies the crucial role of pedagogical practices that mobilize ICTs on both learning and academic performance.
Finally, it should be pointed out that the limits of this research depend primarily on two criteria, namely the sample size and the number of motivational tests carried out. With regard to sample size, the few number of respondents to the questionnaire obliges us to limit our conclusions concerning the results obtained. As for the number of motivational tests performed, only one test was performed at the end of the experiment. It would have been more interesting to plan several motivational tests spread over different periods during this study (for example, at the beginning, the middle and at the end of the experiment) in order to better improve the monitoring of motivation among learners.