Keeping Students! Motivational Drivers of Trainee Educational Professionals in a Further Education College

This thesis has the aim of defining the features of an effective learning environment. Success in higher education leads to advantages beyond the qualification; strategies that address the challenge of attrition may result in
personal and community benefit. This thesis examines the extent to which belonging to a community of practice influences motivation and learning. Social constructivist philosophy requires a qualitative interpretive approach to
data gathering to capture the lived and living learning experience. Respondents studied the Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector and the Foundation Degree in Learning Support. Data arose from episodic semi-structured interviews, a blog, group interviews and an on-line survey.
Results demonstrated that: i) students experienced fluctuation in their day-today motivation; ii) most students developed a sense of belonging based on a
shared understanding of experience; iii) some students drew on existing features of their previous successful selves to enable their success. This research contributes two key findings: i) e-motivation describes the use
of e-communication tools to motivate; ii) a new model of proximal ethnography acknowledges the significance of shared identity, of being ‘inside-out-inside’
the research. The reflexive nature of proximal ethnography sees commonalities in research rather than any dissociation between the research question and the researcher.
These results could be applied to teaching practice by improving students’ preparedness for study through normalising feelings of instability in motivation. In addition, students could be supported to reflect on past
accomplishments in order to help them succeed. Finally, this research offers the opportunity to evaluate the model of proximal ethnography, to allow the concept to be offered as a new research method with conviction.