En quoi la réalisation d’un article de journal en groupe favorise-t-elle l’engagement cognitif et la persévérance des élèves de Seconde ? Une analyse des trois sources de la dynamique motivationnelle : la perception de la valeur de l’activité, du sentiment de compétence et du degré de contrôlabilité

摘要

This professional essay aims at questioning the sources of students’ motivation through a project involving tenth grade pupils in the process of writing newspaper articles during the optional class “Social and economical sciences”. Wishing to establish a team work learning plan that would match the ten criteria for a “motivating” activity – as it has been defined by Roland Viau – our goal was to understand what source of motivation (perception of the activity’s value, perception of the skills and perception of the controllability) would contribute the most “efficiently” to the pupils’ cognitive commitment and dedication. Even though the pupils were interested in the project (which has been measured by a feedback questionnaire), it has been delicate to estimate which sources were the cause of their interest in the task. Indeed, even before pondering about the effects of these three sources of motivation, we first had to question about how the teacher can (or cannot) arouse their motivation. This analysis has lead us to reflect about our own positioning – as a novice teacher – in the experiment that we have worked on.