Motivation and writing in higher education among multilingual students: A scoping review

Abstract

Motivation is needed to develop advanced language use; however, its relation to academic writing in higher education (HE) among multilinguals is not clear. This Scoping Review aims at elucidating how research has been conducted in this understudied field. Our research questions are: 1) Which are the main theoretical models within the motivational research area that have been applied to understand writing among multilingual students in HE? 2) Which methodological approaches have been implemented? 3) What are these studies’ main results? Our search will allow us to detect knowledge gaps, clarify concepts and investigate the main methodological trends*.

Rationale: The obtainment of good results in HE is highly dependent on the mastery of advanced levels of literacy. Furthermore, writing in HE has proven to be challenging for several reasons, such as unfamiliarity with the academic discourse. Among multilinguals whose L1 is not the majority language, a lack of knowledge of academic writing conventions has been observed**. Strikingly, and in spite of increasing numbers of multilingual students in Swedish HE, the question on how they navigate the demands of academic writing remains unanswered. To account for the theoretical definitions applied in motivation research, our search strings include instrumental/ integrative motivation, the L2 motivational self system (L2MSS)*** and self-determination theory. Our search has been conducted in several databases. Identified publications have undergone duplicate removal, abstract screening, and application of inclusion/exclusion criteria following Prisma's (2018) guidelines for systematic reviews/scoping reviews. The studies have been coded, screened and analyzed jointly by the researchers to increase validity. Preliminary results indicate that the main theoretical strands are inspired by the L2MSS and that quantitative approaches prevail. Interdisciplinary methodologies that consider the multilinguals’ conditions seem to be scarce.