Comparison of the Motivation and Learning Strategies of Brunei Secondary Students in Forms 1-5 (Years 7-11): Implications for Teaching

This field survey had two main objectives.First, to determine the differences in the participants' Motivated Strategies Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) scores by gender, age, educational level, and school attended.Second, to identify patterns of the differences emerging from the research outcomes.Using a simple random sample of 310 Brunei Secondary Students in Forms 1-5 (Years 7-11, 174 females, drawn from three schools), the study compared and contrasted the participants' performance on the MSLQ.Females scored higher on seven of the 15 variables including test anxiety.Altogether, 41 significant differences were obtained by gender, age, education, and school across 11 subscales.However, no significant differences were found on four variables (self-efficacy, task value, elaboration, and peer learning).The highest scorers on external motivation were females, 12-year-olds, Year 10s, and students in School 1. Rehearsal and effort regulation were most predominant in Year 7s, Year 9s, and students in School 1.In contrast, critical thinking was more prevalent in Year 11s and students in Schools 1 and 2. The highest number of significant differences involved effort regulation and many differences in this variable were also the strongest (p< .01).Implications are discussed and further mixed-methods research using a larger sample, interview probes, and robust statistics such as confirmatory factor analysis was recommended.