Student motivation and social loafing in shared-graded group work: the roles of cultural values and performance

Students respond differently to shared-graded group projects in higher education. This study examined how students’ individualism, collectivism, and academic performance relate to intrinsic motivation, externally regulated motivation, social loafing, and satisfaction with the group. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 292 university students in Norway and Bangladesh. Measurement invariance and multigroup structural tests supported pooling the country samples for the parallel-mediation model. Collectivism and academic performance were associated with higher levels of both intrinsic and externally regulated motivation, together with lower social loafing. Individualism showed a different pattern, with lower intrinsic motivation and higher social loafing, but also higher externally regulated motivation. Satisfaction was positively associated with both motivation forms and negatively with social loafing. Collectivism and academic performance had positive indirect associations with satisfaction, whereas individualism’s total indirect association was nonsignificant. The findings suggest that caring about the shared grade does not necessarily imply intrinsic interest or lower loafing.