Investigating motivational fluctuation and dropout among talented primary school children in a self-paced online mathematics course

Abstract Many students disengage from mathematics throughout their school careers, a pattern often attributed to declines in motivation. While long-term motivational trajectories are well documented, far less is known about short-term motivational fluctuations in self-paced online courses; a setting that becomes increasingly popular in mathematics education and which places high demands on learners’ autonomy, possibly increasing the risk of disengagement when motivation decreases. Drawing on situated expectancy-value theory, we investigated the relations between dispositional (trait-like) motivation, situational (state-like) motivation, and parental help in an extracurricular enrichment online course designed to foster children’s proof competency. Longitudinal data from 159 talented primary school students indicated considerable within-person variability in motivation. Dispositional motivation at the beginning of the course was only modestly related to children’s average situational motivation during the course. Notably, across different course sections, motivational declines seemed more pronounced when students encountered cognitively demanding content (e.g., construction of formal-deductive proofs). For situational utility value—children’s perceived usefulness of the specific course section for school life—parental help emerged as a critical moderator, significantly buffering declines between two mid-course sections. Critically, our data indicated high dropout rates among children. Survival analyses suggested that greater situational motivation (particularly self-concept), but not greater dispositional motivation, reduced the risk of dropout, highlighting the importance of momentary motivational states in sustaining engagement.