This study investigated the effect of watching videos of success stories on inspiring students' academic motivation in high school education and examined the characteristics of the message and the audience that affect those effects. In our society, en...
This study investigated the effect of watching videos of success stories on inspiring students' academic motivation in high school education and examined the characteristics of the message and the audience that affect those effects. In our society, entering a university is an important factor for social and economic status. For those reasons, students effort for entering the top university are enormous. In the educational-related field, various educational methods have been developed are mobilized to inspire students' motivation and to improve their confidence. A typical example is to show the success stories of the others to the students. Although there are various examples of success stories, few studies have tested the effect of those success stories. This study paid attention to similarity between model of success stories and the audience based on the social comparison theory(Festinger, 1954). This study also applied the theory of self-efficacy(Bandura, 1977) to examine the effect of academic self-efficacy on student’s expectancy to achieve their goal entering personally desired university inspiration by watching success stories, and increased efforts for study due to exposure to success stories. This study investigated the mechanism of watching success stories on increasing efforts as follows: in terms of message characteristics, the similarity of initial academic aptitude and the goal discrepancy between the model and the audience, and in terms of audience characteristics, optimism and academic self-efficacy.
This study conducted a quasi-experiment for all first-year students of an independent private high school located in Seoul, using different messages of three graduates who succeeded in entering top colleges. In line with the research purpose three different success models were selected in consideration of the initial academic level and the achieved goal. Success model A is a case entering a top-ranked university with the highest initial academic level (Message A), and success model B is a case entering a top-ranking university with a high initial academic level (Message B). Success model C is a case entering a high-ranking university with an average initial academic level (Message C). Among ten classes (N = 285), three classes were assigned to the experimental conditions for each success message (n = 254; Message A: n = 85, Message B: n = 84, Message C: n = 85). One class was worked as a control group (n = 31), where the students were not exposed to the success message. Major variables such as the audience's goal attainability, academic self-efficacy, and optimism were measured before the message exposure (1st survey), and video evaluation and source similarity were investigated immediately after the message exposure (2nd survey), In one month after message exposure, the message content and the degree of improvement in college preparation effort were measured (3rd survey).
As a result of the study, watching videos of others’ success stories had a highly significant effect on inspiring the students' motivation to go to college or study. One month after exposure to the video, the self-report showed that the degree of college preparation effort was found to be improved. As a result of analyzing the effect of source similarity in their academic level of the first year of high school, the top dog model did not affect the students' perception of the possibility of going to college, but the underdog model had a marginally significant positive effect. In addition, the effect of the gap between the college level of the success case and the desired college level of the audience was not found.
It is also identified that the student with the higher academic self-efficacy perceived more expectancy for achievement by watching videos. Academic self-efficacy had a significant positive effect on the degree of effort. The repeated measurement on whether watching one-time success stories caused improvement of academic self-efficacy identified that there was no change in the message exposure group as a whole. However, in the analysis of each success case, it was found that the video about the success increased academic efficacy to a significant level (Message B), and elevated at a marginally significant level (Message C). The optimistic tendency of the students who watch the video had a statistically significant positive effect on the perceived goal attainability.
This study has the following implications: first, it is the first to test the effectiveness of watching success stories to inspire students's academic motivation for higher education; second, the study on the goal attainability was expanded to the field of college entrance; third, it was empirically verified that the motivation after watching success stories, can be lead to the improvement of students’ efforts. In addition, this study classified source similarity, which is one of the important variables of persuasion communication research, into three levels (top dog vs. similar model vs. underdog), systematically verifying its impact on perception of the possibility of going to college and demonstrating that the vicarious experience through watching success stories can be a useful way to enhance self-efficacy.
Also, this study systematically verified that the success expectancy for academic achievement can be raised by watching success stories for some reasons: the effect of similarity in the initial academic achievement level, the gap awareness between the students and their target level, the improved self-efficacy and optimism of the students. The practical implications are as follows: it is useful to select, produce, and utilize success stories at the school unit; success stories can be made without taking into account the difference in the initial academic level between the success model and the students who watched the video or the level of the target university. This study also provides practical implications that can be used in high school education by examining the effect of the actual success cases and the message characteristics.