Unveiling the Passive Aspect of Motivation: Insights from English Language Teachers’ Habitus

Abstract

Digging into the history of motivation research, we deduced that, the investigations have targeted individuals’ performance as the overt indication of this invisible drive. Yet, it is hypothesized that there exists a variation of motivation which does not lead to a certain action and is only confined to one’s mental engagement with a concept or activity. To further explicate, we put forward a dual continuum model of motivation, under the term immersion, and named this so-far-hidden aspect as passive motivation, standing against active motivation. To provide empirical evidence, a total of 54 English language teachers were recruited and interviewed about the four proposed conditions of motivation (i.e., active motivation, active demotivation, passive motivation, and passive demotivation). The extracted themes revealed that teachers’ habitus may largely account for this lack of willingness and passivity. Analyzing the themes, we made reference to sensory motivation, which relies on sensory experiences as one of the major triggers of de/motivation.