Reflections on the acceptance and success of RadioActive101: Motivation through problematisation, improved well-being,emancipation and extreme learning

Abstract

One way to tackle the often neglected and also ‘slippery’ and complex concept of motivation in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is to reflect on what motivational and affective factors led, or may have led, to the acceptance and success of a TEL innovation. This article does this, through presenting the implementation and evaluation of a ‘radical’ TEL intervention, called RadioActive101, an active international internet radio hub that is an educational intervention which promotes inclusion and informal learning through giving a voice to disenfranchised groups in mostly urban areas throughout Europe, with a particular focus on at-risk and unemployed young people. This paper will: contextualize RadioActive101 from a motivation perspective; describe this project along with its strikingly positive evaluation so far; and reflect on the motivational and affective factors that are implicated. These motivational factors and forces, as our title indicates, are linked to our design approach (the problematisation), improvements in confidence and well-being, the perceived and actual value of the learning (as emancipation) and the motivation bought about through ‘extreme’ learning