The development of motivationally intelligent tutoring systems has been based on a variety of motivational models from the psychology field. These models mainly consider characteristics from de areas of values, expectancies and feelings [1]. However, this paper proposes to take into account some cultural aspects when operationalizing such models. The basis of this proposal is presented from the perspective of some cultural aspects that effect career choice, in particular for a Mexican context. Research in motivation to learn when using educational technology has operationalized different motivational models found in the psychological literature in order to develop motivationally intelligent tutoring systems. According to these models, motivationally aware tutoring systems should combine expertise and knowledge about user's cognitive, affective, meta-‐cognitive and meta-‐affective levels in order to appropriately react and be able to favor user's learning [2, 3]. That is, these models should mainly consider characteristics from the areas of values, expectancies and feelings [1]. However, this paper argues also for the inclusion of other aspects that have been seldom taken into account so far. We refer to cultural aspects inherent to each group of individuals from a certain background. Since there is evidence that students from different cultural origin react to the same motivational strategy in a different way [4, 5, 6] or have different attitudes for online assessment [7], the cultural aspect of learning with technology becomes an important issue. For instance, if a female student from a highly gender-‐stereotyped cultural background is asked to attend a course considered to be strongly oriented to men, then she might perceived to be in the wrong course and probably will not exert her maximum effort. Or even she might believe that her role in society is to be protected by someone, and she attends courses just to be in the possibility to meet that expectation. It will not matter what motivational strategy the teacher uses, since the female student's cultural belief is in an apparently superior level and she will only be concerned to learn at the minimum, just to continue studying until meeting her protector [8]. In order to develop the arguments to support the inclusion of cultural aspects in the design of motivationally-‐aware tutoring systems, the following sections describe some of these elements within a Mexican context from the perspective of career choice, based on the findings that instrumental motivation is an important predictor for course selection, career choice, and performance [9, 10]. That is, students may pursue to perform well in some tasks because they are important for future goals, even if the student is not interested on the task. Motivation, career guidance and cultural context
Motivation is related to the student’s desire to participate in the learning process. Current research
findings suggest that motivational constructs do change over time [11, 12, 13] and/or contexts [14, 15,
16]. In particular, it is well documented that cultural differences affect achievement motivation [4, 5, 6].
We believe that if teachers truly want to promote the success of all students, they must recognize how
achievement motivation varies culturally within the population it serves.
Similarly, career counseling must incorporate different variables and different processes to be effective
for students from different cultural contexts. Career counseling is defined as "the process of assisting
individuals in the development of a life-‐career with focus on the definition of the worker role and how
that role interacts with other life roles" [
accomplishment Vicarious learning or modeling Emotional arousal Social persuasion 2.1
successfully.
Anxiety when performing the target behavior
Support and encouragement from others in the process of
performing the target behavior.
There is growing research supporting that achievement differences between genders are smaller
during early years of school or being reduced [
Cooperative learning is very important for Mexicans [24]. They do not seem to openly want to show
what they know for fear of embarrassing those who do not know [25]. It is not common in a Hispanic
family to encourage children to excel over siblings or peers but rather, it is considered bad manners. It
is worth noting that most of the studies reported have taken into account the Mexican context around
Mexican American students but no studies so far focus on comparison between this population and a
Mexican population living in Mexico. Nevertheless, their findings can, to some extent, be considered
valid for Mexican population. For instance, Ojeda and Flores [26] considered the educational
aspirations of 186 Mexican American high school students to test a portion of social-‐cognitive career
theory [
Mexicans are oriented toward present time; they are focused on “right now” rather than on the past or on future events or outcomes. They often live the phrase “Dios dirá” or "God will tell," that is, time is relative. To arrive late for an engagement is called in the southwest "Mexican time." This perception permeates career-‐counseling programs in the Mexican context, since its interventions start in the educational level just behind the university program [28]. Therefore, students have to decide in a relatively short period of time which career suits them best. Sometimes the students might have a great amount of career information, making it difficult to make a good analysis of each of the options. But it also might occur that there is little availability of information and students might end up making an inadequate career choice. 3
Discussion
Increasingly, researchers are calling for studies of change in motivation, rather than treating motivation
as a static trait-‐like factor [
Educational Research, 65, 283-‐318 (1995) 26. Ojeda, L. and Flores, L. The Influence of Gender, Generation Level, Parents' Education Level, and Perceived Barriers on the Educational Aspirations of Mexican American High School Students. The Career Development Quarterly 57, 1, 84–95. (2008) 27. Flores, Y.N., Romero A., and Arbona, C. Effects of Cultural Orientation on the Perception of Conflict Between Relationship and Educational Goals for Mexican American College Students. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences 22, 1: 46-‐63 (2000) 28. POV (2011). Programa de Orientación Vocacional para el bachillerato general, tecnológico y profesional técnico. www.dgb.sep.gob.mx/04-‐m2/.../Programa_Orientacion_Vocacional.pdf