This section focuses on introducing the course of action based on Heckhausen and Gollwitzer’s (1987) Rubicon model, shown in Figure 2.4. The Rubicon model of action phases seeks to provide information regarding the initiation, execution, and deactivation of motivation and is divided into four consecutive phases: the predecisional phase, the postdecisional/preactional phase, the actional phase, and the postactional phase. The first phases will later serve the temporal aspects within the motivational process in the current hypothesized model.
Deliberation Planning
Figure 2.4 Heckhausen and Gollwitzer (1987) Rubicon Model of Action Phases
Action Evaluation
The first phase--the predecisional phase--is characterized by “deliberating the positive and negative potential consequences of various nonbinding wishes and action alternatives” (Achtziger & Gollwitzer, 2008, p. 273). In this phase, an individual has to determine which to pursue among his or her various wishes and desires. Before they set their selected goal, people generally evaluate the “desirability and feasibility”
among their wishes. The desirability of a selected goal will be determined by the positive or negative, short- and long-term consequences and the probability of
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achieving the goal. The feasibility of a potential goal will be determined by the individual’s personal competence and whether or not he or she is capable of achieving the selected goal and their self-evaluation of the likelihood of success as well as the chance factors governing the possibility of being situated in facilitating or inhibiting contexts. The more precisely an individual can evaluate his or her ability to do the actions and the expected outcome, the closer he or she will determine whether or not the motivational task will be attained. Thus, the Rubicon model postulates predictions of probability of completing the chosen goal. Toward the end of this phase, the initial wishes and desires have been selected to a potential attainable goal under the assessment of its desirability and feasibility.
The Preactional Phase
In this pre-actional phase, individuals contemplate strategies facilitating them to pursue the chosen goal at the end of the pre-decisional phase. It is usually not the case that a selected goal would be immediately taken into action because it can be particularly difficult for people to get started (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006). There are problems to be overcome such as procrastination of engaging in the goal-directed behavior or time spent overlooking suitable opportunities to initiate the behavior. The translation of disjointed wishes into a concrete goal has been termed as crossing the
Rubicon (Achtziger & Gollwitzer, 2008). It means the individual has shifted the
vagueness of doing something into a rather concrete sense of a goal-setting commitment. In light of the Rubicon model, individuals in this phase are to transform potential goal intention into concrete implementable plans with volition in order to cross the Rubicon. By initiating the action, people enact their implementation intention (Gollwitzer, 1993, 1999) by specifying when, where, and how to perform the goal-directed behavior. Implementation intention concerns the initiation, execution35
and termination of actions, which may facilitate people to overcome difficult situations that may emerge as they progress toward the goal. The intensity of the engagement was labeled “volitional strength” in Rubicon model, implying the strength of motivation tendency required to pursue the target.
The Actional Phase
This action phase is designed to execute formulated plans in response to implementation intention developed in the preactional phase. In this phase, people do not consider the set goal, their ability or strategies to achieve their goals, or any plans to be executed, because these should have been processed and evaluated in the previous phases. Whether or not the efforts exerted to take actions depend on the volitional strength toward the goal intention. Volitional strength can be considered as the determinant of a course of action. In other words, the higher volitional strength an individual has committed to the action, the higher probability of success he or she will achieve the chosen goal. In the actional phase, the strength of the commitment may be shifted as situational difficulties arise. However, the emerged difficulties will be easier to manage when guided by the enacted implementation and the goals in the mental representation.
The Postactional Phase
The post-actional phase is evaluated once the targeted actions have been completed.
Individuals assess how successfully the goal was achieved and whether or not the consequences meet the initial expectations. People in this phase reflect on their action outcome in terms of the evaluation of desirability and feasibility selected in the pre-decisional phase, the implemented plans made in the preactional phase and the volitional strength exerted and the actual behavior in the actional phase. These evaluations of the goal achieved become the criteria whether or not to proceed, the
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amount of effort to be exerted, and whether or not to modify the pursued goal.
Model Review on Motivation and Second/Foreign Language Learning
In the 1990s, there were reviews (Crookes & Schmidt, 1991; Dörnyei, 1994; Oxford
& Shearin, 1994) that suggested L2 motivational research should be expanded from other research areas with respect to the internal constructs. The following section reviews five important empirical models on the basis of incorporating new constructs into traditional measures in L2 learning motivation.