ABSTRACT
Student motivation covers such a diverse set of behaviours that it must be explicated through specific theories, which can meet the needs for answering particular research questions. In this chapter, it is argued that the theory of possible selves can help us understand students’ individual expectations about the future, and these expectations’ function for motivation. Three areas are singled out as particularly interesting, for both theoretical and methodological reasons. The first is the complexity of emotional valence in possible selves, where recent findings show that it is an oversimplification to assume that possible selves are either positive or negative. The second is the important distinction between possible selves and more general strivings – for example in terms of life tasks – which in particular offer methodological challenges. The third is the notion of ‘possible others’, explicating the social dimension of possible selves with a potential to solve some methodological problems. All three areas are discussed with a particular focus on motivational issues for students uncertain about the life in academia or about the merits of higher education.
