Accounting for long-term motivation and sustained motivated learning: Motivational currents, self-concordant vision, and persistence in language learning

Although temporal conceptualizations of motivational processes have not held center stage in motivation science, the situation is currently changing. Drawing on work in the subfield of language learning motivation, where the motivational endurance needed to master a second language has been a major concern, the aim of this article is to contribute to the body of work currently exploring motivational persistence. After outlining the broader academic context of motivation and time, and describing the disciplinary trajectory of research into language learning motivation, we present two interrelated and multifaceted frameworks that seek to explain long-term motivation and motivational persistence: (a) the notion of a ""directed motivational current"" which refers to a period of intense, enduring, and self-sustaining engagement within an activity-sequence, and which is phenomenologically akin to an extended flow experience, and (b) a multicomponent framework of long-term motivation that offers a general account of sustained effort in learning. This framework integrates diverse components, such as self-concordant vision, habitual actions, progress checks, and affirmative feedback, and references a motivational process that is characterized by positive emotional loading and passion, and is supported by self-control capacity and self-regulatory skills.