Self-Recovery Strategies Among Final-Year English Education Students: Coping with Low Motivation During Thesis Writing
Abstract
Completing an undergraduate thesis exposes final-year students to academic and emotional pressures that may reduce their motivation and delay thesis progress. Previous studies have widely examined academic stress, burnout, and procrastination among university students; however, limited qualitative attention has been given to how final-year students actively restore and maintain their motivation after experiencing motivational decline. Grounded in Lazarus and Folkman’s Coping Theory and Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, this qualitative case study explored the self-recovery strategies used by final-year English education students in coping with low motivation during thesis writing. Four final-year English education students who were actively writing their undergraduate thesis were selected through homogeneous purposive sampling. They were chosen as information-rich participants based on screening results, and the number of participants was considered sufficient because data saturation was reached when no substantially new themes emerged after the fourth interview. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed four major themes: (1) restoring motivation through adaptive strategies; (2) maintaining motivation through self-regulation; (3) personal reasons for persisting; and (4) external support for motivation. Theoretically, this study advances the understanding of students’ motivational recovery by conceptualizing self-recovery as an integrated process that connects coping strategies and self-determined motivation. Practically, the findings suggest that thesis supervisors and academic institutions should provide autonomy-supportive guidance, emotional encouragement, and structured academic support to help students sustain motivation during thesis completion.
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