| Summary: | Substitute care is a temporary or permanent placement of children under the supervision of an adult person due to the absence of their biological parents. The escalating divorce rate, increase in extramarital births, high incidence of family violence, the growing number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, and the increasing career-orientatedness of parents have led to the development of diverse family structures. Grandparents and other family members are increasingly becoming the primary caretakers for children. Whilst it is generally assumed by society that children’s well-being is better served when they are raised by their biological parents, the purpose of this study is to: • explore what influence substitute care has on learners’ motivation; • formulate guidelines and recommendations for educators to improve the current levels of motivation of learners in substitute care. The literature related to substitute care and motivation were reviewed, with the aim of providing a firm theoretical basis for the study. Concepts related to motivation discussed, included types of and sources of motivation. Concepts related to the second focus of this study included forms of substitute care. Motivational theories related to this study were briefly discussed, namely: the Attribution Theory, the Drive Theory, Goal Theory, and the Self-worth and Selfefficacy Theories. Factors that have a motivational influence on learners, such as acceptance versus rejection, praise versus criticism, success versus failure and positive self-concept versus negative self-concept, were also discussed. A link was then drawn between motivation and substitute care. ii The research design chosen for this study can be described as qualitative, interpretive and constructive in nature. The research study was conducted in two phases: Phase One provided an investigation of the research problem by means of the following open-ended question: What is the influence or impact of your status as a child in substitute care on your motivation? Data were collected by means of eleven unstructured, in-depth personal interviews. Purposeful sampling was undertaken, which included high school learners all in substitute care. Data were analysed, as proposed by the eight steps of Tesch. Discussions between the observer, moderator and an independent re-coder took place to determine the final results of the research through a consensus principle. Key and related concepts were clustered together to formulate themes, categories and sub-categories. The following three themes emerged, based on the results of the data analysis. I. Problems in the close family circle have profound effects on learner motivation. II. Certain motivating forces help learners in substitute care to cope. III. Substitute care does influence learner motivation. Phase Two offered recommendations, derived from the findings of Phase One, to empower teachers in effectively supporting and motivating learners in substitute care. The conclusion was reached that substitute care does have an influence on the motivation of learners. This motivation can either be positive, which means encouraging learners towards their goal, or negative, which implies that it moves learners away from their goal.
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