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Until recently, motivation has been considered to be an individual phenomenon. Motivational theorists have accordingly conceptualised key constructs in individualistic terms and emphasised the individual origins and nature of motivation, although they have also long recognised that contextual or social factors have a significant influence on these individual processes. Recently this conceptualisation has been questioned as theorists have suggested, after Vygotsky, that motivation, like learning and thinking, might be social in nature. This idea was first suggested by Sivan (1986) more than twenty years ago but it received a major impetus with the publication of an article by Hickey (1997) eleven years later. Since that time interest in the social nature of motivation has grown as a small number of book chapters and journal articles have been published and conference papers have been presented on the topic. Although some motivational theorists remain sceptical (e.g. Winne, 2004) of this theoretical development, the inclusion of a section on sociocultural approaches to motivation in Perry, Turner, and Meyer's (2006) chapter on classrooms as contexts for motivating learning in the 2nd edition of the Handbook of Educational Psychology suggests that this perspective is being seriously considered by motivational researchers. Similarly, the inclusion of a chapter (Walker, in press-b) on the sociocultural approach to motivation in the 3rd edition of the International Encyclopedia of Education indicates that this approach has achieved some recognition.

Over the last decade, latent growth modeling (LGM) utilizing hierarchical linear models or structural equation models has become a widely applied approach in the analysis of change. By analyzing two or more variables simultaneously, the current method provides a straightforward generalization of this idea. From a theory of change perspective, this chapter demonstrates ways to prescreen the covariance matrix in repeated measurement, which allows for the identification of major trends in the data prior to running the multivariate LGM. A three-step approach is suggested and explained using an empirical study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

Games are rapidly becoming a site where cultural ideas are explored and consumed and have recently become an arena for debate around representations of gender. This chapter draws attention to key debates occurring in the field of video games that are also applicable to film studies. This interdisciplinary approach demonstrates the relevance to game studies of a rich vein of scholarship on the gendered action body in film studies. Drawing on research by Yvonne Tasker (1993, 2015), Lisa Purse (2011) and Jeffrey Brown (2011), this chapter seeks to unpick the tensions around gender and violence in the reception of The Last of Us Part II (Naughty Dog, 2020), particularly regarding the surprisingly vehement backlash against the unconventionally muscular deuteragonist Abby.

This chapter asks what happens when the ‘spectacular’ and ‘hard’ bodies of the action heroine enter the soft virtual world of the video game. A focus on whether Abby's body is realistic in the reception of the game leads to a discussion of the ontological status of games as a virtual medium. I argue that the process of motion capture and the real-world reference of CrossFit athlete Colleen Fotsch trouble the conventional dichotomy that understands the medium of games as virtual and film as indexical. Throughout, I use the more ambiguous and ambivalent historical reception of the body of Lara Croft as a useful point of contrast. I argue that the obsessive, hysterical response to Abby's muscular body is indicative of larger tensions between conservative ‘hardcore’ fandoms and the industry's recent drive for progressive change. By denying Abby's authenticity such players also deny female access to traditional masculine pursuits and identities, whether that be bodybuilding or gaming. This is because virtual female action stars, just as much as their real-world counterparts such as Linda Hamilton, trouble the gendered norms that underpin both second-wave feminist accounts of muscular women and the audience of hardcore video game players. As Fron, Fullerton, Morie, and Pearce (2007) critique in their article ‘The Hegemony of Play’, a double standard therefore exists in which such women must justify the reality of their musculature through a kind of ‘proof of process’. Ultimately, I conclude that a similar demand is made of the emergent female audience of gamers, who are continuously made to justify their right to play in a traditionally male space.