EDP 6/8140 Motivation Theory/Application

Fall 2001

The University of Toledo

College of Education

Foundations of Education

Course Description

Some people would argue that motivation is the most important aspect of education and it is easy to see why. We all know stories of "slow learners" who excelled in learning about something they were really interested in. Likewise, we know stories about brilliant individuals (Einstein for example) who did very poorly in school because they were so unmotivated. It is not so far fetched to say that properly motivated students can achieve almost anything. In this course we will study what it means to be properly motivated, why students so often develop negative motivational attributes, and how proper motivation can be fostered. We will do this by learning about the following key topics:

• Student Goals (What type of goals do they have? How do their goals affect their learning?)
• Student Confidence (What influences students’ beliefs in their ability to succeed? What are healthy/unhealthy ways of responding to success and failure? How does learned helplessness come about?)
• Student Interest (What influence does it have on learning? How can it be fostered?)
• Motivation to Learn (How can the desire to learn — even when its hard and not fun — be fostered?)
• Control vs. Surrender (Why are both of these important? What impact do they have on learning and experience?)
• Motivation and Culture (What impact does culture have on motivation? What is a sociocultural view of motivation?)

Assignments

Reading summaries

All students will take turns writing a summary of the assigned readings from the course pack. As a general guideline, the summaries should be about one page (typed, single-spaced) in length. The summary should help fellow students understand the assigned reading as well as raise interesting questions, issues, or problems. Hence it should summarize key points and list a set of discussion questions. You can also include your own personal commentary or opinions. The summary should be completed one week prior to the class discussion of the reading. I will post the summaries on my web site (address listed above) so that everyone may see them (let me know if you have trouble accessing the Internet). It works best if you e-mail your summary to me in HTML, Word, or RTF format.

You will help lead a class discussion of the same reading for which you write the summary.

Writing Assignments

You are required to complete three writing assignments. For each assignment, you will respond to a question that will be given a week in advance. Your response should be typed and emailed to me by the due date. I will post the responses on the class web site. Hence, you will share your ideas with the other students and be able to read their ideas. The responses will be used as a basis for class discussion. Masters students should plan on writing responses 2 — 3 pages in length (typed, double-spaced). Doctoral students should plan on writing responses 3 — 4) pages in length (typed, double-spaced).

Course project

All students are required to complete a course project that deals with motivation in one way or another. Your project should fit within one of the four formats listed below. In general, projects will be evaluated according to the following principles: (1) overall coherence and purpose (degree to which your various sections relate to each other and contribute to a clear focus), (2) depth (degree to which you provide specific explanations, examples, and references), (3) methodology/argumentation (degree to which you use appropriate methodology and/or make a sound argument), (4) thoughtfulness (degree to which you demonstrate that you have put a lot of time effort into dealing with your topic of choice and completing the project), and (5) clarity of writing (degree to which you use appropriate words, sentence structure, spelling, grammar, formatting and so on).

Formats for the course project:

• Critical literature review. A critical literature review is an analysis (not just a summary) of the research and theories associated with a particular topic. This means you need to make an argument as you review the literature. You may argue that there is an important gap in the literature, that the literature is primarily associated with one theoretical perspective and could benefit from some other perspective, that some theory or body of literature outside the typical field of motivation could contribute to our understanding of some motivation issue(s), that you are providing an important synthesis of different bodies of literature, or that a particular theory, conclusion, or hypothesis can be derived from the existing literature. The important thing is that you do make some argument instead of just summarizing the literature (Brophy’s book and many others already do that).

• Mini-research project. This is a small-scale study where you investigate some motivational issue or problem. For instance, it might involve doing interviews with one or two students or it might involve having one or two classes fill out a simple survey. Be sure to keep your data set small. You can use this project as pilot study for your thesis, dissertation, or some other larger scale project. The write-up of the project should include the following:
  • Theoretical framework. Here you should present the purpose and significance of your study, connect your study to the existing literature, and clearly state you research question(s).
  • Methods section. Describe such things how you chose subjects, how you collected data, and how you analyzed the data. Also, provide a rationale for why you did what you did. Why did you choose those particular subjects? Why did you use a face-to-face semi-structured interview instead of a written survey? And so on.
  • Results section. Describe the results you obtained. But don’t just list numbers or quotes. Explain and summarize your findings. Try to identify the most important and interesting findings. Make sure these findings are clearly articulated and easily accessible to the reader. Charts, tables, and figures are often very helpful.
  • Discussion section. In this section you can discuss some of the general trends that you find in you results. You can also discuss the implications of you findings. But be careful not make claims or present implications that are not supported by your results (this is a common mistake).

It is important that a central argument flows throughout the paper.

• Action research project. This project is similar to the mini-research project, but involves a study of your own teaching and students. If you are teaching you might want to study the goals and/or motivation patterns of your own students. Or you might want to try out some new approach with your students and assess the results. The write-up of this project should be similar to the mini-research project.

• Research proposal. This project involves writing an extensive proposal for a future research study related to motivation, which could be your thesis or dissertation. In this proposal, you should include the following:
  • Critical literature review. You should review the related literature in such a way that it makes an argument for the importance of or need for your project. This literature review should be on a smaller scale than if you were just doing a critical literature review for the course project.
  • Research question(s). You should clearly state your research questions and provide an operational definition. The argument made in your critical literature review should naturally lead to a research question. For example, you may argue that a critical problem in science education is that the students don’t apply what they learn about science. You may further argue that many researchers have addressed this problem, but no one has specifically looked at whether some students fail to apply the science ideas they learn because they aren’t interested in those science ideas. This argument naturally leads to some research questions: Do student fail to apply the science ideas they are not interested in? Are students more likely to apply the ideas they are interested in? Are interested students more likely to apply their science knowledge than non-interested students? Your study should have one clearly stated research question. A version of this question should involve an operational definition. In other words, it should specify how constructs such as "interest" and "apply" are to be measured. For instance, the last research question stated above could be written as such: Are students who score above 8 on the interest survey more likely to apply the concept of evolution in their everyday lives by talking with other people about the idea than students who score below 4 on the interest survey?
  • Methods section. Here you should state the methods you propose to use. Be sure to provide a rationale for these methods. Also, be sure to describe how you will analyze your data.

Grade Breakdown

*Participation includes participating in discussions and doing quality reading summaries and writing assignments.

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