Browsing by Subject "Motivation in education"
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Item Assessment and analysis of student assumption of responsibility in the classroom(Texas Tech University, 1980-05) Douglas, Carolyn SueNot availableItem Discouragement, encouragement, and at risk Hispanic elementary students' self-esteem: an ethnographic case study(Texas Tech University, 1994-05) Gomez, Daniel P.The purpose of this study is to describe ways in which self-esteem of at risk Hispanic elementary students are affected by discouragement and encouragement. An ethnographic approach and participant observer method make it possible to document the lives of two students within the educational setting of the classroom so that the researcher can look at the ways in which classroom life affects their self-esteem. Thus, observations by die researcher can be described and contextualized (1988; Eisner, 1991; Erickson, 1986; Wolcott, 1988).Item The effects of a problem based learning digital game on continuing motivation to learn science(2008-05) Toprac, Paul K., 1960-; Liu, Min, Ed. D.The purpose of this study was to determine whether playing a problem-based learning (PBL) computer game, Alien Rescue III, would promote continuing motivation (CM) to learn science, and to explore the possible sources of CM. Another goal was to determine whether CM and interest to learn science in the classroom were identical constructs. CM was defined as the pursuit of academic learning goals in noninstructional contexts that were initially encountered in the classroom. Alien Rescue was played for a total of 9 hours in the seventh grade of a private middle school with 44 students, total, participating. The study used a design-based research approach that attempted to triangulate quantitative and qualitative methods. A science knowledge test, and two selfreport questionnaires--one measuring motivation and one measuring CM--were administered preintervention, postintervention, and follow-up. Qualitative data was also collected, including student interviews, classroom observations, written responses, and a science teacher interview. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to determine any significant changes in scores. A multiple regression analysis was used to explore whether a model of CM could be determined using the Eccles’ expectancy-value achievement motivation model. The constant comparative method was used to obtain relevant information from the qualitative data. Based on contradictory quantitative and qualitative findings, results were mixed as to whether students exhibited an increase in CM to learn space science. Students continued to freely engage Alien Rescue during the mid-class break, but this does not strictly adhere to the definition of CM. However, many students did find space science more interesting than anticipated and developed increased desire to learn more in class, if not outside of class. Results also suggest that CM and interest in learning more in class are separate but related constructs. Finally, no satisfactory model emerged from the multiple regression analysis but based on students’ interviews, continuing interest to learn is influenced by all the components of Eccles’ expectancy-value model. Response effects may have confounded quantitative results. Discussion includes challenges of researching in classrooms, CM, and Eccles’ motivational model, and the tension between PBL and game based approaches. Future design recommendations and research directions are provided.Item Examining the experiences of students enrolled in small community colleges by time of enrollment(2007-12) Head, Traci Lynn, 1969-; Roueche, John E.The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of students enrolled in small community colleges to determine if there was a difference in the degree to which students were engaged based upon their primary enrollment in day or in evening courses. Specifically, the study investigated the amount of time and effort students dedicated to their academic pursuits and the degree to which institutional policies and practices supported them in their efforts to determine whether time of enrollment was a significant factor in predicting engagement. The primary goals of the study were to contribute to the understanding of students' experiences and to provide empirical evidence that might serve as the foundation for program development and reform. The findings from the quantitative analysis revealed a significant predictive relationship between time of enrollment and five of the fourteen engagement variables considered in the study. Enrollment in evening courses was linked to lower levels of engagement in each of these five areas: student effort, academic challenge, support for learners, academic preparation, and school opinions. The results of the study supported the development of a theoretical model that depicts student engagement based upon primary enrollment in evening courses. The model places support for learners at the forefront. Students' opinions are the end result, with each of the other engagement variables being affected by the levels of support perceived by evening students.Item First generation college students: Motivations and support systems(2012-05) Adams, Shylo; Irlbeck, Erica; Burris, Scott; Akers, Cindy; Jones, Stephanie J.The number of first generation college students enrolling in higher education is one the rise. These students often struggle with the transition to a new environment, that they often do not understand, and many also lack the support groups and systems that are needed to be successful. Understanding why these students are coming to college and how to assist them is of the utmost importance. A qualitative study was conducted to determine the motivations and support systems of first generation college students within the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR). A basic interpretive qualitative method was selected, and interviews were conducted to obtain data. Nine respondents from the six departments of CASNR and one respondent as a representative from the Texas Tech PEGASUS Program were interviewed and data was collected. It was determined that three factors lead to their enrollment at Texas Tech – parental/family and teacher encouragement, and self-motivation. The researchers also found that the students were involved in several organizations. These included association with at least one departmental/college organization, affiliation with a religious group, involvement with a university program, and/or a connection with a first generation college student group. It was also found that these students depended upon three major support groups and systems, such as parental, friend and adviser/professor support. The researchers also sought to determine how satisfied the students were with their experiences with CASNR and Tech. One over-arching theme was found – high satisfaction.Item Goal-setting behavior and self concepts of elementary Mexican American children(Texas Tech University, 1970-08) Hodges, Jimmy Ross,Not availableItem The impact of popular culture fandom on perceptions of Japanese language and culture learning: the case of student anime fans(2006) Williams, Kara Lenore; Moore, ZenaItem An integrative cultural view of achievement motivation in learning math : parental and classroom predictors of goal orientations of children with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds(2008-05) Kim, Jung-in, 1978-; Schallert, Diane L.With the remarkable increase in immigration since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, approximately one in five children in the United States has at least one foreign-born parent (Hernandez & Charney, 1998). This study was an investigation of how students’ perceptions of their parents shaped the kind and degree of motivational goal orientations that they adopted in their mathematics classroom taking students’ different cultural and ethnic backgrounds into account. In this study, students of different ethnic backgrounds enrolled in an American high school reported their achievement goal orientations and self-regulated motivations for their math class, as well as their perceptions of parents’ goals for them, parents’ motivating styles, and the classroom’s goal structures. A total of 138 9th grade Anglo American students and Asian American students were included in the data analyses. In path analyses, Anglo American and Asian American students’ goal orientations were predicted by their perceptions of their parents’ goals for them as well as their parents’ motivating styles, mediated by the students’ self-regulated motivation. For both Anglo American and Asian American students, autonomous self-regulated motivation predicted mastery goal orientation, and less autonomous self-regulated motivation predicted performance goal orientations. However, the students’ perceptions of parental influence from different ethnic/cultural backgrounds were different in predicting students’ self-regulated motivations. Interestingly, Asian American children’s perceptions of parents’ controlling style as well as parents’ autonomy support could predict their mastery goal adoption via identified regulation, and their perception of parental control even predicted their intrinsic regulation. It was also interesting to note that Asian American students’ perceptions of parents’ goal orientations for them predicted their own goals not only directly but also mediated by their self-regulated motivations, unlike Anglo American students whose perceptions of parents’ goals predicted their own goals only mediated by their self-regulated motivations. An integration of self-determination theory and goal theory is offered, broadening the application of these two theories to students of different ethnic/cultural backgrounds.Item Motivational flow in computer-based information access activity(Texas Tech University, 1998-08) Chan, Tom S.Flow is an optimal psychological state during which people become so intensely involved and the experience so enjoyable that they will do it for its own sake. When people reflect on how it felt, they often mention these aspects:(a) sensing skills and challenge in balance, (b) engaging in a goal-directed activity, (c) receiving clear feedback, (d) feeling in control, (e) intensifying concentration, (f) merging action and awareness, (h) losing self-consciousness, (h) distorting time perception, and (i) experiencing great enjoyment. Flow theory argues that environmental factors, such as challenge, goal, control, feedback and concentration, has major influences in motivation. These factors provide a theoretical congruence between flow and instructional design in general, and motivation design in particular. A problem in the study of flow is its complexity. Constructs must be examined together, and their interactions inspected. Surfing on the Internet frequently induces a sense of excitement similar to flow. The vividness and interactivity of hypermedia appear to enhance flow by increasing user concentration and control. Technology affects presentation, but not the content. Searching for information induces flow because it is challenging and goal directed. This study investigates the effects of content relevance and presentation quality, and their interaction, on students' flow experience while engaging in computer-based information access activities. A better understanding in the dynamic of flow can lead to better instructional design that provides positive experiences and improves motivations. Flow state scale indicates no significance in the main effects, but strong statistical and practical significant interactions. Presentation quality enhances flow in low content relevance tasks, but impedes flow in high content relevance activities. It shows that multiple channel stimuli enhance experience until the cognitive capacity is stretched. From the instructional design perspective, it implies that multimedia elements must be integrated into lesson design carefully, or it may have negative consequences. While content and presentation do interact to influence flow experience, much is still not know about the model. Flow is indeed a complex phenomenon and warrants further investigation.Item Person-based response: a postmodern alternative to text-based teacher comments(Texas Tech University, 1998-05) Bellah, Michael DeanThis dissertation offers a theory of teacher response that privileges persons over text. It is based on the finding that there are two major trends in current teacher response: one text-based, a legacy of modernism and founded on the principles of New Criticism, which locates meaning in the text, and the other, person-based, founded on postmodem thought, which locates meaning in the writer and the reader. During the last 25 years, composition scholars have unearthed a number of problems with text-based response, including the following: an overemphasis on formal error, the teacher's inability to function as a real reader, a corresponding lack of "humanness" in teacher voice, a lack of clarity, including illegible handwriting and undefined proofreading marks, a failure to gear comments to specific audiences including basic writers and ESL students, a lack of positive reinforcement with some teachers displaying overt hostility toward their student writers, a tendency for teachers to appropriate student writing so that the student's own voice is lost, and comments showing a product-centered rather than process-centered approach to writing, which discounts the role of rhetorical invention. After documenting these deficiencies in teacher response strategies, this study presents a solution in the form of four tenets of person-based response. Phrased in the imperative, they are (1) respond first as a genuine (human) reader; (2) emphasize student successes not errors; (3) empower student writers; don't silence their voices or appropriate their work; and (4) emphasize student process (successful writers in-the-making) not product ("finished" and flawed papers). In a descriptive quantitative analysis involving 303 beginning college composition students, this study goes on to show how all four tenets of person-based response correlate with positive student motivation, a condition which writing apprehension theory says is cmcial for effective writing. In addition, this study analyzes some confounds to person-based response, presents the stories of eight students who react to the methodology, and suggests further study of the theory, especially a project linking the tenets of person-based response empirically to the Daly and Miller Writing Apprehension Scale. Finally, the dissertation emphasizes the need for what Burke calls consubstanciality, the act of really connecting with one's audience, including teachers with students and students with each other.Item Program evaluation of the Transition to 7th Grade Program(Texas Tech University, 2001-08) Manny, Al CullenNot availableItem Relevance and motivation: student reports of effective teacher strategies(Texas Tech University, 2000-12) Walters, Jamie LynneEvery teacher faces unmotivated students at some point in his or her career. Teachers must effectively communicate to not only ensure student comprehension, but to motivate students to participate in class and want to learn. Scholars report a positive relationship between teacher use of relevance and teacher clarity behaviors, immediacy behaviors, and student motivation. However, scholars fail to provide student reports of what teachers say and do to make information relevant. Researchers need to examine what strategies students perceive as making information relevant and how the use of these strategies influences student motivation. These were the objectives of this study. Data were collected through qualitative methods of open-ended questionnaires and focusgroup interviews. Findings were analyzed inductively to discover recurring themes across student reports.Item Sport education: examining an alternative physical education instructional approach(Texas Tech University, 2004-08) Bohler, Heidi RNot availableItem The effects of teacher communicative behaviors on student motivation(Texas Tech University, 1995-12) Kay, Linda WisemanWhat is a good teacher? Essentially, an effective teacher is one who aids students in all kinds of learning (Andersen, 1979). This concept seems simple, but what becomes more important is how a teacher can most effectively aid those students in the learning process. Educational research has spent time and energy on trying to figure out what it takes to be effective in the classroom. Research shows that teacher behaviors have a significant impact on all areas of learning.Item The motivational and personality factors in reading retardation among two racial groups of adolescent males(Texas Tech University, 1969-08) Bell, D. BruceNot availableItem The relationship between value systems, motivation factors, and dissatisfaction factors of senior engineering technology students(Texas Tech University, 1981-12) Patterson, Joseph ANot availableItem The use and evaluation of eurectics as a pedagogy for motivating creative designs among architectural students(Texas Tech University, 2001-05) Gharaibeh, Anne A.Developed by Gregory Ulmer, euretics is a pedagogical approach that increases the possibility for creative work to be produced following exploration and metaphorical interpretation of abstract art. This dissertation tests the effect of euretics on the creativity of architectural student designs when using images of abstract expressionist paintings. These are compared with architectural designs using images of noted architectural projects as motivational tools. Creativity measures were assessed by Donald W. MacKinnon's five criteria of creativity used in his work on personality assessment. The criteria include: originality, adaptiveness of the design to reality, sustaining the concept, and aesthetic content, as well as creating new conditions and principles of human existence. The study also investigates whether the euretics method using abstract expressionist painting produces creative ideas more quickly than when students use familiar architectural projects or do not use any motivating images at all.Item The use and evaluation of eurectics as a pedagogy for motivating creative designs among architectural students(Texas Tech University, 2001-05) Gharaibeh, Anne A.Developed by Gregory Ulmer, euretics is a pedagogical approach that increases the possibility for creative work to be produced following exploration and metaphorical interpretation of abstract art. This dissertation tests the effect of euretics on the creativity of architectural student designs when using images of abstract expressionist paintings. These are compared with architectural designs using images of noted architectural projects as motivational tools. Creativity measures were assessed by Donald W. MacKinnon's five criteria of creativity used in his work on personality assessment. The criteria include: originality, adaptiveness of the design to reality, sustaining the concept, and aesthetic content, as well as creating new conditions and principles of human existence. The study also investigates whether the euretics method using abstract expressionist painting produces creative ideas more quickly than when students use familiar architectural projects or do not use any motivating images at all.Item Undergraduates' perceptions of secondary gifted programs on collegiate academic achievement(2012-05) Kendrick, Eileen; McMillan, Sally; Lesley, Mellinee; Johnson, PeggyThis study examined undergraduates’ perceptions of their secondary gifted programs on collegiate academic achievement. A semi-structured interview utilized a descriptive case study approach with seven participants. This grounded theory study sought meaning and experiences from a purposive sample of undergraduate college students who participated in a secondary gifted program. The contextual framework of challenge, choice, academic self-efficacy, appeal, and meaningfulness (Gentry & Owen, 2006) provided the basis of analysis and coding of common themes of each participant’s story. The research questions guiding this study included the following: • In what ways (if any) do students who have participated in secondary gifted programs perceive these programs as they have progressed to higher education? • In what ways do students perceive that their participation in secondary gifted programs now influence them academically as college students? • In what ways might varying secondary gifted program models influence participants’ future college experiences? The three common themes that emerged were the ways in which diverse program models, former teachers, and the participants’ motivating academic passions in secondary gifted education programs informed collegiate academic achievement.Item Using a game template as a multimedia-based cognitive tool to facilitate novices' conceptual understanding of object-oriented programming(2008-12) Yuen, Timothy Tung-Ming, 1978-; Liu, Min, Ed. D.This study examined how a multimedia-based cognitive tool (MCT) facilitates novices' conceptual understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP). The tool used in this study was CSNüb, a game template created in Adobe Flash. The MCT design framework guided CSNüb's design. The MCT design framework was synthesized from literature on constructivist, multimedia, and motivation learning theories and computer-based cognitive tool design principles. Students worked with CSNüb to develop a simple role-playing game (RPG). Through clinical interviews and process tracing methods, it was found that CSNüb affected novice computer science students' conceptual understanding of OOP through five cognitive processes and factors: cognitive disequilibrium evoked through multimedia-based feedback, exploring for resources that scaffold understanding, changing the level of awareness of the "bigger picture" and ability for higher-level thinking, and consistent refinement of solutions and mental models within the problem space. The five cognitive processes and factors were found to be the result of three levels of interaction with CSNüb. At the Tool Level, students received conflicting information, generally through multimedia-based feedback from the CSNüb, which placed students in states of disequilibrium. At the Interaction Level, students interacted with the CSNüb to resolve their disequilibrium through exploring resources within the tool and refining their solution. They were able to experiment and test out their understanding on OOP. At the Cognitive Level, students used the resources as cognitive scaffolds found through exploration, which in turn, increased the degree of awareness and influenced the level at which they understood the object-oriented system. The five cognitive processes and factors through the three levels of interaction were formed into one model--the MCT Interaction Model (MCTIM)--as a general explanation for how MCTs, such as CSNüb, affects novice students' conceptual understanding.