Does the Visual Appeal of Instructional Media Affect Learners’ Motivation Toward Learning?

While authors like Mayer (2009) suggest that designers should avoid using visuals for the purpose of attracting learners’ interests, some scholars suggest that visuals could influence learners’ emotions. In this study the author investigated whether the perception of the visual appeal of instructional handouts affects learners’ self-reported motivation to learn from the handouts. Two handouts were prepared for this study: a minimalist handout following Mayer’s (2009) Coherence Principle and an appealing handout complying with everyday visual trends. Participants were instructed to look at the handouts in different orders according to groups and were asked about their impressions of the handouts. The appealing handout was perceived as motivating when it was seen after the minimalist handout. However, the group that saw the minimalist handout first did not perceive the appealing handout as motivating. The result implies that not only the design but also the learning context influences learners’ self-reported motivation to engage with the handout.     

Maintaining Learners’Motivation

Foreign language learning is a complex process and its success is determined by a variety of factors. The prime one of them is motivation ,which, as everyone knows, could be controlled by external forc...     

Motivation for English Learning

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Motivation ——Theories and Beyond

ＨｉｓｔｏｒｉｃａｌＲｅｖｉｅｗＯｎＴｈｅＰｓｙｃｈｏｌｏｇｉｃａｌＡｐｐｒｏａｃｈｅｓＵｎｄｅｒｌｙｉｎｇＭｏｔｉｖａｔｉｏｎａｌＲｅ ｓｅａｒｃｈ .Ｗｅｗｉｌｌｃｏｎｓｉｄｅｒｔｈｒｅｅｇｅｎｅｒａｌａｐｐｒｏａｃｈｅｓｔｏｍｏｔｉｖａｔｉｏｎ :ｂｅｈａｖｉｏｕｒｉｓｍ ,ｃｏｇｎｉｔｉｖｅａｎｄｓｏｃｉａｌｃｏｎｓｔｒｕｃｔｉｖｉｓｔ .1.ＢｅｈａｖｉｏｕｒｉｓｔＡｐｐｒｏａｃｈ :ＢｅｈａｖｉｏｕｒｉｓｔｓｌｉｋｅＳｋｉｎｎｅｒｏｒＷａｓｔｏｎｗｏｕｌｄｓｔｒｅｓｓｔｈｅｒｏｌｅｏｆｒｅｗａｒ…     

Ways to Arouse Students’ Extrinsic Motivation

Various studies have found that motivation has a close relationship with students’achievement.The relationship between motivation and learning is interactive,it is agreed that students who have strong motivation,and they are more likely to make more effort in learning than others.We can safely conclude that motivation is a necessary condition when learning a foreign language.A real learning     

The Role of Motivation in Language Learning

The role of motivation in language learning has been studied since the 1960s. It is indeed one of the most important areas of linguistics. This paper suggests strategies of motivating language learners and focuses on the role which motivation can play in language learning. The concept of motivation from different points of view is defined, a number of suggestions on how to motivate language learners are presented and the role of motivation based on various motivational theories are highlighted. With regard to the role of motivation in language learning, it is concluded that motivation plays an increasingly important role in many aspects, such as identifying with the target language society, achieving long-term and short-term goals, improving language learners‘ internal and external powers and exerting a group force. It also indicates that there should be more research areas to be examined and a long way is probably requlred to go in future theoretical and practical study.     

How to Develop the Students’ Motivation

Motivation is one of the most important factors access to success.There are three types of students’ motivation in English learning.In order to get good result in the process of teaching,teachers try their best to develop students’ motivation.They have tried many ways,such as enhancing students’ interesting through playing games,introduce the culture of English speaking countries.It’s meaningful that teachers develop several kinds of motivation at the same time.All these important methods can be used in actually teaching to get a better result.     

Promoting Students’ Interest and Motivation Towards Science Learning: the Role of Personal Needs and Motivation Orientations

This study aimed to design a teaching sequence for science education that enabled lower secondary school students to enhance their motivation towards science. Further, it looked to examine the way the designed teaching sequence affected students with different motivational profiles. Industry site visits, with embodied theory-based motivational features were included as part of the designed teaching sequence. The sequence was implemented in Finland and Greece with 54 participants, 27 from each country. Quantitative data was collected using the Evaluation of Science Inquiry Activities Questionnaire, based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory but did not map the expected outcomes. Interviews, however, showed that students with different motivational profiles found aspects within the module that met their psychological needs as explained by Self-Determination Theory. The results offer a perspective to adolescents’ psychological needs along with some insights into how students mediate the way they value an activity in the context of science education.     

Views on College Students’ English Learning Motivation

This paper aims at exploring college students’ English learning motivation to language learning, including effort, interest, and attitudes. To some extent, it is very important to perform activities in language learning classes. On the one hand, teachers should do every effort to develop students’ keen interest in English study so as to foster their intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, they should set up new goals for students and feedback properly in order to build confidence in English learning. In a word, it is essential for English teachers to understand students’ motivation of English learning so as to save time and teach more efficiently.     

Fostering Learner Autonomy by Strengthening Learners’ Motivation

This paper aims to discus some practical ways to develop the learners’autonomous English learning abilities.After analyzed the motivation problems,the author strengthened learners’motivation through classroom teaching successfully by building good social relations,promoting negotiation,promoting interaction in the classroom and setting up adequate evaluation systems,etc.The author finds that using the content of regular college classroom teaching as a meaningful context for the development of responsibility can enhance the learning effect.The teacher’s guiding role in autonomous learning should never be ignored.Developing autonomous English learning in vocational colleges in China is our long-term pedagogical goal.     

Preschoolers’ Motivation to Over-Imitate Humans and Robots

From preschool age, humans tend to imitate causally irrelevant actions—they over-imitate. This study investigated whether children over-imitate even when they know a more efficient task solution and whether they imitate irrelevant actions equally from a human compared to a robot model. Five-to-six-year-olds (N = 107) watched either a robot or human retrieve a reward from a puzzle box. First a model demonstrated an inefficient (Trial 1), then an efficient (Trial 2), then again the inefficient strategy (Trial 3). Subsequent to each demonstration, children copied whichever strategy had been demonstrated regardless of whether the model was a human or a robot. Results indicate that over-imitation can be socially motivated, and that humanoid robots and humans are equally likely to elicit this behavior.     

Toward the Experimental Analysis of “Continuing Motivation”

Abstract

Investigation was made of differences in "continuing motivation" between preschool and third grade children. A paradigm for the study of continuing motivation is described and an attempt made at explicating some possible antecedents of this construct. In particular" the effects of various types of reward received for performance were considered. Results suggest that the addition of extrinsic reward to an intrinsically interesting task reduces one's motivation to perform the task. Further" some possible developmental aspects of continuing motivation were suggested. The importance of considering continuing motivation as a critical educational outcome was discussed.     

Einstellungen,Motivation und Selbstwirksamkeit von Lehrkräften

Teachers’ attitudes, motivation and self-efficacy are aspects of their professional competence affecting students’ motivation and learning via instructional behavior. In the present study, school type-specific differences in these teacher competencies and their relation to instruction when teaching with texts and integrated pictures are analyzed, further focusing on effects of school subject and teaching experience. Teachers (N?=?265) of primary school, lower and upper track secondary school filled in questionnaires. Primary school teachers were less intrinsically motivated to teach text-picture integration than secondary school teachers. They showed more negative attitudes towards texts with pictures than upper track teachers and avoided discussing the picture to a higher degree. All teacher characteristics predicted instructional behavior, further school type-specific effects of the subject occurred. The results provide starting points for teacher training and the potential for further research concerning the support of students in class.     

Student-teachers’ Dialectically Developed Motivation for Promoting Student-led Science Projects

School science systems tend to emphasize teaching and learning about achievements of science (such as laws and theories) at the expense of providing students with opportunities to develop realistic conceptions about science and science inquiry and expertise they could use to conduct their own science inquiry projects. Among reasons for such an emphasis, teachers’ lack of experiences with realistic science inquiry appears to be particularly problematic. Accordingly, we engaged student-teachers in a university-based course that attempted to balance instruction about science and science inquiry with student-teachers’ own theorization about science and science inquiry. Qualitative data collected mainly from nine student-teachers in four focus groups indicate that these student-teachers’ motivation for promoting student-led science inquiry projects in schools significantly increased by the end of the course. Analyses suggest that this outcome was influenced by changes in their conceptions about the nature of science, changes in how they associated science inquiry with student learning, and the inductive-deductive dialectic immersion that was built into their pre-service methods course. Implications of these findings for science teacher education are explored in this paper.     

Academics' Motivation and Self‐efficacy for Teaching and Research

The study focused on academic staff in a post‐1987 university, that is, a former college of advanced education which had been awarded university status as a result of the Australian Government's decision to have a Unified National System of universities. The focus of attention was motivation and self‐efficacy for teaching and research. The effect of faculty of affiliation, level of appointment, gender, qualifications, and research productivity on staff's self‐reported attributions for teaching and research were examined. Tutors, staff with bachelor degrees, academics with low research productivity, and women had higher teaching motivation. One faculty was lower in both research motivation and self‐efficacy, and associate professors and professors had high levels of research efficacy. Men and women had the same level of research motivation and self‐efficacy. Staff with higher degrees and greater research productivity were more motivated and self‐efficacious about research. The results suggest the need to understand more clearly how each individual's research motivation and self‐efficacy is constructed and to determine the best method of increasing motivation and self‐efficacy for teaching and research.     

AQualitativeResearch on the Relationship between PriorSuccess and Motivation ofChinese EFL Readers

In this study the author will pay attention to the relationship between the prior success of Chinese EFL readers and their motivation of reading. This essay is to investigate the question about whether prior success has a positive effect on Chinese EFL readers' motivation.     

Measuring Elementary Student’s Mathematics Motivation: A Validity Study

The psychometric properties of a 10-item math motivation scale were empirically validated with an independent sample consisting of 182 elementary-school students. Analysis of the model dimensionality supported a one-factor structure fit. Item parameter estimates from a Classical Test Theory framework revealed that most items were highly discriminating, and the survey is informative for students of low to average math motivation. Differential item functioning (DIF) analyses found two items exhibiting gender bias. Overall, the instrument was a psychometrically valid instrument for measuring math motivation at the elementary level.