Experiment compares students receiving an instructional intervention designed to increase intrinsic motivation with students receiving traditional instruction. Concept-oriented reading instruction (CORI) integrated reading and language arts with science inquiry, emphasizing learning goals, real-world interaction, competence support, and…

Describes the Detroit Dance Collective, a group of professional dancers who work in K-12 schools to infuse schoolwork with movement, finding areas where curricula link. The group attempts to motivate all types of learners through movement. Michigan officials contend that using dance in the classroom is a critical teaching strategy that reaches…

Examines the reliability and validity of the scores of the Assessment of Academic Self-Concept and Motivation Scale (AASCM), a new instrument developed according to motivational systems theory. The AASCM was administered to African American, European American, and Hispanic participants (N=492). Presents evidence of the measurement's strong…

Interviews with 21 New Zealanders over 60 about family background, educational experiences, and decision to enroll in universities after retirement revealed several types of continuity over the life course: continuing association with education, periodic return to work-related learning, learning "instinct," and long-term nonwork…

Discussion of corporate universities and electronic learning options focuses on how to lower high attrition rates by motivating learners to complete the course and transfer that knowledge back to the work site. Suggests how instructional design teams can implement motivational techniques before, during, and after online courses. (Author/LRW)

Investigates the effects of choice and response format on children's search of informational text. Results reveal that choice of topic facilitated both performance and process measures, whereas response format affected process measures only. Prior knowledge emerged as a significant contributor to accuracy and time to locate information. (Contains…

Examines between-domain relations of self efficacy, task value, and achievement goal orientations among 424 Korean middle and high school students. Results provide strong support for the subject specificity of self efficacy, task value, and various achievement goals. Both middle and high school students expressed motivational orientations that…

Uses Dewey's concept of growth as "the ability to learn from experience" to discuss the learning histories of three male literacy learners. From this perspective, their progress toward goals, rather than achievement, is the primary focus. (Contains 30 references.) (SK)

A survey of 447 visitors to a Kansas zoo examined adult visitors' motivations for themselves and companions. In another survey, 118 zoo educators nationwide predicted visitor responses. Educators' predictions were fairly good for visitors' educational and recreational motives for attendance, less accurate for their social orientation, and poor…

This article presents a brief overview of developments in educational psychology over the last twenty-five years. It firstly presents an historical context by reviewing four basic emphases in educational psychology; cognitive psychology, behavioural psychology, social cognitive theory and humanism. The article then reviews the growth in cognitive…

Given the progressive loss of influence for the school relative to television in youngsters' everyday lives, this article describes the procedure and the results of including cartoons in the physics curriculum in secondary education. Work was carried out intensively with a small group of pupils and sporadically with a larger group. In the first…

This article presents a checklist that teachers and other education professionals can use when deciding which instructional materials to include in their content area instruction. The checklist addresses several considerations, such as the learners' prior knowledge, vocabulary levels, and motivation. In addition, characteristics of the text…

This research attempted to discover the degree to which performance on assessments that have no direct consequences for individual students can be attributed to students' motivational states in addition to their underlying achievement in the domains measured. If such findings were reliable, it would allow us to correct underestimates of domain…

This study analyzes similarities and differences in students' motivation to learn based on nationally representative samples of 15-year-olds from 26 countries. Scales of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation proved to be equivalent across countries but there seems to be a shift in meaning at the country level. Focusing on functional relationships…

Academic enablers have been defined as attitudes and behaviors that facilitate students' participation in, and benefit from, academic instruction in the classroom (J.C. DiPerna & S.N. Elliott, 2000). The purpose of this article is to provide practitioners with an overview of specific academic enablers (motivation, study skills, engagement, and…