Based on a national project to collect "diaries of 1,000 adult learners," this book contains the writings of men and women from across Britain about the joys and challenges of learning. Some write about courses such as those run by further education colleges or Open University, Workers' Educational Association, and Women's Institute.…

Conjoint retention and confluency are examined as psychological and pedagogical principles for use in instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL) when maps are used as facilitators. The theory of conjoint retention states that dual encoding occurs when a person hears or reads a narrative while simultaneously viewing a map containing…

Following a brief introduction, five reports, books, and articles that examine the issues of engendering, maintaining, or regaining student motivation are summarized. While some offer specific strategies that can be used at the classroom level, others address issues beyond the classroom, recognizing that schoolwide policies and practices can also…

This paper estimates the relative importance of three, theoretically interrelated sets of variables on changes in students' intellectual curiosity and interest in learning for its own sake. Variables being analyzed are: (1) students' curricular experiences; (2) students' formal instructional experiences and classroom-related contacts with faculty…

A study combined a motivation survey and needs assessment of 10 students enrolled in the 1993 summer session of an academic intensive English program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Extension. In the first week of classes, the subjects completed a questionnaire and wrote journal entries about their motivations (acculturation or…

Data are examined pertaining to the following questions: What are the student learning preferences in the six curricula of the School of Associated Medical Sciences? Are students with particular learning preferences attracted to specific allied health professions? Are students with particular personality types attracted to specific allied health…

To study the effects of motivation on cognition, 55 fifth- and sixth-grade students were randomly assigned to 3 motivational treatment groups: (1) ego-involved (ability oriented); (2) task-involved (mastery oriented); and (3) control (no orientation). The ego-involvement treatment attempted to make subjects feel that their abilities on the tasks…

Whatever the past achievements of our schools, very few today bring about student learning even remotely up to the minimum requirements of a nation such as the United States; small improvements in the educational system will be of little consequence in light of the huge deficits and the country's increasing needs. Most of the large, complex plans…

The second language learner cannot be expected to have as strong a drive to refine his language as the first language learner. In first language acquisition, cognitive development and language development occur together, which induces meaningful generalizations. In second language learning, meaning and form are separate, particularly in the…

A theoretical linguistic model is insufficient to deal with the problems of language teaching because of the complexity of the phenomena concerned and the dynamic nature of language acquisition and communication. Most linguistic models neglect the fact that, in communicative situations, language users construct the prerequisites of communicative…

Factors that influence college students' motivation for learning are discussed. When difficult assignments seem unconnected to any highly regarded outcome, students view them as another hurdle to be jumped to receive a good grade. Three influences that enhance intrinsic motivation are choice, optimum challenge, and positive feedback. In general,…

This programmatic series of three studies compares, in British and Hungarian secondary schools, two contrasting conceptualizations of motivation and successively relates them to approaches to learning and studying and then to indices of self-concept and attributions of success and failure. The first conceptualization was developed in Hungary and…

This report is a comprehensive account of the accumulated research on the measurement of quality of effort and its significance in understanding the achievement of college students with regard to the College Student Experiences questionnaire (Pace, 1979). Results are based on the responses of 12,000 undergraduate students from 40 different…

Part of a collection of papers commissioned by Foundations (a project designed to determine the career development needs of deaf postsecondary students), the paper reviews research on student motivation. The first section addresses research on normally hearing students in classrooms with different motivational orientations. Advantages and…

The learning assistance counselor at the college level should facilitate learning for students who have not developed their cognitive and literacy skills. To enrich the process of discovery in student learning, the counselor can direct students in the following textbook activities: practicing basic syllabifying skills on technical and scientific…