A sense of obligation to support, assist, and respect the family was examined among approximately 700 urban and rural 10th- (M=16.6 years) and 12th- (M=18.9 years) grade students in the People's Republic of China. Urban male adolescents reported a weaker sense of family obligation than did rural male adolescents and both urban and rural female…

The current study evaluates existing and new validity evidence for the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS; Vallerand et al., 1992). We first provide a narrative review synthesizing past research, and then conduct a validity investigation of the scores from the measure. Data analysis using a sample of 1406 American college students provided construct…

The 2004 Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology is awarded to Janet Taylor Spence. She is recognized for her outstanding scientific contributions that have had a profound theoretical and empirical impact on two areas of inquiry: Her early seminal research on the motivational properties of trait anxiety led the way to…

The study investigated whether changes in the educational context of teaching Arabic as a second language in Israeli schools affect students' attitudes towards the language, its speakers and culture, and motivation to study the language. These changes included teaching spoken Arabic rather than Modern Standard Arabic and lowering the starting age…

The study examines the effects of a quasi-experimental classroom goal condition (mastery, performance-approach, combined mastery/performance-approach) and entering personal goal orientations on motivation, emotional well-being, help seeking, cognitive engagement, and achievement for 237 upper elementary students during a 5-week math unit…

It is frequently held forth, within the area of virtual pedagogical characters, that such characters are beneficial for learning as they strengthen the social dimension of electronic learning environments. This article presents more details on this proposal together with a survey of corresponding empirical evidence. In addition, materials from a…

In an effort to overcome deficiencies in teaching molecular biology at school, a workshop in an out-of-school laboratory including only authentic experiments was developed. Evaluation of 337 A-level 12th graders followed a quasi-experimental design, with one hands-on group, two non-experimental control groups (at school/in the laboratory), and one…

This study aimed at investigating the contribution of motivational beliefs, cognitive, and metacognitive strategy use to Turkish high school students' achievement in biology. In order to investigate the specified purpose of the study, 519 tenth-grade students were administered the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith,…

This study examines out-of-school use of Irish and motivation to learn Irish among final year post-primary students from three different instructional backgrounds: mainstream students studying ordinary and higher level Irish as a subject only and immersion students. Information on motivation and use is linked to student proficiency in Irish.…

The present study examined the reliability of student evaluations of summer undergraduate research experiences using the SURE (Survey of Undergraduate Research Experiences) and a follow-up survey disseminated 9 mo later. The survey further examines the hypothesis that undergraduate research enhances the educational experience of science…

The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL) on eleventh grade students' understanding of "The effects of temperature, concentration and pressure on cell potential" and also their social skills. Stratified randomly selected control and experimental groups with 20 students each were used in…

This paper is a review of human resource development, training, and instructional communication literature to determine any connections between trainers presentation and trainee motivation. The literature review explores constructs of instructional communication that impact motivation, and then connects motivation to trainees' transfer of…

This study offers empirical evidence in HRD e-learning completion. Based on the Learning Participation Theory (LPT) (Wang & Wang, 2004), a study was conducted with U.S. corporate e-learners to explore the determinants of e-learning completion. The results generally confirmed the hypothesis by the LPT that individual, learning process, and…

The poor health status of Australia's Indigenous people is well-documented, as are the links between health and education. Aboriginal communities recognise the utmost importance of improving educational, physical, social and economic well-being in an environment where disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal students fail to complete secondary…

This paper recounts the process by which a severely reading-disabled adult student taught himself to read and write Ancient Greek, and in so doing, improved his ability to read and write in English. Initially, Keith's reading and writing were slow, difficult and inaccurate, accompanied by visual disturbance. However, motivated by a strong interest…