Students' adaptive motivation to study tends to decrease over time. However, the reasons for this decline are not fully understood. Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT), we investigated whether changes in teachers' motivating style and students' associated need-based experiences could explain the motivational decline documented in the…

Background: Although sound is an everyday phenomenon that we hear about constantly, numerous studies have reported that students often exhibit learning difficulties in understanding this subject. Only a few studies have proposed programs involving practical learning experiments to provide students with solid conceptual knowledge. Moreover, little…

Abundant research has tried to understand how games can be designed and used effectively to improve the learning process and to examine the correlations between digital learning games and student motivation, engagement, and knowledge retention. The current study examined the correlation between learning through digital game-based learning (DGBL)…

This article describes a unique ongoing experience of learning programming via engagement in music programming of known melodies. Seventh and eighth graders participated in 10 lessons of weekly activity. Via the programming of melodies, using the Scratch 2.0 environment, they became acquainted with basic concepts of programming such as methods,…

The current study focused on scaffolding programmes, including cognitive and meta-cognitive components, for science problem solving in a computerised learning environment to identify their unique effects on aspects of student motivation. Using expectancy-value theory as a conceptual framework, the current study focused on two motivational aspects:…

As the disparity between educational standards and reality outside educational institutions is increasing, alternative learning infrastructure such as mobile technologies are becoming more common, and are challenging long held, traditional modes of teaching. Educators' attitudes toward wireless devices are mixed. Wireless devices are perceived by…

Achievement goal theory distinguishes between mastery goals (the goals of developing competence) and performance goals (the goals of demonstrating competence) [Ames [1992] "Journal of Educational Psychology" 84: 261-271]. In this study, we employed this theory aiming to better understand why adolescents' motivation to learn science…

There is a growing awareness that science education should center not just on knowledge acquisition but developing the foundation for lifelong learning. However, for intentional learning of science to occur in school, out of school, and after school, there needs to be a motivation to learn science. Prior research had shown that students'…

This study investigated the relations between early adolescents' academic motivational orientations and an aspect of quality of friendship: intimacy. Two-hundred and three Jewish-Israeli seventh grade students responded to surveys asking them about their academic achievement goals and about characteristics of their friendships. Variable-centered…