This article reports on a piece of research conducted as part of an undergraduate dissertation, to identify student opinions on collaboration and perceived advantages, disadvantages and barriers to knowledge sharing. Collaborative behaviour is investigated and analysed, including the use of two specific online tools. Research is conducted through…

Background: It has been suggested that children's learning motivation and interest in a particular subject play an important role in their school performance, particularly in mathematics. However, few cross-lagged longitudinal studies have been carried out to investigate the prospective relationships between academic achievement and task…

"Deep" approaches to learning, as defined by Biggs (1987) and others, would generally mean that a student is interested in the academic task, searches for meaning in the task, personalizes the task, integrates aspects of the task into a whole, sees relationships between this whole and previous knowledge, and tries to theorize about the…

A study examined the educational orientation of Nigerian adult learners to test the assumptions that there would be no difference in their reasons for engaging in educational activities and that there would be no difference between male and female Nigerian adult learners as to their educational orientations. Six hundred male and female adults…

The deficient preparation of Australian college faculty for participation in college administration is contrasted with evidence of increased administrator participation in professional development activities. The use of films to trigger opportunities for administrative development in peer group situations is discussed and evaluated by…

Examines the external motivation for and attitudes toward acquiring a second language. Coming from the community at large, this type of motivation is not from the classroomand, thus, out of the hands of individual teachers. Rather, vocational usefulnes is one of the key reasons students pursue foreign language study. (SL)

In Nigeria, 340 male and 160 female certified teachers studying for bachelor's degrees while working were surveyed. Primary motives for combining work and education were improvement of academic qualifications (85%), self-actualization (76%), effective job performance (58%), and job security (53%). (SK)

Discusses a Korean learner's struggle to achieve English language proficiency over a 20-year period using an autobiographical approach. Concentrates on the issues of individual motivation and social learning environments and examines the interactions between this learner's motivation and affect, self-confidence, and environment. (Author/VWL)

Investigates the effects of medium of instruction and ability grouping (banding) of schools on students' learning and achievement orientation. The results showed that students studying in upper band schools (i.e., low-ability schools) used fewer strategies in learning, had lower self-efficacy, higher surface goal and lower attainment scores than…

Adults participating in an Ulpan method Welsh program were surveyed to determine their motivation for learning Welsh and for choosing an intensive course. Integration was found to be the major motivating factor for studying Welsh and the students believed that an immersion setting would result in superior language learning. (JL)

British nurses (n=275), many of whom had to upgrade skills for conversion to registered nursing, participated in an upskilling exercise. Participants and a comparison group of nonparticipants were categorized as either opportunity-takers or conscripts (those who viewed retraining as obligatory). (SK)

Investigates the effects of two types of motivation--integrative and instrumental--on the English proficiency of English-as-a-foreign-language senior students at Islamic Azad University of Kerman. Results showed a significant difference between the means of the English proficiency scores of the integratively motivated students and the…

This study investigated the relationship among new measures of motivation, such as persistence, attention, and goal specificity, and existing measures of motivation and achievement in 75 students enrolled in a francophone secondary school in Ontario. It concluded that these new motivational measures add to the understanding of the effects of…

Presents results of an empirical survey aimed at obtaining classroom data on student motivational strategies. Hungarian teachers from various language teaching institutions were asked how important they considered a selection of 51 strategies, and how frequently they used them in their teaching practice. (Author/VWL)

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…