Singapore primary and secondary school teachers (n=76) attending an inservice education course on motivating learners identified and described two critical lessons: one in which the teachers successfully motivated students and another in which they failed to motivate pupils. Participants recalled those critical lessons in a reflective and…

This workbook, one of six professional development manuals prepared by experienced Adult High School (AHS) instructors, is designed to assist the instructor setting up and operating a General Education Development (GED) classroom. A pretest and posttest appear first. Each of the seven units begins with a list of objectives and then provides…

Nine brief essays address Spanish enrollments in Spanish courses in colleges and universities, discussing such issues as staffing imbalances, coping with unexpected rising or declining enrollments, enrollment implications in a small college, social and political influences on study of Spanish, enrollment management, and the changing motivations of…

Investigated the relationship between cultural background of Arab students in Canada and Israel and reading comprehension of majority and minority group stories. Findings indicate that, in terms of language education, it is essential to develop pedagogies that respond to the diversity of the social contexts in which the learners are situated. (70…

Examined relationship between the cognitive demands of instruction and student motivation in fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-grade mathematics classrooms. Found through observation and survey data that sixth- and seventh-grade math lessons were characterized by significantly fewer elements of higher-order thinking than fifth-grade math lessons, and…

Reviews Betty Edwards' self-instruction book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," and discusses the motivational techniques used in that work. Argues that these techniques, designed to build student self-confidence, explain the book's popularity and provide instructive examples for other art teachers. (MJP)

Describes how the job characteristics model (J. R. Hackman), used by industrial-organizational psychologists to enhance the motivating potential of jobs in industry, can be applied to increase student motivation. The job characteristics model describes the relationship between the core characteristics of skill variety, task identity, task…

Report on research from 18 states that concludes that high-stakes tests do not lead to higher student achievement. In addition, such tests can decrease student motivation to learn and lead to higher student retention and dropout rates. (Contains 2 figures and 21 references.) (WFA)

This paper reports the findings of an investigation of university students' attitudes toward the study of literature and culture in a foreign language program. Discussion centers on why language students consistently rate the study of literature below other aspects of their language courses. (19 references) (JL)

Research suggests urban community college students have ineffective study approaches and habits. A program teaching how to regulate behavior, cognition, and affect can be an important resource. One such program helps students monitor and control external and internal aspects of the learning environment, task and setting, others in the task…

International comparisons of American education have become so popular and widespread in the reform debates of the last several decades that many of the current centerpieces of the American reform movement were shaped through evidence and speculation on what other more educationally successful nations were doing that the U.S. was not. The current…

The purpose of this study is to explore learner engagement and motivation related to "Flow" particularly in WBI settings. In the "Flow" state people are absorbed in their activities while irrelevant thoughts and perceptions are screened out. In this article, we attempted to identify some of the critical elements of learner…

This study investigated the role of students' motivation and attitudes in second language (L2) study within an online language course context (LOL). Students' attitudes and motivation were examined within a socioeducational framework (Gardner & MacIntyre, 1993) while learning contexts were examined based on Dorneyi's (1994) components of foreign…

For almost three decades, the AACSB and business leaders have sought increased emphasis on internationalizing students' perspectives. Recent studies demonstrate mixed results in the extent to which business schools have globalized their curricula. With decreasing student interest in the marketing major, Introductory Marketing emerges as a critical…

Education aims to enable students not only to acquire knowledge but also to become capable and enthusiastic lifelong learners. Prior research has found that learning is more likely to be effective where a student plays a proactive role in the learning process. Such a proactive process, including learning on students' own initiative and strategies,…