The purpose of this research was to explore how and in what ways students perceived the integration of student response technology, case studies, and discussions in a largely populated undergraduate course in management of human services at a large midwestern university affected their motivation, interest, and feedback. Qualitative data collection…

The purpose was to understand college students' motivations for the use and discontinued use of fitness related technology (FRT) in relation to their physical activity behaviors. Participants: Participants were undergraduate students (n = 22) who were eligible if they were between 18-24 years of age (emerging adulthood) and current or previous…

Background: Achievement goal theory is a popular motivational theory within education and psychology, with several review papers summarizing the extensive work done in these fields. Although reviews exist in these specific fields, none exists within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This is a considerable gap in…

Background: Achievement goal theory is a popular motivational theory within education and psychology, with several review papers summarizing the extensive work done in these fields. Although reviews exist in these specific fields, none exists within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. This is a considerable gap in…

Purpose: The study investigates meaningful learning among higher education students using concept maps (CM) as a learning strategy. The main goals were to understand whether the introduction of CM produced changes in students' academic achievement and intrinsic motivation (IM). Design/methodology/approach: In this quasi-experimental study,…

Background: Co-curricular activities are often touted as valuable STEM learning opportunities in higher education settings. Particularly in engineering, industry encourage and seek students with co-curricular experiences. However, many engineering undergraduates do not regularly participate in those experiences. Some researchers have suggested…

We integrated perspectives from achievement goal theory and expectancy-value theory to investigate how undergraduate students' (N = 475) achievement motivation might influence their instructional dissent. A latent profile analysis of students' achievement goals, performance self-efficacy, task value, and perceived cost revealed four distinct…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine formative first-year practices and motivating factors that encouraged first-year college students to pursue peer mentorship roles. The examination of peer mentorship within undergraduate populations owes much to Jacobi's (1991) study on mentoring and academic success, which more recently has…

This qualitative study explores the roles that undergraduate Spanish as a second language (L2) learners ascribe to their identities, backgrounds, sociocultural contexts, and imaginations in the development of their ideal second language (L2) selves (Dornyei 2009), rooted L2 selves (MacIntyre et al., 2017) and investment (Darvin & Norton, 2015;…

Being able to comprehend informal arguments in scientific texts is important for scientific literacy in higher education. Successful intervention studies demonstrating that these skills can be trained in university students have not yet provided evidence that gains of explicit training can be maintained beyond immediate post-training assessment.…

This paper exploring the impact of the utilization of Design Thinking tool in facilitating the development of a group of design undergraduates' creativity skills and motivation to think creatively. This study used a qualitative approach based on open-ended face-to-face interviews. A group of 55 design undergraduates from a Malaysian university was…

This paper explores the effect of collaborative learning on academic motivation among students from 17 institutions throughout the United States. Even in the presence of a wide array of potential confounders, collaborative learning exerted a statistically significant and positive influence on students' academic motivation levels across four years…

A profound need currently exists in the United States for increased student interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) -based careers. Our study focused on how students conceptualized their motivation to learn contextualized science via agricultural science while viewed through the lens of both social cognitive theory…

Introduction: Student motivation is a critical predictor of academic achievement, engagement, and success in higher education. Motivating students is a crucial aspect of effective teaching. Statement of the Problem: Although there is a wealth of research on student motivation, practical guidance for putting theory into practice in challenging…

Background: Student transition to university can be a challenging time. Research suggests that providing space for student reflection and goal setting may facilitate this period of transition. Objective: I describe the "Postcard to my Graduating Self Project," in which psychology students were invited to write postcards to their future…