This week we begin focusing on the topic of motivation. Motivation is one of my more favorite topics simply because if you can get students motivated to learn lots of the other things fall into place - like behavior and self-regulation and information processing. Having students motivated about a topic is always a plus in any learning setting and can sure make an instructor or trainer's life easier. However, it is not always easy to achieve. Some topics are just not inherently interesting to students or do not seem immediately relevant and applicable to their every day life. Other topics might immediately bring about fear and trepidation in students who have had negative prior experiences or low confidence. The challenge of gaining and maintaining motivation is often equal to the challenge of gaining and maintaining attention. As we embark on these final chapters on motivation, I hope this aspect of the psychology of learning and behavior will become a welcome tool.

Motivation and Affect

Chapter Fifteen is focused on providing you with a basic definition of motivation as well as an overview of the many views of motivation that are out there. This chapter focuses on more of the historical theories surrounding motivation while the final chapter for next week will focus on more current cognitive aspects of motivation. Many of the theories you will read this week (particularly Maslow's hierarchy of needs) will be somewhat familiar to anyone with a background in education. Some of the more current cognitive thinking in this area has pointed out either weaknesses or gaps in these theories when considering human aspects of cognition and have then proposed additional theories that fill in gaps or provide alternate views and explanations of how and why people are motivated. The final section of Chapter Fifteen then focuses on the role of affect in motivation and learning. While this topic has a long history in education, a while new interest has been generated in the last few years as more and more states become focused on accountability and students are required to learn in an environment of high stakes testing. In fact, in the educational research course I teach I always have several students proposing research to look at various aspects of the role anxiety plays in students within an environment of high stakes testing. Regardless of the existence of high stakes testing, learner anxiety is certainly something most of us have experienced at one time or another in our learning career.

Some web sites that might further your understanding of many of the topics in Chapter 15 are listed below for your reading pleasure:

• Educational Psychology Interactive: Motivation
• TIP Database: Motivation
• Picture Identification Test for Need for Affiliation
• Motivation to Learn: Motivation and Anxiety

The following lecture and notes were provided in week 9 but portions of it also relate to topics this week and next so if you did not take the opportunity to listen to it a few weeks ago you might want to consider it now. Download note pages for Motivation and Self-Regulation and Download the Motivation and Self-Regulation lecture.

Session Activities

• Complete the Chapter Fifteen Quiz for Ormrod. You will have 110 minutes for this quiz. You may go directly into the eLearning system or read the directions first.

Your ABA Project

As a review, an outline of the activities related to your ABA project is as follows:

Week 4: Complete Form 1: Analyzing a behavior you want to change

Week 5: Complete Form 2: Developing a behavior modification plan

Week 6 - 10: Collect data and monitor behavior change

Week 11: Summarize data and write up final report

Also as a review, your final report must include:

• an introduction to the project
• a description of the behavior you target for change (results of form 1)
• a summary of your plan to include specific operant conditioning principles you used (results of form 2)
• the results of your behavior modification plan - your data table(s) or figure(s) from your 4 week implementation and a written summary of the data
• a conclusion of the results of your project (successes and failures) and the utility of operant conditioning principles and ABA.

APA Tidbits

This week the APA tidbit is one that will be used more in the future than is used now. Here is an example of a text citation from a dissertation we reviewed this week.

Bandura stated, “To be an agent is to intentionally make things happen by one’s actions” (2001, ¶ 1).

The question is, why did the author use the paragraph symbol instead of using p. to indicate a page number? Does the reference for the citation help?

Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1-26. Retrieved September 15, 2001, from the Wilson Select database.

The online database gave the page numbers the article occupied in the journal, but the author of the dissertation used the paragraph symbol rather than a page number because the online source did not have page numbers. So, she had to indicate the quote’s location by giving the paragraph number. All the details are on pages 213-214 of the APA manual.

Session Activities

• Review the complete description of your project and requirements
• View the sample ABA projects
• Collect final week of data and begin working on your final report
• Complete the Extra Credit APA Quiz if you choose

Motivation Case Study

Please read the complete description, resources, and requirements of the Motivation Case Study Project.

For those who have been in courses in which case studies were used, the Motivation Case Study might be a familiar approach to application of theories and principles. However, some may be encountering the use of case studies for the first time. Please read the project assignment carefully. It provides you a description and guidance on how to analyze a case study in the context of the required elements of the assignment.

Session Activities

• Read the Motivation Case Study Assignment thoroughly

• Email your Director;
• Email the Mentor;
• Email other interns.
• Refer to the Course FAQ.

Review Your Training Checklist
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