This week we continue our focus on motivation with readings on self-determination theory, learning and performance goals, and attribution theory.

Motivation and Affect

Chapter Sixteen marks the final chapter in our text and the last chapter is actually one of my more favorite topics because it is something that happens on an almost daily basis to all of us. In addition, as instructors, knowledge of attribution theory and how it affects learning and behavior is important given the impact it has on learning and behavior yet the theory is mostly straightforward and not too weighted down with jargon (at least I hope you think so). Chapter Sixteen also covers another favorite of mine which is learning and performance goals. As a former K-12 teacher and now a college professor as well as a parent of 5 children, these two aspects of motivational theories are ones that I have seen and do see reflected most readily in student statements in relation to motivation. These theories were not covered in educational psychology when I was an undergraduate so when I went to graduate school after teaching elementary school and started reading about these I felt like I finally had terms and theories to put to the different motivational problems I confronted daily in the classroom. I hope you will find this last chapter somewhat straightforward as well as helpful when thinking about motivating learners whether it is to learn, behave, or perform in some other way.

Session Activities

• Complete the Chapter Sixteen Quiz for Ormrod. You will have 80 minutes for this quiz. You may go directly into theeLearning systemor read the directions first.

Reading/Research

The following links provide you with additional information on some of the topics covered in your chapter readings this week. Review at your leisure and level of interest.

• Motivation in Education - AERA SIG (lots of great stuff)
• Self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan are here)
• Attribution Theory (very friendly, straightforward reading)
• Motivation: What does the research say?
• Strategies for attitude change, motivation and interest (also a link on the left to strategies for concept learning that might be helpful for your project)

APA Tidbits

The tidbit this week is one of the quirks in APA format for reference entries. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you find a journal article that has eight authors. Actually, there are two quirks here. The first is this: in the reference entry you use et al. after the sixth author’s name to represent the rest. The second quirk is the citation in text: you use the first author’s name followed by et al. every time the work is cited, including the first time. See pages 240-241 for the details.

Session Activities

• None

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 - 9: Collect data and monitor behavior change

Week 10: 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.

Session Activities

• View the sample projects provided on the assignment page
• Write up your ABA Project making sure to apply APA
• Continue work on your Motivation Case Study
  

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

Review Your Training Checklist
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