How do we motivate students to practice and persist when facing challenges inherent in learning to play an instrument? In this article, I synthesize research findings into strategies to encourage students' mastery goal orientations and intrinsic motivation. Educators can use these strategies in the classroom or as inspiration to create innovative…

Deeper learning is great for exploring a topic in great depth, but it will fail if student motivation isn't taken into account. Researchers Eric Anderman and Adriana Calvit discuss how to align your deeper learning curriculum with motivational strategies for successful lessons.

In 1990, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi warned against an excessive emphasis on how well music learners perform rather than on the experiential aspect of music in and of itself. Whereas the former approach is, in his words, "a source of psychic disorder," the latter approach offers access to "flow": the optimal,…

What can educators do to help students care about their learning and become more invested in their own success? Chase Nordengren describes how a school district created a goal-setting culture in all classrooms at all grade levels. The district began with a complex, research-based, prescriptive program that teachers found did not work well with…

Competency-based education (CBE) is widely viewed as an innovative alternative to traditional higher education, yet most programs serve only a narrow slice of the postsecondary population. Few are intended for adults who need to boost basic skills in order to succeed in college coursework. However, if designed with the needs of a broader range of…

Research interest in achievement motivation and its correlates has grown in recent years. Though there are thousands of studies on goal orientation, the number of instruments to identify goal orientation based on four-fold model viz., performance approach goal orientation (PAP), performance avoidance goal orientation (PAV), mastery approach goal…

This article discusses ways in which physical educators can enhance learning in their classrooms based on the book How Learning Works: Seven Researched-based Principles for Smart Teaching (2010). Although the research-based principles were proposed for classroom teaching, they are equally applicable to a physical education setting. The article…

Psychological science has much to contribute to enhancing teaching and learning in the classroom. Teaching and learning, in turn, are intricately linked to social and behavioral factors of human development, including cognition, motivation, social interaction, and communication. Psychological science also contributes to effective instruction;…

In his book "Drive," Daniel Pink writes that mastery is "the desire to get better and better at something that matters." If we consider this definition in the context of the classroom, students must have a desire to get better and must feel that what they're learning matters. Technology can help ensure these two criteria…

For students in U.S. classrooms today, the odds of being assigned to an inexperienced teacher are higher than they have ever been because so many teachers, some in the top 20 percent of effectiveness are leaving the classroom in their first five years. Coggins and Diffenbaugh turn to Daniel Pink's work on drive to determine how to motivate…

A chief purpose of schooling is for students to master the knowledge and skills contained in the curriculum. Schools, however, can also intentionally build personal competencies that are necessary for students' success in school, the purposeful navigation of life's challenges, and the pursuit of personal interests and ambitions. A personal…

Motivation and leadership are two important factors influencing achievement in today's classrooms. Whereas some students are naturally self-motivated, other students struggle to find the basic motivation to reach their full potentials. Goal theory states that people naturally select goals based on mastery learning achievements or performance…

A problematic, yet common, assumption among educational researchers is that when teachers provide authentic, problem-based experiences, students will automatically be engaged. Evidence indicates that this is often not the case. In this article, we discuss (a) problems with ignoring motivation in the design of learning environments, (b)…

In the current era of standards-based education, student self-assessment stands alone in its promise of improved student motivation and engagement, and learning. Correctly implemented, student self-assessment can promote intrinsic motivation, internally controlled effort, a mastery goal orientation, and more meaningful learning. Its powerful…

Our aim in this paper was to provide an analysis of goal orientation parameters with respect to reading comprehension strategy use for students with and without reading difficulties (RD). Non-RD students appeared to be more mastery oriented and less performance avoidant compared to RD ones. Also, non-RD students used, more, deeper, more…