The purpose of the current study was to develop and validate a measure of motivation for use with basic college writers that would measure self-efficacy, achievement goals, beliefs, and affect. As part of a design research project on curriculum for community college developmental writing classes, 133 students in 11 classes completed the motivation…

This study was an investigation of the impact of motivation to read on reading gains of struggling readers with and without specific learning disabilities (LD) who were exposed to a structured, research-based daily reading program over an 18-week period. Participants included 13 students with LD and 25 students without disabilities from two middle…

Sixty middle school students, half average-achieving and half with learning disabilities (LD), were assigned to either a positive or neutral mood induction condition prior to receiving instruction in elementary Hindi language (to control for effects of prior knowledge). Across a two-week period, the LD students in the positive condition performed…

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A schema for categorizing a student's inferred motivation to learn was tested with 37 students (9 to 18 years old), who had been referred because of a diagnosis of learning disability. Students were classified on three dimensions: level of motivation, degree of misbehavior, and degree of learning ability. (SW)

The focus of this article is intervention for third-grade students with serious mathematics deficits at third grade. In third grade, such deficits are clearly established, and identification of mathematics disabilities typically begins. We provide background information on two aspects of mathematical cognition that present major challenges for…

The "Test Anxiety Scale for Children" and the "Lie Scale for Children" were administered to 60 children, half of whom were defined by schools as learning disabled (LD). LD subjects were more anxious than the nondisabled, and their test anxiety was significantly related to reading and mathematics achievement scores. (Author)

Use of two direction-setting activities (the basal approach to develop student motivation and the advance organizer approach based on the text outline) to improve content area text comprehension with 24 learning disabled high school students was compared. Results indicated that the advance organizer group significantly outperformed the basal…

Steps for enhancing skills and motivation for solving interpersonal problems are included. In addition, reference is made to planning intervention for learning disabled students. (Author/SEW)

Given a consistent interaction of student locus of attribution and mode of teacher response, the study sought to determine whether attribution levels could be changed for 69 elementary grade learning disabled students and poor readers. The results indicate that difficulty is encountered in trying to change students' attributions, (Author/SEW)

Given that affective and cognitive processes interact in writing, it is important that interventions for developing writing ability focus both on strategies for developing motivation and cognitive processes. This article provides evidence for the efficacy of an instructional program that combines training in composition processes with strategies…

This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study explored how the encoding of text ideas is affected when students with learning disabilities (LD) take notes from Web-based text. In the quantitative phase of the study, 15 students took three kinds of notes--typed, copy and paste, and written--with each kind of notes addressing a different topic.…

Attempts to evaluate the cognitive-motivational profiles of students with reading comprehension difficulties have been scarce. The purpose of the present study was twofold: (a) to assess the discriminatory validity of cognitive, motivational, affective, and psychopathological variables for identification of students with reading difficulties, and…