Student motivation, confidence, and perceived control are of key interest to sociology instructors seeking to develop pedagogical techniques that increase student engagement. However, attribution research suggests that strengthening these aspects of student learning can be challenging if students attribute academic outcomes to factors over which…

Learning to learn should be a continual process of change. Learning skills are developed through conditioning in the learner's environment and their experiences in social environments. Students over time become dependent on their beliefs influencing decisions for how to engage with learning. Educator instructional strategy plays a significant role…

Life-long learning is a process. Learning skill ability is common to all as well as individually unique. A learner's beliefs are constantly susceptible to conditioning from external expectations. A discussion reflects on techniques for strengthening distance-learning skills in this technological age.

This study (N=75) examined the effects of student ability, locus of control, and type of instructional control on performance and the motivational outcome of confidence. Results indicated that student ability and locus of control significantly influenced both performance and confidence, whereas type of instructional control did not affect…

This paper proposes strategies of motivation in computer based instruction (CBI) derived from motivational foundations of cognitive, affective, and social learning theories. The assumption made here is that motivation and achievement interact in ways that warrant a "holistic" examination of strategies incorporated into CBI. Thus motivation in CBI…

Describes a study comparing the characteristics of college-ready and academically underprepared community college students. Reports that underprepared students demonstrated higher levels of test anxiety and a more external locus of control, but did not differ from college-ready students in self-esteem, grade point average, or learning-study…

This study examined the effects of feedback (immediate, delayed, or no feedback) and the type of control (external or internal) on computer-assisted instruction (CAI), and also considered the influence on achievement of such factors as computer anxiety, self-concept, learning style, and gender. Subjects were 336 undergraduates, the majority of…