Children are natural learners, but they need to have their internal, intrinsic motivation to be lifelong learners reinforced. In today's media-driven, pressure cooker world, children don't always know how to engage in the complex play that leads to deeper learning. They often need adult intervention to help them move from simplistic, repetitive…

Background: Research has primarily concentrated on adults' implicit theories about high quality science education for all students. Little work has considered the students' perspective. This study investigated high school students' implicit theories about what helped them learn science. Purpose: This study addressed (1) What characterizes high…

This meta-analysis (148 studies, k = 197, N = 31,718) examined the relationship between motivation and transfer in professional training. For this purpose, motivation was conceptualized in the following nine dimensions: motivation to learn, motivation to transfer, pre- and post-training self-efficacy, mastery orientation, performance orientation,…

Motivation to learn a second language (L2) is considered a crucial individual factor in explaining success or lack thereof in second language learning. This study examined learners' motivation to learn Chinese as a second language (L2). The study was longitudinal and cross sectional. Interviews were conducted with learners at different year levels…

"Natural acceleration" happens through an internal fire that burns to learn and may transcend school boundaries. Based on their passionate interests and connections with a domain, children who hunger for domain understandings outside school curricula require different types of acceleration, motivated by these interests. The lifeworks,…

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL, the teaching of another curriculum subject through a foreign language), although more widespread in Europe, is still relatively innovative in England. Since the government's decision to remove the requirement for all pupils to learn a foreign language at Key Stage 4 (ages 14-16) the numbers of pupils…

This paper reports on a study, "MUSE", which involved Secondary (Grade 7) students in designing and constructing a virtual museum. It presents a description and evaluation of the design and implementation of the technologically-mediated intervention within a language curriculum that emphasizes multimodal meaning-making and expression.…

The purpose of education has been viewed in a variety of ways and much attention has focused on learning that is validated or certified by certificates, diplomas, degrees, and the like. Studies suggest that the higher one's formal level of education the more desire there is for continued learning. Many adults in the U.S., however, are without the…

Much remains unknown in the increasingly important field of e-learning in organizations. Drawing on a large-scale survey of employees (N = 557) who had opportunities to participate in voluntary e-learning activities, the factors influencing participation in e-learning are explored in this empirical paper. It is hypothesized that key variables…

Social factors play an important role in determining whether instructional communication in computer-supported settings will be successful. "Social presence" is a social factor, specifically addressing the feeling of being present with another person in a virtual environment. This article describes possibilities to influence the feeling of social…

Part of a larger research project, this article presents a phenomenological self-study exploring the qualities of student engagement that occurred in one professors' college class-room over two semesters' time. The purpose of the study was to better understand college students' engagement in learning utilizing a reflective, data-based process. The…

Very little research has been conducted into teaching advanced learners of German as a foreign language (GFL), and the few publications that exist describe such learners as very heterogeneous in respect of their learning needs, motivations, prior knowledge and expectations. Not surprisingly, didactic suggestions for teaching GFL at an advanced…

This descriptive-correlational study examined the personal factors that may affect the self-determination of 110 freshmen who have elected to enroll in an urban agriculture program. The personal factors, termed the motivational profile, consisted of influences in the decision to enroll in the program, the student's type of motivation to attend the…

Online teaching is in its adolescence and needs to mature in order to overcome some of its growing pains to reach its potential in the field of education. Reflecting upon the author's first three years teaching online, he notes practices and commitments that could help instructors better participate in and facilitate lifelong learning for…

This paper identifies differences between the three ethnic groups, namely, Kadazans/Dusuns, Bajaus, and other minority ethnic groups on the beliefs about learning English as a second language based on the five variables, that is, language aptitude, language learning difficulty, language learning and communicating strategies, nature of language…