Describes a Web-building class aimed at motivating English-as-a-Foreign-Language students to improve their English writing and editing skills while building a homepage. All students had a basic or better knowledge of keyboarding and Internet search techniques, two had advanced computer skills, but none had ever created a homepage. (Author/VWL)

Studied learning motivation of English by Cantonese-speaking students in Hong Kong. Students answered a questionnaire and were assigned on the basis of their responses to four categories of motivational regulation proposed in Deci and Ryan (1985): External, Identified, and Integrated. Suggests that the transition from Identified to Integrated…

Examines the extent to which a highly motivated older adult can acquire a new language by focusing on a case study of a 57-year-old woman's endeavor to learn Spanish in an immersion setting. The learner's experiences, as recorded in diary entries, are examined in relation to the literature on cognitive aging. (Author/VWL)

The purpose of this study was to test a model of the relations between specific academic enablers (motivation, interpersonal skills, engagement, and study skills) and mathematics achievement. Using teacher judgments of academic enablers and achievement, we examined the fit of this model for primary (Grades K-2) and intermediate (Grades 3-6)…

A librarian, a professor, and an alumnus of Eastern Michigan University (EMU) collaborated to create an innovative library learning workshop for sixth-graders and college students. Pairing sixth-graders and college students increased the motivation to learn of both groups. Participants discovered through hands-on projects that library research…

This paper has two purposes. The first purpose is to develop a better understanding of the process of starting an after-school program for Japanese heritage language learners. The second purpose is to develop a better understanding of parents' expectations of their children's heritage language education. Interviews with two Japanese mothers whose…

This study examined the learning and study practices of postsecondary American Indian/Alaska Native students attending community colleges in the southwest. Using a survey design, students completed the Kagan Matching Familiar Figures Test, the Schmeck, Ribich, and Ramanaiah Inventory of Learning Processes, and the Weinstein, Palmer, and Schulte…

General intelligence, Big Five personality traits, and the construct Work Drive were studied in relation to two measures of collegiate academic performance: a single course grade received by undergraduate students in an introductory psychology course, and self-reported GPA. General intelligence and Work Drive were found to be significantly…

It might be expected that the challenges and pressures currently affecting British higher education would be stimulating an atmosphere of analysis and debate in relation to the 'official discourse' of mainstream pedagogical theory in higher education. It seems, however, that the literature offers new university teachers a fairly narrow range of…

One of the challenges in teaching biochemistry is facilitating students' interest in and mastery of metabolism. The many pathways and modes of regulation can be overwhelming for students to learn and difficult for professors to teach in an engaging manner. We have found it useful to take advantage of prevailing interest in popular yet…

This Classroom Idea-Sparker was submitted by Dorothy L. Haggerty, Associate Professor of Professional Practice, University of New Orleans. Too often, students are bored with science. Irrelevant facts, numerous definitions, and confusing diagrams clutter the student's mind. To help motivate students, teachers should, instead, choose fun,…

Too often adult literacy programs seem based on the assumption that, if learners work hard on skills for six months, they will have "acquired" literacy, as though it is a set of skills adults can "get" from a tutor (Kazemek, 1985). One study of 20 adult literacy classes in eight U.S. states found basic (not higher level) skills the predominant…

This article describes the application of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) methodology in the context of a student congress, arguing that such new approaches to learning are best-suited to the goals of the Bologna Process. The Congress in question enabled Spanish graduate students in Psychology, many of them mid-career professionals, to increase their…

Young people engaged as peer educators are increasingly important in sex and relationship education (SRE) programmes in a variety of settings and are particularly valued in the APAUSE programme (Rees et al., 1997). The increase in popularity of peer education raises a need to value the inputs of young people and to give formal recognition to…

Digital or computer games have recently attracted the interest of education researchers and policy-makers for two main reasons: their interactivity, which is said to allow greater agency, and their inherent pleasures, which are linked to increased motivation to learn. However, the relationship between pleasure, agency and motivation in educational…