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This research explores the effect that earning professional certificates has on student confidence, motivation, and persistence. For this study, the focus is the student motivation and persistence of nontraditional students who seek to earn a bachelor's degree despite considerable obstacles and challenges. Specifically, this study evaluates the matriculation rates between two cohorts of students who participated in the online PathwayConnect program. The first cohort was encouraged to complete the program and apply for an online bachelor's degree program at BYU-Idaho. The second cohort was also encouraged to apply to an online program, but only after earning a professional certificate in their desired focus of study. The study found that matriculation rates for students who earned a certificate increased over those who followed a traditional path. The research suggests that earning a certificate provided a lift in student confidence and motivation as the significant contributing factors to the positive change.

This study investigated the impact of motivation on students’ participation and academic performance in distance learning. Distance learning continues to grow in popularity as more and more students enroll in distance education courses. These courses require more responsibility on the part of the student. Some students are unaware of the amount of work that is involved with these courses which can cause them to become overwhelmed and discouraged, possibly leading them to drop the course. Students need to be able to rely on their own individual abilities to be successful in distance learning (Hodges, 2005). At the same time, educators must also modify their instructional design when transitioning from face-toace instruction to web-based instruction (Lei & Gupta, 2010). Improved technologies can provide the means for instructors to increase the quality of learning in distance education. Technologies, such as asynchronous discussion boards allow instructors to become facilitators of learning while providing students with the opportunity to learn from one another through interaction. The use of asynchronous technologies has been known to provide several benefits for students. Those benefits include: (a) increasing student learning by helping students develop high-level concepts and skills, (b) decreasing the likelihood of procrastination, and (c) strengthening students’ self-motivation and responsibility (Abrami & Bures, 1996; Barker, 2003; Kitchen & McDougall, 1999). Twenty-nine upperclassmen and graduate students participated in this study during the summer of 2012. Using data gathered from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and discussion board content, the researcher found student motivation to be associated with participation but not with academic performance. Also, associations were found to exist between participation and academic performance. In addition, self-efficacy, intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation was found to be predictors of participation. The results indicate that some motivational constructs are contributing factors of student success in distance learning. Instructors and instructional designers should seek to include tools that can allow students to help themselves remain motivated while actively participating in the course. Future research should examine other learning strategies variables to determine if they may have an impact on participation and academic performance.

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In order to improve his own teaching practice, the researcher observed and studied student-driven approaches to public art education that not only achieved the aims of the national standards, but also encouraged secondary students' engagement with art in personally relevant ways. Inspired and informed by these observations and studies, the researcher developed a curriculum based more on student concerns, which was studied using action research. The action research approach was driven by experimentation with the curriculum's content as well as its implementation and is fundamentally about improving the researcher's own teaching practice. Hence, the study focuses largely on the researcher's curriculum and teaching. Relationships or correlations between intrinsic motivation, engaging with art in critical ways, and classroom autonomy are explored in the present study. This thesis investigates what students might accomplish when given more autonomy over their projects and learning opportunities. This study focused largely on how a student-driven approach changed the researcher's own feelings and understandings about teaching and learning. The results of the present study lead to a variety of conclusions regarding teaching, curriculum, and student learning.

This capstone project was part of a group project completed by three principals in elementary schools in Hillsborough County, Florida. The project began because of our passion to understand effective teachers. Our collective goal was to have more engaged teachers which would create more engaged students resulting in greater student and teacher success. Our overall group project purpose was to discover the behavior and characteristics an engaged teacher demonstrates and how these behaviors affect the learning environment and the students that are in that environment. The project was guided by the question, how does a culture of engaged teachers develop and support student engagement, choice, and voice? My area of focus was, how do children and adults benefit from an engaged learning environment? Selected literature was reviewed that concentrated on the impact of teacher engagement on student learning; student, teacher and parent voice, student and teacher mutuality, and building capacity for engaged learning environments. Results of two district-administered survey instruments were used as data sources: the School Climate and Perception Survey (SCIP) and the Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL). A secondary analysis of the 2014-2015 survey results was conducted for this project, using our three schools as the unit of analysis. Key findings in my area of focus included the importance of relationship and student voice in student engagement; the importance of teacher autonomy, self- and collective efficacy in teacher engagement; and barriers to engagement in the learning environment.

Critics of currently available school motivation research consistently identify shortcomings such as the lack of a theoretical basis for defining and interpreting the construct and the poor quality of instruments used to measure it. There is a dearth of reliable, valid, theoretically informed, and cross-culturally comparable standardised measures of motivation. Whilst a number of theorists have proposed that motivation may be a multidimensional construct and may also be hierarchical in nature, partly due to the lack of available multidimensional measurement instruments, there has been limited research testing such theoretical propositions. The present investigation comprised two inter-related study components. The purposes of Study 1 were to (1) develop a valid and reliable multidimensional measure of school motivation based on Maehr’s Personal Investment Theory that was robust in diverse cultural settings; and (2) test the multidimensional and hierarchical structure of school motivation to elucidate the nature and structure of student motivation cross-culturally and further extend motivational theory and research. The purpose of Study 2 was to (1) test the relation of multidimensional components of student motivation and academic achievement in cross-cultural contexts, to further elucidate the relations amongst these constructs; and (2) to identify similarities and differences in motivational profiles for different cultural groups in order to support the validity and usefulness of the multidimensional motivation instrument in educational settings. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the psychometric properties of the measures, and reliability tests were conducted to establish the internal consistency for each scale. Factorial invariance analysis was conducted to examine the equivalence of the data structure across cultural groups, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was conducted to examine the structural relations between eight ISM motivation factors and four outcome measures (Math, English, GPA, School attendance). Multivariate analysis of variances was conducted to examine statistical difference among the seven cultural groups in relation to eight ISM scales. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

A large discrepancy between national exam results and final grades in English has been found in compulsory school. Between 1.9% and 18.7%, depending on which school, of students receive a course grade that is different from their grade on the national exam. (Corren, 2001 and Skolvärlden, 2012) As a result, many students have not in reality reached the criteria for the passing grade. In my experience, many students come to us with low self-esteem and motivation due to their difficulties with learning a second language. This study compares two ways of learning and their effects on self-esteem, motivation, accuracy and fluency. The subjects were all the students in the college that started year one, and on paper had the grade pass from compulsory school, but in reality had not reached that level. The students were divided into two groups, one with focus on accuracy, and one with focus on fluency. The accuracy-based task followed the style of a traditional English course book. The fluency-based task had one part where the students told each other about various topics and another where they were encouraged to practice their writing skills by keeping a journal. The students were assessed using one evaluation test, a questionnaire and a final test. The questionnaire provided data for the students’ perceived change in fluency, accuracy, self-esteem and motivation. The written tests provided data for accuracy and fluency. The results in this study showed an overall increase in accuracy, fluency and self-confidence in the accuracy-based task, but that only the fluency-based task enhanced motivation.

The concept of motivation and its contributing factors have been a vital interest in language studies since the works of Gardner and Lambert (1972) on attitudes and motivation in language learning. Initial studies emphasized the individual contributors to learner motivation whereas the second wave of studies underscored the contextual contributors. Within the social contexts in which individuals live in, the issue of identity has gained a significant importance in recent years. Therefore, the purpose of this report is to identify sociocultural factors in relation to motivation in language learning and to examine what implications can be drawn to be able to ensure a cross-culturally motivating environment for learners. This report provides a comprehensive examination of second language acquisition theories and points to new trends in the field, reviews important perspectives on emotion and explains the difference between emotion and motivation, reconciling different perspectives on emotion. It also reviews important theories of motivation in language learning as well as the conceptual and operational similarities and differences between intrinsic motivation, interest, and flow. It examines the socio-cultural bases of learning languages by focusing on models of acculturation and social identity, and reiterates the new turn that has taken place in language learning models with the sociocultural perspective, and proposes a synthesis of the role of culture in language learning. It provides a vital discussion on the sociocultural factors that have crucial effects on motivation for language learning, focusing on the importance of cultural identities of individuals. And finally, it provides conclusions and implications from both theoretical and pedagogical standpoints. / text

abstract: Responsibility for academic outcomes is an important factor to consider within the study of student motivation, yet measures for the construct remain elusive and inconsistent. The present study uses a new measure developed by Lauermann and Karabenick to assess students' sense of responsibility for their academic outcomes. This study examined the relationship between perceived academic control, implicit theory of intelligence, and student responsibility. Results were based on a sample of 152 undergraduate students. A significant relationship between perceived academic control and student responsibility was established. Results also indicated a significant association between implicit theory of intelligence and student responsibility; however, contrary to hypotheses, implicit theory did not mediate the relationship between perceived academic control and student responsibility. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Educational Psychology 2012