Understanding Adolescent Student Motivations: Factors Influencing Academic Success

1. Adolescent Student Motivation • What are the motivations of students who do well in school? • What factors affect these motivations? Eileen Friday

2. Current Cultural Drives • National Year 2000 Goals • National School-to-Work Goals • Florida Sunshine State Standards • Performance Based School Funding • School Improvement Committee Goals • New Teacher Evaluation Process

3. Cultural Goals Don’t Determine Student Goals Students are failing. Students are dropping out of high school before graduating.

4. Student Academic Goals • Mastery: to learn or master a subject for intrinsic rewards • Extrinsic or performance: to gain a reward or avoid a consequence • Relative: to be seen as good in relation to others • Pro-social: social competence • Responsibility: moral competence

5. Student Self-Image • Am I a good student? • Am I okay socially? • Is my learning up to me, or is it outside my control? • How do I appear to others? • What do I expect of myself?

6. Student Relationships • Family • Peers • Teachers • Do they care? • Are they supportive? • What are their values?

7. Factors Affecting Outcomes

8. Hints for Teachers • Have mastery goals for class. • Relationships matter! • Build cognitive self-esteem.

9. Suggested reading list for EDF 7232: http://reach.ucf.edu/~edf7232/weiner.html A page for parents: http://www.mnea.org/100.html Sports and achievement: http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/n/x/nxd10/achieve.htm Disconnected youth: http://www.urban.org/pubs/disconec.htm An ERIC site: list and links: http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/ieo/bibs/mot-gen.html Child Development Institute: http://www.cdipage.com/brain.htm Florida Sunshine State Standards: http://www.firn.edu/doe/menu/sss.htm Web Sites to Visit