What Underachieving
Middle School Students
Believe Motivates them to Learn
Middle School Students
Believe Motivates them to Learn
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Middle School Students Believe Motivates them to Learn |
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Chapter 1: The Challenge to Educate Everyone Chapter 2: A Review of Literature Chapter 3: Methods Chapter 4: The Results Chapter 5: Discussion
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The results presented in the last chapter suggest some clear conclusions, at least as far as they apply to the four students who participated in this study. Further, one of the purposes of this study was to replicate the pilot study and to compare the results. The pilot focused on two boys on a single team (Mike and Andy). The current study used two students, one male, the other female, at each of two schools (Eric, Cathy, Ben, and Doris). One school had been the site of the pilot study (but a different team) and the other was a similar school in a neighboring district. The current study was more thorough, including a longer student interview, more teacher interviews, and more classroom observations. Student participants in the pilot were selected based on the recommendation of a single teacher; more rigorous theoretical sampling was used to select participants for the current study. Throughout this chapter, the results from the pilot study (see Appendix A) have been blended into the discussion. Despite the differences between the two studies, the findings were remarkably similar. Students were motivated by the same practices, and they felt that the same motivators were missing from their educational experiences. This chapter begins by introducing an emerging theory of how to motivate underachieving middle school students. Next, the ways school did not provide for motivation are described. Finally, the chapter considers what might get in the way of teachers trying to motivate their students. |
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Send questions or comments to wilder@somtel.com Last updated April 25, 2001 |
Assistant Professor of Education University of Maine at Farmington 104 Main Street Farmington, ME 04938 207.778.7179 wilder@somtel.com http://violet.umf.maine.edu/~mmuir |