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 |
This study attempted to gain insight into what underachieving middle school students believe motivates them to learn through four case studies. These four case studies were conducted on two teams in two different schools. One seventh grade boy and one seventh grade girl on each team were the subjects of the case studies. This design offered multiple perspectives: two perspectives per class, two genders, and two schools. Seventh graders were chosen over eighth graders since eighth graders are too close to being high school students (especially in late spring, when this study was conducted). Further, seventh grade is the first grade in both of these middle schools. In addition to being convenient, the two middle schools were selected for a variety of reasons. First, the two schools are organizationally very similar. Both schools are approximately the same size, serving about 500 students in grades seven and eight. Both schools divide students into five academic teams of four teachers (math, science, social studies, and language arts) of about 100 students. The team selected at each school is made up of teachers who have worked to implement middle level concepts for more than five years. Both schools serve similar populations. They are consolidated schools located in their respective county seats. They bring in students from a wide surrounding area, creating a diverse student demographic. For example, there are students who live in town and students who live in the woods; there are students of lawyers and doctors and students of farmers, woodsmen, and factory workers. Both schools have similar numbers of students receiving free and reduced lunch. As consolidated schools, each school offers a population representative of students living in rural, central New England. Further, both schools are in a state experiencing success with meeting the nation’s education goals. According to the National Education Goals Panel's 1999 Goals Report this state ranks as a high performer on more education indicators than any other state. This study is a "theory building" study (this issue is discussed at some length in Chapter III) designed to explore what students think. While the cases are presented to help the reader build his or her own theories about what motivates underachieving students to learn, it will not "prove" that any particular motivator will help students. Further, the sample is small and narrow: it selects middle school students over those in elementary or high school, and students from rural, central New England, rather from other possible demographic regions. Data collection involved a series of formal and informal interviews (Seidman, 1991) conducted during the last six weeks of school. To help support and validate the findings, two teachers on each team were interviewed and at least 10 hours of classroom observations were conducted. These data helped me to better understand the context of the students’ responses and added confidence to my interpretations. These qualitative data were also compared to quantitative data taken from the State of Maine Aspirations Benchmarks Project. This project represents data from the students in 214 schools (94% of schools given the opportunity to participate). This study used the parallel data for middle schools. |
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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 |