What Underachieving Middle School Students Believe Motivates them to Learn

Chapter 1: The Challenge to Educate Everyone Chapter 2: A Review of Literature Chapter 3: Methods Chapter 4: The Results      Transferability      Transcript Quotes      Participants      What Motivates?        Relationships        Hands-On Activities        Choices        Interests        Usefulness        Student Goals        Learning Styles        High Expectations Chapter 5: Discussion References Appendixes Biography

What Motivates Underachieving Students? Once student interviews, teacher interviews, field observations, and Aspirations Benchmarks Initiative data were coded, coded passages were synthesized. Codes fell within eight themes: student-teacher relationship; hands-on activities; choice and student autonomy; making learning interesting and tying into student interests; contexts and connections; student goals and preparing for the future; learning styles; and high expectations and helping students to succeed. This section addresses what was learned from the participants and data about each of these themes and is organized in the order of significance to the students (most to least) as suggested by the data collected.

Web site created by Mike Muir Send questions or comments to wilder@somtel.com Last updated April 25, 2001

Mike Muir 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