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METHOD FOR ENHANCING MOTIVATION
IN UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION IN JAPAN
Yusuke Kawae, Takeshi Kaneko
Musashi Institute of Technology
1-28-1 Tamazutsumi, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 158-8557 Japan
ABSTRACT
The academic ability of undergraduate students has been declined in Japan. There might have been two major causes on this problem. First of all, one of the major causes is “Cram-free education” which means the education system to lessen not only the number of classes but also learning contents during elementary, junior high and high school days. Secondly, the declining birth rate causes that high school students can enter the university without much effort. In the near future all high school students can enter the university, if they don’t choose some special ones.Also, we find it important to enhance a motivation as there an issue of reduction in hours spent in study as a motivation to study has been declined. Then, we will consider enhancing a motivation using a lecture at a university.
Keywords:Motivation,Study, Undergraduate
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
The academic ability of undergraduate students has been declining in Japan. This problem has been realized since the 1980’s. There might be two major causes for this problem.
First of all, one of the major causes is “Cram-free education” whereby the education system reduced not only the number of classes but also the amount of content during elementary, junior high, and high school. Before the 1970’s, the education system tended to be a cramming type in Japan. Because of the bad effect of that system, the idea of “Cram-free education” came up during the 1970’s and rules were brought into operation in 1980. The curriculum guideline of the Ministry of Education was revised in 1989 and 1999. According to this guideline, classes and content of education have been reduced drastically. Many people realized the decline in academic ability of elementary and junior high school students., and this trend has now extended to undergraduate students.
Mr. Haruo Yanai, professor of the UndergraduateEntranceExamCenter, conducted research on “The decline in academic ability and study motivation of undergraduate students”. He asked professors and associate professors of 600 faculties in 400 universities in Japan to answer the questionnaire. He received 11,400 answers in 2004. According to the research, he found 60% of the faculties realized the decline in academic ability of undergraduate students especially in the department of science and engineering for which the percentage was more than 75%.
Secondly, the declining birth rate means that high school students can enter university without as much effort as before. In the near future all high school students will be able to enter university if they do not only aim for the elite ones. Even now the number of students who enter university without studying hard is increasing. They are not willing to study proactively. The study time of undergraduate students has continued to decline. According to the basic research of social life by the Ministry of General Affairs in 2006, the study time was 3.5 hours a day including classroom time. This low study time shows the students are not motivated in their studies and that the universities are not taking measures to motivate them.
To improve the academic ability of undergraduate students, it is important to increase the motivation to study. The author will attempt to show how to improve learning motivation through this study.
Subject of Study
The declining number of science classes in high schools is one of the major causes of the decline in academic ability for engineering department undergraduate students. In addition to this, diversification of undergraduate entrance examination causes a lack of ability. Many students cannot follow their class. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to improve their ability by studying hard. Therefore, for this study the author will target undergraduate students in Department of Technology of the author’s university.
Motivation Theory
The author used the “Self-Determination Theory” advocated by Deci & Ryan in 2000 as a motivation theory. The Self-Determination Theory is one of the theories that views intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as being integrated. The intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation tended to be considered to be in conflict. The theory describes motivation as coming from the lower level of self determination. Among extrinsic motivation, external regulation is set at the lowest stage and introjected regulation and identified regulation then positioned in turn with intrinsic motivation being set above these. The level of self decision making affects the level of learning motivation.
Figure 1 - Motivation theory and Self-Determination Theory
Factors that affect motivation
To identify the factors that affect motivation, the author held interviews with six undergraduate and graduate students. They were asked to point out factors that increased and decreased motivation in their classes. The factors were divided into 10 items using Affinity Diagram Method.
table１ - Factors that affect motivation（Major items）
Interest in the lecture / Teacher's characteristics / Credit / Environmentof the class
Action of surrounding people / Form of lecture / Easiness of study / Actual feeling of
self-growth
Factors other than lecture / Lecture contents
The author examines these 10 items to determine if they can be utilized in classes.
Composition of lectures
The elements required to compose a lecture were divided into four categories.
Lecture composition elements
A lecture is composed of “Explanation”, “Exercises”, “Questions” and “Breaks”.
“Explanation” is the situation where a teacher explains the contents of the lecture. There are several scenes during a lecture. Firstly, the teacher uses the black board for explanation. Secondly, he reads a text book. Thirdly, he uses a PowerPoint presentation, etc. Recently, PowerPoint presentations have become very popular. Although it is convenient, this method is probably not the best because the speed of the lecture tends to be too fast the distributing of handouts interferes with the lecture.
“Exercises” is the situation where students understand the contents of the lecture through solving problems. There are several scenes during the lecture. Firstly, a teacher gives a problem and makes students answer it orally. Secondly, a teacher hands out the problems and has the students take some time to solve them.
“Questions” is the situation where students ask the teacher or teaching assistant questions during the lecture. Japanese people tend to be shy and hesitant to ask questions during the lecture. There are many students who do not understand the contents well. Many of them cannot follow the lecture well.
“Breaks” is the situation which students do not have to listen to the lecture or solve the problems. This is not always necessary. However, considering the concentration of the students, having breaks might increases effectiveness.
Lecture flow elements
An important factor in addition to the composition elements of the lecture is the flow of the lecture. There are two elements in the flow of the lecture. One is the “time element”, which is, for example, the time allocation between explanation and exercises, and the other is the “order element”, which is, for example, the order of explanation and exercises. The “time element” should take into consideration the total lecture time and length of each content. The “order element” should be considered concurrently with the “time element”.
Character element
One of the most important things in the lecture is the character of the teacher.
The lecture is influenced by the impression and behavior of the teacher. Motivation is controlled by the character of the teacher. It is difficult for him to change his native character. In order not to decrease motivation, the character element should be controlled by checking actions and behavior.
Lecture environment element
This element means the environment of the lecture, for example, whether the students can choose their seat or not. Whether they can use the Internet also influences their motivation. Access to the Internet is a bad influence on the lecture because students tend to play with the Internet during the lecture.
Experiments
The author examined real lectures while considering the four elements of a lecture. The lectures were for statistic classes with about 140 students at the Musashi Institute of Technology.
Lectures that students can keep up with
Since university lectures are highly specialized, it is difficult for many students to keep up with the lectures if they are just normally attending class. Recently, this tendency is conspicuous. If it is difficult for them to keep up with the lectures, it is difficult for them to be motivated to learn. In order to solve this problem, the author used the “Shaping Theory”. The characteristic of the theory is to start solving from easy problems and gradually reach the higher target. An approach where the students answer the easy questions orally considering following items, form of lecture, easiness of studying, and realization of self-growth was used.
Table 2：After approach answering easy problems
Decrease / No Change / IncreaseIncreased motivation for learning. / 11.2% / 57.1% / 31.7%
I listened to explanationmore than usual / 1.9% / 52.2% / 46.0%
No / Yes
It is useful for me / 32.5% / 67.5%
I think that it helped me understand / 29.4% / 70.6%
The results from this approach showed that it was effective in motivating 30% of the students, effective for improving concentration on the lecture for 50%, and effective in understanding the contents of the lecture for 70%. This increased the number of students who could keep up with the lecture and made it possible to implement other approaches to improve motivation.
The order element
The lecture is composed of “Explanation”, “Exercises” and “Question Time”. The important points for the order are as follows;
1. The order between “Explanation” and “Exercises”
2. The timing of the “Question time”
Explanation and Exercise
Generally speaking, students do exercises after listening to the explanation of the contents, but some people say that students do not really understand the contents until after they can solve the exercises on their own. I have a hypothesis that the students can understand well using the following order;
1. Explanation of the fundamental knowledge
2. Exercises
3. Explanation in detail
The results of this experiment are as follows.
Table 3：Ratio of people who listen to the explanation
Seated on the front row / Seated on the back rowExplanation before exercises / 70% / 30%
Exercises before explanation / 90% / 30%
The results showed that the students seated on the front row concentrated on the explanation more when exercises were held before the explanation than when the explanation was given first. However, a significant difference for the students seated on the back row was not observed. The students on the front row might be interested in the explanation because they could easily understand the explanation through the exercises. Since this result was not so explicit, further experiments are necessary.
Importance of asking questions
One of the important points for students to understand the lecture is their behavior when they do not understand it. Since the contents of the lecture have a close relationship with the series of lectures, if they cannot follow the contents on the lecture on a certain day, they will not be able to understand subsequent lectures later on. The students who ask questions freely can easily keep up with the lecture. They will be able to stay highly motivated.
Here, according to a questionnaire survey the author conducted regarding question asking behavior, about 50% of the students did not ask a question when they did not understand something. Around 60% of the students felt that the atmosphere of the class did not allow them to ask a question. In terms of ease in asking a question, the author paid attention to the teaching assistant who was an upperclassman of the students. The students might be able to ask the teaching assistant a question more easily than to the teacher.
Table 4：Results of questionnaire survey regarding question asking
No / YesIt did not ask a question even though I did not understand something.
Even if I had a question, I did not ask it. / 45.7% / 54.3%
I think that the atmosphere of the class does not allow me to ask a question / 43.4% / 56.6%
I can ask a question to a teaching assistant easier than to a teacher / 24.8% / 75.2%
Based on the results in Table 3, the author interviewed some of the students. Many of them said it was difficult for them to directly ask the teacher a question, but that it was easier to ask a teaching assistant. This indicates it is important to prepare a class atmosphere by utilizing the teaching assistant to make it easier to ask questions.
Time element
Concentration
Generally speaking, the maximum concentration time is said to be 90 minutes for human beings. Of course, there are many variations among students. Passive behavior, like listening to an explanation, reduces the concentration time in comparison to active behavior.
Observation of concentration
The following table shows the results of a survey of “student concentration” length conducted using the observations of the teaching assistant. The teacher gave an explanation for 30 to 40 minutes without giving a break or exercises to eliminate the opportunity for students to refresh. These figures exclude students who were no paying attention to the explanation from the beginning.
Table 5: Ratio of people who maintained concentration
Seated on the front row / Seated on the back row5minutes / 70% / 60%
10minutes / 50% / 40%
20minutes / 20% / 20%
40minutes / 20% / 20%
This result shows the concentration of the students declined drastically at 10 minutes. Further, most of the students who could maintain concentration for 20 minutes could last to 40 minutes. The conclusion drawn from this is that tasks should be divided into 10 minute blocks of time.
Experiment dividing tasks into time blocks
The author planned the lecture time considering the time should be divided into 10 minute blocks when performing the same task. Following points were taken into consideration;
・Students perform the same task within 15 minutes.
・When the explanation continues longer than 15 minutes, time was made to do something else for a few minutes during the explanation.
・The lecture was divide into several parts by the quantity of the lecture contents.
・Between explanation and exercises, time was made for the students to clear their head.
Figure 2：Example lecture plan
According to observations of four teaching assistants, the students concentrated on the planned lecture clearly more than before.
Moreover, the hypothesis of improving concentration by dividing the lecture into time blocks rather than having one long continuous lecture was shown to improve concentration.
The next experiment will quantitatively measure the affect on concentration and motivation of using a plan that divides the time into blocks.
Further, there may be interaction between the time element and the order element that were not considered this time, so tests taking this into consideration will be conducted.
Future Plan
In the element of “flow of the lecture”, the effect of time element and order element was measured using the observations of teaching assistants. But many subjective judgments were made. Therefore, it is necessary to verify the effectiveness of these measures a quantitative evaluation measure, such as test scores. In addition, the interaction of the time element and the order element must be considered.
Further, for the character and environment elements, factors that hinder motivation will be identified and their affects verified.
REFERENCES
Hisashi Uebuchi (2004), The front line of motivation research , Kitaoji Shobo
Masaharu KAGE (1990) , EFFECTS OF EVALUATION-SUBJECT AND EVALUATION-STANDARD ON INTRINSIC MOTIVATION, Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology , 1990,38,428-437
Masaharu KAGE,Hisashi UEBUCHI AND Mayumi OIE (1997) , EFFECTS OF TEACHERS' BELIEFS RELATED TO TEACHING METHODS IN CLASSROOM TEACHING AND CHILDREN'S ATTITUDES , Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology,1997,45,192-202
Hidemasa NOSAKI (2004) , Comparison Among Patterns of Motivation on the Effect of Students' Attitude in Academic Help Seeking , Japan journal of educational technology, Vol.28, No.suppl(20050320) pp. 1-4
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