Running Header: Literature Review: Collegiate Academic Effort

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Running Header: Literature Review: Collegiate Academic Effort

Literature Review: Collegiate Academic Effort good

Parker Wiebe

University of North Carolina - Wilmington

For thousands of United States residents, a college or university education seems necessary for advancement in a professional career and expanding knowledge. As a college or university student typically strives for graduation, one of the main factors deciding their success in college is the grade point average. If there were no grades, students probably would not even attend class (Van Etten, Pressley, McInerney, & Liem, 2008 excellent!!). Becker’s study (as cited in Van Etten et al, 2008)foundthat grades are the chief institutionalized valuable of the college. In order to reach a grade point average that reflects improvedknowledge, students’ must attain WC academic motivation. Academic effortcomes from motivation to learn I thought you just said to attain a high GPA for future use and/or an enjoyment of learning about certain fields of study or topics (Miller, DeBacker, & Greene, 2000). Motivation can be described as the stimulation that initiates a process in which individuals make choices that follow a certain purpose or direction, requiring personal involvement (Gorham & Millette, 1997). A student’s choice to engage in activities that will contribute to doing well getting good grades in a class is frequently considered a measure of motivated behavior in the classroom (Gorham et al, 1997). Although necessary, motivation is not the only factor ensuring college academic success. There are several other factors that may positively or negatively affect an individualstudent’s perception of success in a college or university setting: future goals, environment, and social interactions with peers, family, and professors. You make some outstanding points in this first paragraph…but, it doesn’t hold together quite perfectly..the logic is jumping around a little.

The purpose of this literature review is to simply describe the affectsthat future goals, environment, and social interactions these three factors have on academic effort, specifically in an undergraduate environment. These descriptions will also help to explainperceived student achievement, task-valuing, and perceived academic success. Achievement may be defined as graduating from college, attaining personal growth, or deepening knowledge to advance in a career ( these seem quite different in quality , to me) . Task-valuing is a term used to describe instrumentality in a classroom setting. Instrumentality is the perception that the assignment holds utility value.Eccle’s and Wigfield’s study (as cited in Miller et al, 2000) found that the perceived utility value, or the student’s incentive value of the task, is related tothe student’s future goals. Perceived academic success is the individual’s idea of whether or not the undergraduate experience holds major importance for the future. Once an education is deemed to be highly valuable for a student, motivation will increase inmany required tasks associated with classroom success (Miller et al, 2000). Good

These required tasks indef will only be completed if the individual student is aware of their own goals, and of their own behaviors. Bandura’s study (as cited in Miller et al, 2000) found that there are three main areas of self-regulation, which are necessary for each individual student to behave in accordance with their academic goals: behavioral monitoring, self-evaluation of progress, and self-reaction. A student must be aware of their behaviors inside the classroom and outside the classroom, must be able to understand their own progress, and must be able to make the vital changes in order to achieve their goals (Miller et al, 2000) very good!. These specific criteria, once implemented, suggest that a student may have future goals that involve an education. ?? One possible future goal is college graduation, and this goal becomes a motivation factor for excelling in proximal goals, such as in-classassignments. Recent research has shown that a student’s aspiration of attaining future goals has a strong relationship with the student’s well-being, the quality of task engagement, and achievement (Tabachnick, Miller, & Relyea, 2008). Also, the individual student must have already identified their intrinsic and extrinsic future goals. Examples of intrinsic goals include aspirations for benefitting the community or personal growth, while examples of extrinsic goals include aspirations for wealth or an improved personal appearance (Tabachnick et al, 2008). The process of attaining intrinsic and extrinsic future goals leads students towards making subgoals, such as college graduation, thus creating proximal goals of completing assignments for an individual class. Miller and Brickman (2004) described the importance of proximal goals as task-instrumentality. This is the perception that work on academic tasks is instrumental to one’s future (Tabachnick et al, 2008). Very good

The connection between distal future goals and students grade point average was strongly related in a study done by Shutz and Lanehart (1994), and again in a study done by Shutz (1997) (Tabachnick et al, 2008). If the attainment of intrinsic and extrinsic future goals is necessary to facilitate motivated behavior towards academic work, then which of the two is the best in predicting a higher level of success? When a student has more intrinsic future goals, that is reflected by higher levels of interest and confidence, longer levels of persistence through academic work, using deeper learning strategies, and having better exam scores (Tabachnick et al, 2008). Theorists place personal, distant future goals at the center of thinking about motivation and action (Miller et al, 2000). These future goals represent important incentives for present action, but only when current tasks are perceived as instrumental to attainment of those future goals (Miller et al, 2000). The main argument here stems from an understanding that personal future goals are necessary, if success is expected in proximal tasks. But these goals may be affected by the student’s university or college environment.

Students search for environments that will let them exercise their skills and abilities, express their attitudes and values, and take on agreeable problems and roles (Smart, 1997). Important factors included in a college student’s life are academic environments, social environments, and the general college environment are important factors in… (Van Etten et al, 2008). For a student, comfort within these environments is essential for a positive academic experience.The environments must allow the student to feel a general sense of belonging, teacher or adult support, or acceptance from peers (Freeman, Anderman, & Jensen, 2007). Students’ choices dictate their environments, and whether or not these environments will encourage, reinforce, and reward different interests, attitudes, competencies, and behavior patterns (Smart, 1997). ? These choices may reflect the personality of the individual student, but future research is necessary in determining any relationship between personality types and the type or reinforcement of those behavior patterns associated with the characteristics of the environment (Smart, 1997).If people are motivated enough to put themselves in rewarding environments, does that reflect a motivation to reward themselves with an education?? Another environment that may affect student motivation is the classroom. Research in this area is dense wc, and this review will focus on the relationship between student and professors inside the department of their major awk. But you seem to emphasize, teacher, classroom and peer more or less equally

There is generally greater motivation to do well in courses within the student’s major or concentration (Van Etten et al, 2008). Thus, the professors within the department of the student’s major are going to become important in the students perception of their motivation. Research shows that certain types of feedback given from professors to students on a regular basis, affects the students motivation in that specific course. Positive informational feedback is the best approach in maintaining student motivation, because the professor not only positively assesses the student’s ability, but also gives reason as to why the student’s response was exemplary (Van Etten et al, 2008). But if the student’s response is not satisfactory, the best approach of the professor is to negatively assess the student’s performance, but then proceed to give the student an explanation as to why the response was not correct (Van Etten et al, 2008). These are only two types of feedback given in a discussion-oriented classroom, and individual teachers’ will all have unique styles of teaching, but research has generalized these types of feedback, and students’ receiving explanations from teachers, exhibit greater knowledge of course materials. Awk/ss But what is there to be said about the physical environment of the classroom? This factor has been researched, and there is evidence that room size, lighting, temperature, and cleanliness can affect student motivation (Van Etten et al, 2008). good

One of the more important factors in determining academic motivation is the peer interaction. If the classroom is filled with people the student knows, it can affect motivation to attend or skip class (Van Etten et al, 2008). Many large classroom populations leave the probability greater of students already knowing each other on a social level AWK. Inside the larger classrooms, the space may makes it difficult for students to hear the professor or other students (Van Etten et al, 2008). Not being able to understand classmates or professors blocks a student’s ability to understand the different educational and social growth of the overall class awk. Examples of educational and social growth include: “interest in pursuing a graduate/professional degree,” “confidence in academic ability,” “acceptance of people from different races/cultures,” and “tolerance of persons with different beliefs” (Smart, 1997). Seems off-track These factors may elevate classroom comfort if the majority of students are in a higher level, ?? and if the classroom size is suitable?? for productive learning. paragraph Many factors affect student motivation. Some people drop-out, some people continue teir acad involvement for a lifetime, some go to school for higher degrees, some go to school for family reasons, some go to school to learn how to make money, and others go to school to get married. Every situation of every student involves careful consideration before they are classified as having high or low academic effortI might disagree…is there a standard that must be met? There are exams, evaluations that reflect whether aedequate effort has been given , but commonalities between people remain central to researchers trying to define common observations in the complex college system.

Assuming that most college students completed a high-school education, this suggests that academic effort is already a part of their personalities OH! I think this is a big question!. Based on the literature, once a student reaches the college level, they must continue to be academically motivated if they aspire to graduate. Factors affecting student motivation are researched by educational psychologists, educators, and other professionals. These findings give rise to new teaching strategies, new living and learning communities, and new ways of interacting with students. Nothing can be proven to always work with every student, but the research can be generalized to the majority of students. Academic motivation is the sole responsibility of the individual student ?? EXPAND??, but with research, the environment surrounding the student can be changed to affect their academic motivation. Assuming that all students have different learning strategies and learning preferences, it is hard to conclude with a definite answer explaining how to increase academic motivation for all students. Research will continue to describe cognitive, social, and affective processes of the majority of traditional college students, in hopes that we will one day be able to affect all students’ academic motivation in a positive way. Not all individual students in all individual university environments will succeed, but research will help improve these educational settings. Understanding individual future goals, environments, and interpersonal interactions allows colleges and universities to improve their service: to teach.

Much here is of outstanding nature…Glitches exist that reduce the cohesiveness of your effort.

References

Freeman, T.M., Anderman, L.H., Jensen, J.M. (2007). Sense of belonging in college freshmen at the classroom and campus levels. The Journal of Experimental Education, 75, 203-220.

Gorham, J., Millette, D.M. (1997) A comparative analysis of teacher and student perceptions of sources of motivation and demotivation in college classes. Communication Education, 46, 245-261.

Jordan, A.E. (2001). College student cheating: The role of motivation, perceived norms, attitudes, and knowledge of institutional policy. Ethics & Behavior, 11, 233-247.

Miller, R.B., DeBacker, T.K., Greene, B.A. (2000). Perceived instrumentality and academics: The link to task valuing. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 26, 250-260.

Smart, J.C. (1997). Academic subenvironments and differential patterns of self-perceived growth during college: A test of Holland’s theory. Journal of College Student Development, 38, 68-78.

Tabachnick, S.E., Miller, R.B., Relyea, G.E. (2008). The relationship among students’ future-oriented goals and subgoals, perceived task instrumentality, and task-oriented self-regulation strategies in an academic environment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 629-642.

Van Etten, S., Pressley, M., McInerney, D.M., Liem, A.D. (2008). College seniors’ theory of their academic motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 812-828.