Motivation and Learning Strategies for College Success : A Self-management Approach

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76 CHAPTER 3

sentences. Learning the sentences is vital to the content of the partic-

ular lesson, but some students are more motivated to avoid failure

than to master the content of the lesson.

What is your experience with ability and self-worth? Do you think

society communicates to children early in their lives that unless they

achieve, they are unworthy? In what ways do school experiences

threaten students’ beliefs in their own ability? Does self-worth theory

help you understand the behavior of anyone you know?

AM I MOTIVATED TO CHANGE MY ACADEMIC BEHAVIOR?

In the first three chapters you learned what it takes to be a self-

directed learner. In addition, you learned why you need to acquire

certain learning strategies and how certain motivational variables

influence your behavior. The major issue that you now face is whether

you are actually motivated to change your academic behavior. No one,

not your parents, friends, or college instructors, can make you change.

You need to decide whether you want to learn and study differently

in college than you did in high school. Of course, if you were an A

student in high school, I would recommend that you not change many

things. However, if you think there is some room for improvement,

then you should consider what aspects of your academic behavior in

college you want to change.

The next student reflection was written by a student in my learn-

ing strategies course about six weeks into the semester:

Student Reflection

Despite all the discussion in my learning and study strategies course,

I basically studied the same way I have always been studying most of

my life. I read over the material a few times, underlined some key

points, and woke up early to review the material. It is not that I

thought the new learning strategies would not be helpful, but it

seemed to me that they took more time then it was worth. When I

received a lower grade than I expected, I decided to try some of the

new strategies. I now realize that I can cover the same amount of

simply reading the material over and over again, I now understand

the material much more because I am generating questions while I

read and attempting to answer them. My mind does not wander as

much as it did before because I have a purpose to my reading. I find

that I can remember much more material after each study session.

Last week I took my first political science midterm of this semester.

material in the same time or even shorter. Most important, instead of