Review of related literature and studies

Motivation: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Factors

Motivation is a highly complex concept that is influenced by a large number of factors,

but can be summarized generally as either extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic refers to external

factors and intrinsic refers to internal factors as it relates to an individual. Internal motivators are

intrinsic needs that satisfy a person, whereas external motivators are considered environmental

factors that motivate an individual (Bassy, 2002).

According to Vallerand (1992) one of the most important concepts in education is

motivation, and a scale used to measure motivation in individuals is the self determination scale.

The self-determination scale is composed of 28 items divided into seven subscales assessing

three types of intrinsic motivation (intrinsic motivation to know, to accomplish things, and to

experience stimulation), three types of extrinsic motivation (external, introjected, and identified

regulation), and amotivation (Deci & Ryan, 1991).

In general, intrinsic motivation refers to the fact of doing an activity for itself and the

pleasure and satisfaction derived from participation (Deci & Ryan, 1991). Intrinsic motivation to

know can be defined as performing an activity for the pleasure and satisfaction that one

experiences while learning, exploring, or trying to understand something new. Intrinsic

motivation toward accomplishments can be defined as engaging in an activity for the pleasure

and satisfaction experienced when one attempts to accomplish or create something. Intrinsic

motivation to experience stimulation is operative when someone engages in an activity in order

to experience stimulating sensations (e.g., sensory pleasure, aesthetic experiences, as well as fun

and excitement) derived from one’s engagement in the activity (Vallerand, 1992).

Contrary to intrinsic motivation, according to Deci and Ryan (1991) extrinsic motivation

pertains to a wide variety of behaviors which are engaged in as a means to an end and not for

their own sake, and can be ordered along a self-determination continuum from lower to higher

levels (Deci, 1975).

Study Habits and Learning Styles

In one study made by Ward (1972) he categorized his respondents in “better students”

and “weaker students” and the result was better students are more likely than weaker students to:

1. Study alone, 2. Study without a radio/record player on, 3. Study longer, 4. Attempt to maintain

attention in lectures, 5. Prepare and keep to a timetable of evening study, 6. Pay attention to

detail in textbooks, 7. Keep methodical notes, 8. Allow adequate time for the preparation of

written work, rather than rushing just before it has to be handed in, 9. Attempt to relate private

study reading to lectures, 10. Revise for examinations principally from hand-outs and notes

rather than from textbooks.

In an article made by Dr. Bob Kizlik, “Effective study skills must be practiced in order

for you to improve. It is not enough to simply "think about" studying; you have to actually do it,

and in the process use information from what you do to get better. This is the central idea of this

page. All that follows depends on this single concept. There is a saying that goes like this:

"Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect." If you want to be an achiever,

take this saying to heart.”

Effective Study skills are about more than understanding

The value of a schedule. Before you even begin to think about the process of studying, you must

develop a schedule. If you don't have a schedule or plan for studying, then you will not have any

way of allocating your valuable time when the unexpected comes up. A good, well thought out

schedule can be a lifesaver. It's up to you to learn how to develop a schedule that meets your

needs, revise it if necessary, and most important, follow it.

A schedule saves time.All schedules should be made with the idea that they can be revised. A

good schedule keeps you from wandering off course. A good schedule, if properly managed,

assigns time where time is needed, but you've got to want to do it!

Making every hour count.A schedule should take into account every class, laboratory, lecture,

social event, and other work in which you engage. There are givens such as classes and so on

that have to be incorporated. You must focus on the other "free time" available and how you will

use it. Make a weekly schedule and block off the 24 hour day in one hour increments. Indicate

times for classes, labs, lectures, social, and work time. Also block off a period for sleeping each

day. With what is left over, plan time for study. This gives you a rough road map of the time

available. Of course, you can revise your schedule as circumstances warrant.

When to study.The problem of when to study is critical. A good rule of thumb is that studying

should be carried out only when you are rested, alert, and have planned for it. Last minute

studying just before a class is usually a waste of time.

Studying for lecture courses. If your study period is before the lecture class, be sure you have

read all the assignments and made notes on what you don't understand. If the study period is after

the lecture class, review the notes you took during class while the information is still fresh.

Studying for recitation courses. For classes that require recitation, such as foreign language, be

sure to schedule a study period just before the class. Use the time to practice. Sometimes,

practice with others can help sharpen your skills in a before-class study period.

Making and revising a schedule. Don’t be afraid to revise your schedule. Schedules are really

plans for how you intend to use your time. If your schedule doesn't work, revise it. You must

understand that your schedule is to help you develop good study habits. Once you have

developed them, schedule building becomes easier.

Strategies

Thinking skills. Everybody has thinking skills, but few use them effectively. Effective thinking

skills cannot be studied, but must be built up over a period of time. Good thinkers see

possibilities where others see only dead-ends. If you're not a good thinker, start now by

developing habits that make you ask yourself questions as you read. Talk to other students who

you feel are good thinkers. Ask them what it is they do when they think critically or creatively.

Often times, you can pick up valuable insights to help you become a better thinker.

The SQ3R method.The SQ3R method has been a proven way to sharpen study skills. SQ3R

stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review. Take a moment now and write SQ3R down.

It is a good slogan to commit to memory to carry out an effective study strategy.

Survey - get the best overall picture of what you're going to study BEFORE you study it in any

detail. It's like looking at a road map before going on a trip. If you don't know the territory,

studying a map is the best way to begin.

Question - ask questions for learning. The important things to learn are usually answers to

questions. Questions should lead to emphasis on the what, why, how, when, who and where of

study content. Ask yourself questions as you read or study. As you answer them, you will help to

make sense of the material and remember it more easily because the process will make an

impression on you. Those things that make impressions are more meaningful, and therefore more

easily remembered. Don't be afraid to write your questions in the margins of textbooks, on

lecture notes, or wherever it makes sense.

Read - Reading is NOT running your eyes over a textbook. When you read, read actively. Read

to answer questions you have asked yourself or questions the instructor or author has asked.

Always be alert to bold or italicized print. The authors intend that this material receive special

emphasis. Also, when you read, be sure to read everything, including tables, graphs and

illustrations. Often times tables, graphs and illustrations can convey an idea more powerfully

than written text.

Recite - When you recite, you stop reading periodically to recall what you have read. Try to

recall main headings, important ideas of concepts presented in bold or italicized type, and what

graphs, charts or illustrations indicate. Try to develop an overall concept of what you have read

in your own words and thoughts. Try to connect things you have just read to things you already

know. When you do this periodically, the chances are you will remember much more and be able

to recall material for papers, essays and objective tests.

Review - A review is a survey of what you have covered. It is a review of what you are supposed

to accomplish, not what you are going to do. Rereading is an important part of the review

process. Reread with the idea that you are measuring what you have gained from the process.

During review, it's a good time to go over notes you have taken to help clarify points you may

have missed or don't understand. The best time to review is when you have just finished studying

something. Don't wait until just before an examination to begin the review process. Before an

examination, do a final review. If you manage your time, the final review can be thought of as a

"fine-tuning" of your knowledge of the material. Thousands of high school and college students

have followed the SQ3R steps to achieve higher grades with less stress.

Reading. A primary means by which you acquire information is through reading. In college

you're expected to do much more reading than in high school. Don't assume just because you've

"read" the assignments that is the end of it. You must learn to read with a purpose. In studying,

you may read the same assignment three or four times, each time with a different purpose. You

must know before you begin reading what your purpose is, and read accordingly.

Getting the Main Idea. Getting the main idea in reading is central to effective studying. You

must learn what the author's central idea is, and understand it in your own way. Every paragraph

contains a main idea. Main ideas are perfect for outlining textbooks. Make it a habit to find the

main idea in each paragraph you read.

Extracting Important Details. Extracting important details means that you locate in your reading

the basis for main ideas. There is usually one important detail associated with every main idea.

The more important details you can identify, the easier it will be to review for examinations

because you have made a link between an idea and information that supports it. The more links

you can make between details and ideas, as well as ideas themselves, the more powerful will be

the efforts of your study.

Don't Read Aloud to Yourself. Generally, reading aloud to yourself does not help you study more

effectively. If you move your lips while you read, you're not reading efficiently. If you read

aloud or move your lips while you're reading, you are reading slowly, so stop moving your lips.

Try putting a finger over your lips. Your finger will remind you not to move your lips. Make an

effort to read faster and retain more - after a while, you'll be surprised how little effort it will

take.

Taking Notes. Like reading, note-taking is a skill which must be learned and refined. Almost

invariably, note taking, or the lack of it, is a constant deficiency in the study methods of many

high school and college students. Learning the ingredients of good note taking is rather easy;

applying them to your own situation depends on how serious you are in becoming a successful

student.

Where to Keep Notes. You must learn to keep notes logically and legibly. Remember, if you can't

read your own writing a few days after taking notes, they are of little use. By all accounts, the

best place to keep notes is in a loose-leaf notebook. Use dividers to separate the different classes

you take. Make it a habit of using your notebook to record ALL your notes. If you're caught

without your notebook and need to take notes, always have a supply of loose-leaf paper with

you. Insert your note papers into the notebook as soon as you can. Be sure to buy a good

notebook, as it will get a lot of wear and tear.

Outlining Textbooks. First of all, don't underline. Use a highlighter. Experience has shown that

text passages highlighted are more easily remembered than the same passages underlined. In

outlining a text, don't just read along and highlight what seem to important words. That

technique rarely works. The act of outlining works much better.

Dimension of Learning Styles

(Richard Felder, 1993) A student's learning style may be defined in part by the

answers to five questions:

1. What type of information does the student preferentially perceive: sensory---sights,

sounds, physical sensations, or intuitive---memories, ideas, insights?

2. Through which modality is sensory information most effectively perceived: visual---

pictures, diagrams, graphs, demonstrations, or verbal---sounds, written and spoken words

and formulas?

3. With which organization of information is the student most comfortable: inductive---facts

and observations are given, underlying principles are inferred, or deductive---principles

are given, consequences and applications are deduced?

4. How does the student prefer to process information: actively---through engagement in

physical activity or discussion, or reflectively---through introspection?

5. How does the student progress toward understanding: sequentially---in a logical

progression of small incremental steps, or globally---in large jumps, holistically?

The dichotomous learning style dimensions of this model (sensing/intuitive,

visual/verbal, inductive/deductive, active/reflective, and sequential/global) are continua and not

either/or categories. A student's preference on a given scale (e.g. for inductive or deductive

presentation) may be strong, moderate, or almost nonexistent, may change with time, and may

vary from one subject or learning environment to another.

Sensing and Intuitive Perception.People are constantly being bombarded with information, both

through their senses and from their subconscious minds. The volume of this information is much

greater than they can consciously attend to; they therefore select a minute fraction of it to admit

to their "working memory" and the rest of it is effectively lost. In making this selection, sensing

learners (sensors) favor information that comes in through their senses and intuitive

learners (intuitors) favor information that arises internally through memory, reflection, and

imagination. (These categories derive from Carl Jung's theory of psychological types. The

strength of an individual's preference for sensation or intuition can be assessed with the Myers-

Briggs Type Indicator).

Sensors tend to be practical; intuitors tend to be imaginative. Sensors like facts and

observations; intuitors prefer concepts and interpretations. A student who complains about

courses having nothing to do with the real world is almost certainly a sensor. Sensors like to

solve problems using well-established procedures, don't mind detail work, and don't like

unexpected twists or complications; intuitors like variety in their work, don't mind complexity,

and get bored with too much detail and repetition. Sensors are careful but may be slow; intuitors

are quick but may be careless .

Sensing learners learn best when given facts and procedures, but most science courses

(particularly physics and chemistry) focus on abstract concepts, theories, and formulas, putting

sensors at a distinct disadvantage. Moreover, sensors are less comfortable than intuitors with

symbols; since words and algebraic variables---the stuff of examinations---are symbolic, sensors

must translate them into concrete mental images in order to understand them. This process can be

a lengthy one, and many sensors who know the material typically run out of time on tests. The

net result is that sensors tend to get lower grades than intuitors in lecture courses, in effect, they

are selectively weeded out, even though they are as likely as intuitors to succeed in scientific

careers.

Visual and Verbal Input.Visual learners get more information from visual images (pictures,

diagrams, graphs, schematics, demonstrations) than from verbal material (written and spoken

words and mathematical formulas), and vice versa for verbal learners. If something is simply

said and not shown to visual learners (e.g. in a lecture) there is a good chance they will not retain

it.

Most people (at least in western cultures) and presumably most students in science classes are

visual learners while the information presented in almost every lecture course is overwhelmingly

verbal---written words and formulas in texts and on the chalkboard, spoken words in lectures,

with only an occasional diagram, chart, or demonstration breaking the pattern. Professors should

not be surprised when many of their students cannot reproduce information that was presented to

them not long before; it may have been expressed but it was never heard.

Inductive and Deductive Organization. Inductive learners prefer to learn a body of material by

seeing specific cases first (observations, experimental results, numerical examples) and working

up to governing principles and theories by inference; deductive learners prefer to begin with

general principles and to deduce consequences and applications. Since deduction tends to be

more concise and orderly than induction, students who prefer a highly structured presentation are

likely to prefer a deductive approach while those who prefer less structure are more likely to

favor induction.

Research shows that of these two approaches to education, induction promotes deeper learning

and longer retention of information and gives students greater confidence in their problem-

solving abilities.The research notwithstanding, most college science instruction is exclusively

deductive---probably because deductive presentations are easier to prepare and control and allow

more rapid coverage of material. In the words of a student evaluating his introductory physics

course, "The students are given premasticated information simply to mimic and apply to

problems. Let them, rather, be exposed to conceptual problems, try to find solutions to them on

their own, and then help them to understand the mistakes they make along the way".The

approach suggested by this student is inductive teaching.

Active and Reflective Processing.Active learners tend to learn while doing something active---

trying things out, bouncing ideas off others; reflective learners do much more of their processing

introspectively, thinking things through before trying them out .Active learners work well in

groups; reflective learners prefer to work alone or in pairs. Unfortunately, most lecture classes do

very little for either group: the active learners never get to do anything and the reflective learners

never have time to reflect. Instead, both groups are kept busy trying to keep up with a constant

barrage of verbiage, or else they are lulled into inattention by their enforced passivity.

The research is quite clear on the question of active and reflective versus passive learning. In a

number of studies comparing instructor-centered classes (lecture/demonstration) with student-

centered classes (problem-solving/discussion), lectures were found to be marginally more

effective when students were tested on short-term recall of facts but active classroom

environments were superior when the criteria involved comprehension, long-term recall, general

problem-solving ability, scientific attitude, and subsequent interest in the subject .Substantial

benefits are also cited for teaching methods that provide opportunities for reflection, such as

giving students time in class to write brief sumaries and formulate written questions about the

material just covered.

Sequential and Global Understanding.Sequential learners absorb information and acquire

understanding of material in small connected chunks; global learners take in information in

seemingly unconnected fragments and achieve understanding in large holistic leaps. Sequential

learners can solve problems with incomplete understanding of the material and their solutions are

generally orderly and easy to follow, but they may lack a grasp of the big picture---the broad

context of a body of knowledge and its interrelationships with other subjects and disciplines.

Global learners work in a more all-or-nothing fashion and may appear slow and do poorly on

homework and tests until they grasp the total picture, but once they have it they can often see

connections to other subjects that escape sequential learners.

Before global learners can master the details of a subject they need to understand how the

material being presented relates to their prior knowledge and experience, but only exceptional

teachers routinely provide such broad perspectives on their subjects. In consequence, many

global learners who have the potential to become outstanding creative researchers fall by the

wayside because their mental processes do not allow them to keep up with the sequential pace of

their science courses.

Academic Procrastination

In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing high-priority actions with

tasks of lower priority, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting

off important tasks to a later time. In accordance with Freud, the Pleasure principle may be

responsible for procrastination; humans do not prefer negative emotions, and handing off a

stressful task until a further date is enjoyable. The concept that humans work best under pressure

provides additional enjoyment and motivation to postponing a task. Some psychologists cite such

behavior as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any

task or decision. Other psychologists indicate that anxiety is just as likely to get people to start

working early as late and the focus should be impulsiveness. That is, anxiety will cause people to

delay only if they are impulsive.

Ellis and Knaus (1977) estimate that 95% of college students engage in

procrastination. There is evidence that procrastination results in detrimental academic

performance, including poor grades and course withdrawal (Semb, Glick, & Spencer, 1979), and

that the tendency for students to procrastinate increases the longer they are in college: freshmen

procrastinate least; seniors, the most (Semb et al., 1979).

Assessment of academic procrastination has focused almost

entirely on the measurement of the study habits, such as minutes spent studying and attitudes

towards studying (e.g.,Ziesat, Rosenthal & White, 19978), and lessons completed in self-paced

instruction courses (e.g., Miller, Weaver,& Semb, 1974). Yet procrastination involves far more

than deficient time management and study skills. Anecdotal data from procrastinators and from

clinical observations of procrastinators (Burka & Yuen, 1982) suggest numerous other possible

reasons for the behavior pattern. Some of these possible reasons for procrastinations are

evaluation anxiety, difficulty in making decisions, rebellion against control, lack of assertion,

fear of the consequences of success, perceive aversiveness of the task, and overly perfectionistic

standards about competency. There has been no systematic attempt to investigate the reason for

procrastination. Furthermore, despite the objective nature of procrastination (i.e, one either meets

a deadline or fails to meet it; a student hands in a m paper either late or on time), only three

studies have incorporated behavioral measures in the assessment of procrastination (Blatt &

Quinlan, 1967; Dossett, Latham, & Saari, 1980; Green, 1982). The behavioral measures used in

these studies were prompt versus delayed completion of course requirements or speed with

which survey questionnaires were returned in relation to specific deadline. None of the studies

related the self-report of procrastination to the behavioral measures.

One study (Rothblum, 1984) investigated the frequency of college students’ procrastination on

academic tasks and the reason for procrastination behavior. The study showed high percentage of

srtudents’ repord problems with procrastination on several specific academic tasks. Self-reported

procrastination was positively correlated with the number of self-paced quizzes students took late

in the semester and with participation in a experimental offered late in the semester. A factor

analysis of the reasons for procrastination indicated that the factors Fear of Failure and

Aversiveness of the task accounted for most of the variance. A small but very homogenous group

of subjects endorsed items on the Fear of Failure factor that correlated significantly with self-

report measures of depression, irrational cognitions, low self-esteem, delayed study behavior,

anxiety, and lack of assertion. A larger and relatively heterogeneous of subjects reported

procrastinating as a result of aversiveness of the task. The Aversiveness of the Task factor did

not correlate significantly with anxiety or assertion, but it did correlate with depression, irrational

cognitions, low self-esteem and delayed study behavior. This result indicate that procrastination

is not solely a deficit in study habits or time management, but involves a complex interaction of

behavioral, cognitive, and affective components

http://www.adprima.com/studyout.htm

Felder, Richard, "Reaching the Second Tier: Learning and Teaching Styles in College Science

Education."

J. College Science Teaching, 23(5), 286-290 (1993).