Comparing student motivations for and emotional responses to national standardised tests and internal school tests: The devil in the detail

National testing of students has become an increasingly prevalent policy tool, often implemented to drive improvement through increased accountability and heightened competition between schools. Such testing has been found to generate negative emotional responses among students, including increased stress and anxiety . However, there is little examining whether such responses are associated specifically with national testing regimes or are more general responses to testing situations. This study surveyed 206 students in Australian secondary schools to compare responses to NAPLAN and internal school tests. Students reported higher expectations for their performance in internal school tests than for NAPLAN, higher levels of boredom for NAPLAN and greater levels of confidence for their internal school tests. While most students reported low levels of negative emotional responses to NAPLAN, a small group of students reported strong negative emotional responses to both NAPLAN and internal school tests, suggesting that negative responses to national testing programs may be more dependent on the individual student.

CAFÉ AS STUDENT’S INFORMAL LEARNING SPACE: A CASE STUDY IN BANDUNG, INDONESIA

For the past years, the café's functionality has shifted from serving light food or beverages to being used by students as an informal learning space (ILS). This paper discusses university student's motivation to study in a café and the desired café's characteristics as an ILS in Bandung, Indonesia. The research uses a quantitative method using a questionnaire to reveal the dimensions of students' internal motivation and spatial characteristics of the café and its effect on students' informal learning responses while in the café. Results found 6 (six) groups of student motivations and 7 (seven) characteristics of cafés as an ILS. Results uncover a positive relationship between utilitarian motivation and physical characteristics in the form of the availability and quality of café amenities on students' cognitive and affective responses. It is implied that students choose a café as an ILS because such informal space can provide satisfactory physical amenities so that their learning performance is expected to increase. Through this trend, universities and/or related stakeholders could use this opportunity to improve the well-being of the student.

Persepsi terhadap Motivasi Berjilbab Mahasiswi PGMI STIT Al Fattah

In everyday life, it is still rare for women to wear the hijab. The main obstacle is the social aspect. Many people feel ashamed and even feel inferior when wearing Muslim clothing in their association. This is due to the influence of the environment that is difficult to avoid, this perception makes the writer want to know how the motivation of female students in veiling, especially for PGMI STIT Al Fattah students in hijab. The data used as a guide in this research are facts in the field, then processed and analyzed descriptively, which provides an interpretation of the objects that have been explained in language relevant to the direction of the research. This study concludes that there are several student motivations in using the hijab in daily activities, either motivation within the student itself or from extrinsic factors in the student's daily life environment. The motivation of PGMI STIT Al Fattah students in wearing the hijab is because on the basis of fulfilling their obligations for theological reasons (read; religion) than they wear the hijab on the basis of the provisions or encouragement of others.

Motivations and Perceptions of Student Service Participation

Researchers studying higher education frequently associated community service with liberal arts education. Most research on service participation among college students predominantly studies mandatory service-learning programs. Several studies gathered survey data to analyze opinions and feelings towards volunteering from students at universities with a service-learning component and found that students who participate feel more connected to and engaged in their community. Georgia College & State University (Georgia College or GC), a public liberal arts university, also claims community service is an integral part of their mission because it broadens students’ perspectives and forms engaged citizens. However, there is little data examining student motivations and perceptions of their voluntary service experiences as part of their education at liberal arts institutions. This research project addresses this gap using two methods: (a) participant observation during service events and (b) semi-structured interviewing with both students engaged in voluntary service activities as well as employees who observe student service involvement. Preliminary findings display a wide array of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for student service participation, and interview data relates service to the liberal arts mission as a method of expanding perspectives of students. These results support literature that says students benefit from service participation by both honing their skills and spurring their passion about community involvement. The findings herein add to the literature by exploring motivators for voluntary service participation.

ON THE RECORD: STUDENT MOTIVATIONS FOR RECORDING LECTURES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR LEARNING

Prior to the pandemic, a second-year engineering course was delivered using a blended synchronous format. Students were surveyed on many aspects of their experience with this format including their use of recorded lectures. Participants reported both recording and watching behaviour: 30% of students watched recorded lectures with students watching or recording at least half of the lectures throughout the semester. From the results, recording of the lectures offers an increase in the final grade of, on average, 9.5% (p=0.0071) for both lowattending and high attending students. While attending most synchronous lectures tends to yield overall better performance (on average, 14.4%, p=0.0001), low attending students can overcome part of that gap by reviewing recorded lectures. Motivations for recording were associated with scheduling conflicts that prevented participants from attending the live lecture and participants wanting to review the material afterwards. Generally, students chose not to record the lectures because of a perceived barrier to doing so or a perception that their existing lecture notes were sufficient. Post pandemic, it may be beneficial to incorporatelecture recording with face-to-face lectures to allow students the additional benefit of reviewing lecture material and increasing student access to lecture content.

Motivation, pedagogy, and gender: examining the multifaceted and dynamic situational responses of women and men in college STEM courses

Background Research illustrates that student motivations influence learning engagement, persistence, and achievement in powerful ways and that positive motivations are linked to deeper learning, critical thinking, pro-social behavior, and better performance. Most studies of learner motivation, however, are conducted outside of STEM and are focused at the contextual level, which may describe why students attend college or choose a degree program, but not why they engage in classroom activities. Furthermore, there is little research that meaningfully connects learner motivations with gender identity and course pedagogy. This study addresses these gaps by examining the interconnections among course pedagogy, gender, and situational-level motivations, which reveal why learners engage in different course activities and how engagement may vary over time. This detailed perspective on learner motivations is essential for instructors to gain insights into how their pedagogical and course design choices influence students’ motivational responses and to more effectively develop interventions that support positive forms of motivation among all students. Results Participants in the study are undergraduate students enrolled in 72 introductory-level STEM courses across 11 institutions, and the dataset includes over 5000 unique responses to the Situational Motivation Scale, a Self-Determination Theory-based instrument that was administered weekly in each course. Analysis reveals seven typical motivational response types, ranging from a highly control-oriented to a highly autonomous response. Most students express multiple types of motivation during an academic term in a course, illustrating the dynamic nature of motivations. Cluster distributions by gender and pedagogy indicate significant differences in lecture-based learning courses, with women reporting less self-determined motivations compared to men. Motivational response profiles of women and men are both more similar, and more positive overall, in courses that employ active learning. Conclusions These findings have important implications for practitioners. The concept of motivational co-expression encourages instructors to move toward a more nuanced appraisal of learner motivation. The stability analyses challenge embedded beliefs about the fixed nature of learner motivation. The gender analyses raise questions about how instructors may more effectively promote the positive motivations of all students through their course design decisions.

Insights on biology student motivations and challenges when reading and analyzing primary literature

Reading primary literature is a popular classroom practice that exposes students to the process of science. However, the analysis of primary literature can be taxing and time-consuming for students. For this reason, it is important to determine the source of student challenges and what motivates them to read primary literature. To better understand students’ challenges, preferences, and motivations towards analyzing primary literature, we held focus groups with biology undergraduates where we asked them about their thoughts and perceptions on this practice. Students felt they struggle with understanding the big picture of an article, certain aspects of scientific literacy like data interpretation and experimental setup, and lack of knowledge of terms and techniques. Further analysis of the data using the achievement goal and expectancy-value theories of motivation revealed that students: 1) demonstrate mastery and performance approach goal orientations, which are typically associated with positive learning outcomes, 2) value the usefulness of reading primary literature, and 3) feel most engaged in the process of reading an article when the topic interests them. We provide pedagogical recommendations based on our findings.