Increasing Motivation in Active Reading and Studying

Increasing motivation and active reading

There are many patterns and beliefs dealing with motivation that can limit academic success. I had an issue with motivation , and how to motivate myself to study and actively read. I felt that I was not willing to maximize myself to my fullest potential. I had some difficulty managing my motivation because it was hard to measure and I was not never really sure if I was increasing my motivation or not. Motivation has impacted me by helping me learn and retain information better and thus making me a better student. My motivation towards studying had also impacted those around me because when I sit down to study, they also get motivated to study too.

Wolters (1998) collected self-reported data from 115 college students with the average age of 19.1. All participants were volunteers and enrolled in an introductory psychology course. The study was about researching three questions : What strategies do students use to regulate their motivation ? Is the use of these strategies dependent on contextual factors? And how is motivational regulation related to other aspects of self-regulated learning and environment ? The strategies for regulating motivation was assessed by using an open-ended questionnaire with a short answer question.

The results say that students regulate their level of motivation by using a variety of strategies, including cognitive, volitional and motivational (Wolters 1998) . Many students said that they intended to block out distractions, focus their attention or they will "just do it." The results found that self-regulated learners adapt their strategies to fit the situational demands and provided a better understanding of the motivational problems that there are. The results also found that students regulating themselves is a more effective way of teaching them to be more self-regulated (Wolters 1998).

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Seeking help is a great way to learn , but some students will not seek it. The second

source investigates this problem, two studies were conducted, one that established that students would rather get help from their teachers instead of outside sources, and a second one that established classes that teach you to use outside sources will have students that use these outside sources instead of just the teachers ( Karabenick 2004). The results yielded that classes that encourage students to participate in class discussions and activities will produce students to ask for help when needed. The bottom line is if you teach students to use outside sources then they will use it more.

Rewards and incentives have become an American way of life, but they are actually not appropriate because they undermine the genuine interest and diminish esteemed performance (Schrof 1993). Study after study shows that people tend to do worse on things and give up more easily when a reward is promised. The problem is the assumption that humans can be effectively conditioned, but they can not be pushed and pulled to doing the right thing, it is ultimately their own choice (Schrof 1993). A group of researchers did studies on children who were given magic markers, and were super excited, but within weeks had lost interest . Another study found that children who were given rewards for reading, read more than those not receiving rewards. But when the program ended, they stopped reading all together, and thus read less than those not offered rewards. Motivation researchers know society won't transform itself overnight and might never stop from being reward-driven. But they hope to produce dedicated people without the use of rewards ( Schrof 1993).

Methodology

For my project I did a Lassi module to investigate and identify my target behavior then I

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researched my problem behavior at the library. I read and printed out three articles that worked well with my project. I then filled out a contract and meet with my teacher about my project plan.

Then I observed myself in the baseline week ,keeping track of my behavior, then in the next two weeks I tried to change my behavior to bo more motivated by keeping track of my active reading and studying. The hypothesized result is that if I work harder and reward myself then I will be more motivated.

My weekly goal is to actively read and get my studying done so that I do well on tests. In my baseline I am tracking how many times I am motivated to actually sit down and really study. I measure my study time in increments of 15 to 30 minutes or a hour. I wrote down every time

I was not motivated to get anything done.

In the antecedent I got all my materials out and made sure all distractions were taken care of. I tried to always find a nice and quiet place to actively read and study because I knew I would not retain any information if I did not. For the behavior I tried to do my best and because I thought about how much I want to stay in school and do well I actively participated in what I was doing. Sometimes I would catch myself , not paying attention, so I would then modify my behavior and got my work done.

For the consequences , I rewarded myself by getting to hanging out with friends and eating out more. Also the fact that I was going to do well on my tests helped