What Motivates Introductory Geology Students to Study for an Exam?

Gendered differences in academic emotions and their implications for student success in STEM

“…Additionally, the social-cognitive, control-value theory suggests reciprocal links between students’ emotions and their self-regulatory skills (Pekrun et al 2002). This connection between emotions and self-regulation was echoed in a study by Lukes and McConnell (2014), who found that students described a significant emotional component in their motivation to study for exams, where certain strategies were employed as a method to avoid negative academic emotions.…”

Self-regulated learning: Overview and potential future directions in geoscience

“…The majority of extant SRL research conducted in geoscience contexts are either cases of practitioner wisdom or preliminary data presentations (e.g., conference presentations; Marton, 2015;Nunez et al, 2015) or in some isolated cases published case studies (e.g., Spencer et al, 2018). The only example of a cohort study was that of Lukes and McConnell (2014b), though the analysis therein was primarily associated with sources of motivation and goal orientations (i.e., SRL was only considered as a potential influence on results). Future work should seek to move the community-wide understanding of SRL in geoscience up the strength of evidence pyramid via increased case and cohort studies investigating SRL variables.…”

“…This early inquiry into the affective domain in the geosciences led to a group of researchers to collaborate in creating the Geoscience Affective Research NETwork (GARNET) to investigate student affect in introductory geology courses at a variety of institutions. Within the larger push toward characterizing student affect via constructs such as emotion, motivation, and connections to Earth, GARNET research also included components that were associated with SRL (particularly metacognition) and suggested that these components may be easier to facilitate in the introductory geology classroom via the integration of cognitive and metacognitive strategies into course assignments (Gilbert et al, 2012;Lukes & McConnell, 2014a, 2014bMcConnell & van Der Hoeven Kraft, 2011;van Der Hoeven Kraft et al, 2011). Finally, van der Hoeven Kraft (2017) provided a theoretical framework for characterizing and potentially cultivating interest in the geosciences and highlighted the construct of interest as an influence on SRL with interested students more likely to exhibit effective SRL behavior and vice versa.…”

“…This work suggested that there is a disconnect between course design, pedagogy, and student strategy use (relationship A to C in Figure 1) and that there were differences between community college and research intensive student populations in terms of timing of learning strategy acquisition and monitoring of learning (metacognitive skills relevant to SRL). Lukes and McConnell (2013, 2014a, 2014b also analyzed a portion of the interview data (n ¼ 42) through a motivation and emotion theoretical framework, characterizing a strong relationship between motivation and emotion in SRL decision-making (relationship B to C in Figure 1). Lukes and McConnell (2014a) utilized student interviews to characterize the sources of students' motivation to study for geology exams.…”

“…Interview results revealed that while all students harbored a performance goal orientation (i.e., all were motivated by their course grade), higher performing students had higher levels of mastery goal orientations (i.e., they were motivated to master the content in addition to getting a good grade). Additionally, these mastery goal orientations were theoretically linked to more effective use of SRL strategies (Lukes & McConnell, 2014a, 2014b.…”