Students' Academic Motivations in Three Disciplines

This session will describe a project investigating students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for taking classes in three disciplines: anatomy and physiology, nutrition, and physics. These classes enroll students from many different majors, which require these courses be taken as part of the curriculum. This provides an excellent opportunity to study differential student motivation and the impact of those differences on student academic behaviors and performance. Results revealed significant differences in motivations across the three disciplines which further influenced academic behaviors and course performance. Session objectives include discussing the results of this project and its implications for faculty in understanding student motivations as contributing factors to student success in each discipline. Attendees can expect to learn about the Student Learning Theory of Motivation, ways to operationalize the Academic Motivation Scale in different disciplines, and the relationship between students' motivations and academic behaviors and performance.