KSU & Motivate Lab

Supporting Student’s Motivation and Engagement

Collaboration: Motivate Lab and Kennesaw State university (KSU)

Our Partnership

Motivate Lab and KSU’s STEM Faculty Learning Community (FLC) are working together to help STEM faculty support their students’ motivation and engagement. This project aims to shed light on a number of important factors that have been shown to effect motivation. A few examples of the questions we aim to answer are:

  • What motivates STEM students most in their classes?

  • Which aspects of academic life are hindering STEM student’s motivation?

  • How do both faculty beliefs and student beliefs interact, and how do these interactions effect academic outcomes through the conduit of motivation?

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Our Process

Over the past year, we’ve used various research tools to understand students' motivation and faculty's beliefs, including:

  • Student & Faculty Surveys: What do students think about their STEM courses and instructors?How do instructors perceive their students?

  • Empathy Interview Protocol: What helps and hinders students’ learning in their STEM courses?

  • Professional Development Workshops: What practices and messages can faculty use to create more supportive classrooms?

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What Have We Learned So Far?

  • Students report moderate levels of overall motivation in their STEM courses.

  • Many students report being “unsure” about their instructor’s beliefs. Being unsure predict slower overall motivation and course grades.

  • Students cite value as the main factor that increases motivation, and they cite expectancy and cost as the main factors that decrease motivation.

  • Faculty overestimate how negatively students feel toward their STEM courses.

  • 7 of the 8 student beliefs and 3 of the 8 student perceptions of faculty beliefs that we surveyed predicted course grades.