Increasing Student Motivation and Facilitating Learning

Numerous techniques have been developed and applied to address the challenges of increasing stu dent motivation and facilitating learning. Many, including the one to be described here, have been consistent with the work on goal setting done by Latham and Locke (1979), Latham and Baldes (1975), and Locke and Latham (1990) and their colleagues. Those studies found that goals are motivational and lead to increased perfor mance when they are specific, moderate ly difficult, and accepted by the individ ual and when feedback is provided regarding progress toward the achieve ment of the goals. Bloom and Krathwohl (1984), Brent and Felder (1999), and Gr?nland (1991) all advocated students' writing specific learning objectives. One challenge that they encountered is that the act of writing goals does not nec essarily lead to students' accepting and actually committing to implementing them. People often assume that if some one says he will do something by a set date, then he will do it, if at all possible. Specific goals establish a set direction to apply one's energies; however, this may also mean having to change or do things that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable. The question then becomes how to increase the likelihood that an individual