Motivation to Learn

"Motivation to Learn With and Without Structure" was researched and reported by Katherine Love, as the subject of her Master's Thesis in 2013. It's late, but I didn't know about it until recently. 🙂

The formal title is The Self-Actualization of Education: Factors that Affect Educational Motivation, and if you click that you can read (or download) the PDF.

Katherine was in school for some years, and then homeschooled (soon unschooled) for a few more, before she started university (earlier than she would have, had she stayed in school, I think).

The abstract of Katherine's thesis is:

Researchers have found that many students of public and private education seem to lack the fundamental motivation to learn they had as toddlers. Educators are starting to realize that teaching through students’ interests and letting them learn at their own pace produces the best results. This research tested the hypothesis that a student’s motivation to learn is influenced by the degree of structure in education with an inverse relationship. A survey was distributed via email to 107 homeschooler discussion lists where there is a wide variance in how much structure parents include with daily instruction. The parents who participated in this research study were drawn from the online homeschooling population in all inclusive, secular discussion/support groups. As predicted, motivation means were highest at the lower end of the degree of structure.

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I quoted from another master's thesis a few months ago here: Enthusiasm for happenstance

photo by Gail Higgins