Title: Motivation Improvement in the Undergraduate College Setting

Author Name: Aaliyah Miles

1. Introduction:

Motivating students in the undergraduate college setting is more difficult than it seems. Students are first enthralled with “inquisitive exploration” and then as students become more comfortable on the school grounds motivation falls into “exhausted survival” (Review, 2020). The entire goal of the undergraduate college setting is to motivate the students enrolled to keep up with the school culture and most importantly to graduate with a sense of pride from the school. Undergraduate students struggle with this because students are glued to their technology, prefer to hang out with their friends, and the roles they may seek are to always easily accessible. College communities that thrive on student engagement essentially compete with the important factors of a millennials college life and find themselves failing at the task (Review, 2020). This chapter will discuss motivation improvement practices and volition ideals for implementation on a college campus that struggles with student involvement in school culture and academia. In order to achieve expressing the importance of motivation improvement in a undergraduate college setting this case analysis will focus solely on reasons for lack of motivation on the West Georgia campus, solutions for motivation improvement that should be implemented, how to go about implementation, outcomes of the motivation improvement, and the implications of the overall task. 

2. Overview of the Case:

The case points will come from the standpoints of a Resident Assistant, Aaliyah Miles (myself), and  personal student engagement encounters and colleague/coworker comments while employed on the college campus of University of West Georgia. This case will evaluate my past Resident Assistant Role , research of related cases, and my position of “Red, White, and Blue Team” which served as a student involvement committee that serves outside of the Housing Department on the college campus.

To begin, the setting that Resident Assistants are most responsible for are the residence halls which prove to be the most intimate place for the students on the campus because the college dorm serve as a second home to most students. The dorms are also the place in which students reside to after completing college classes or come to to congregate or meet friends for later activities. Thus, these dormitories are the most evident place to contact and monitor students on the college setting. The locations in which a resident assistant carries out their duties are not just limited to the dormitories, but expand to the entire school because they provide undergraduate events every month for any student and can be held anywhere on campus. Advertising with flyers are another key component to making the events happen. The second job that I was involved in was a leadership/event planning group called “Red, White, and Blue Crew” that worked to create large scale events for students in which we talk to students about their interests, have committee meetings to create an event concept and materials needed for that event to take place, get in contact with vendors, and then execute the event in which the logistics crew would also get involved. The overall event purpose of both jobs were meant to motivate students to be active on campus to intermingle with their peers for a sense of strong school culture and to ensure that students are aware of the available resources on campus for their overall betterment as a student at the University of West Georgia.

Motivation in on the college campus also ties into the volition concept because the employees that work to motivate students (Such as RA’s and Event groups) are looking for their students to overcome the obstacles and hinderances during the learning process of independence in college. Because I played two roles on the college setting I believed that I had an upper hand in ensuring that we create the right setting for students to be motivated in the college environment. The problems that arose however, would challenge me and my coworkers and colleagues to have to become more creative beyond measure. As one can imagine the idea of college to a new student or freshman is a lot to take on and can bring some anxiety and excitement. Typically, because the Resident assistant role has long been around, there were traditions set in place that had not been updated for quite some time because they always seemed to work. The first plan was to throw a “Welcome Bash” for new students and freshman on campus to first get to know each other and then get acclimated to the school culture. This event was always pretty popular, but the school size became larger (thus more students have different instrests and accommodations needed for a mingling event) and students felt as though the concept was tired and not worth their time because it had been done countless times the same way. The Trait vs. State motivation came into play because the event (situation) was supposed to lure students in and make them curious as to what the event entails and trait based motivation provides motive to make friends on campus but, the ideas set in place to address this type of motivation were not good enough to keep up with the ever changing student body interests. The next issue, and main duty of the Resident assistant role is to ensure that students are academically successful because this evokes school graduation retention and personal student growth. The residential hallway events are meant to be more intimate and typically focus on personal student improvement in the academia world. The RA’s role would be to introduce resources that will help students be more successful in their classes. This type of event can involve intrinsic, extrinsic, affective domain, volition, and cognitive domain. The events that were typically set up were events to refer students to tutoring options on campus, informational sessions on how to utilize the assistant professor, and create habits to make you a better student. The problem imposed were students not being motivated to come to the information sessions and if they did come, students were not retaining the information, and if they did retain the information students did not always use the information given to be successful in their academic classes. Also, it is the Resident Assistant’s responsibility to make sure the students have to tools to stay academically successful by consistently checking on resident’s  progress and make sure they have to will power to work through difficulties socially and academically. Academic success events with RA followthrough were a critical element of creating motivation and violation within the student body.

The problems that exist within both jobs prove to deal with almost every element of motivation for influencing the responsibility necessary for college students success in school and life. Student interpersonal skills are gained if the Trait vs. State element of motivation in the school culture events, meant to take place for involvement in school culture, are executed properly. Intrinsic, extrinsic, affective domain, volition, and cognitive domain need to be addressed in the Resident Assistant academic success events in order to increase the schools graduation retention rates, but most of all help with students overall success at the undergraduate college level.

3. Solutions Implemented

The first problem presented is a Trait vs. State Motivation issue of students not being interest in going to school events such as the “Welcome Bash” so, the solution would be to increase student interest in school culture through a new relevant event concept and advertisement. The solution for this issue is as follows:

Who: The new, current, and freshman students attending the University of West Georgia.

What: The “Welcome Bash” (which is a new, current, and freshman class get together, thrown by the housing department, for all of the students to intermingle and create school culture.)

When: The “Welcome Bash” is to be held on the first week of classes for the entire school, this way the largest amount of students to be influenced are more likely to come.

Where: At the University’s most center point which is the field nearest the campus center. There is enough space to accommodate almost the entire school and it is in the central point in which students must walk past on their way to the Universities main classroom buildings, sports & recreation, and library.

Why: To improve the trait versus state motivation practices for college students to ensure their success in interpersonal and school culture remains high. Doing this will result in greater motivation to stay in school, be a part of the school culture, and remain socially active on the college campus for opportunities that may benefit the students overall.

How: The way that this event will be conceptualized to accommodate student trait versus state motivation standards are by students having a voice in the type of event they would like to see happen to accommodate the most relevant student traits. The school housing website application and the school entry application will include personality surveys before students come to college for the semester. The RA’s and student Red and Blue Event Plan Crew  will conduct gap fill (for the students that did not take the surveys) meetings and surveys within their resident halls and orientation on the week of move-in to get the most student input as possible on student trait alignment for the event. The event planning committee (Red and Blue Crew) will then implement the most common and relevant aspects of the surveys to create a positive and memorable state for students that attend the event thus having students motivation to attend events held by the college staff to increase.

The second problem presented refers to intrinsic, extrinsic, affective domain, volition, and cognitive domain for student motivation to attend and utilize the information given in academic success events. The solution is to increase student involvement and utilization of academic resource information session attendance and have the students use the information for personal growth and graduation retention for the school:

Who: The new, current, and freshman students attending the University of West Georgia.

What: Resident Assistant and School Held academic success events

When: Monthly Events for students to attend

Where: Inside the student resident halls or on campus anywhere on the campus.

Why: This will be done to ensure that students are motivated to achieve their goals in college and change their mindset in receiving help to overcome hurdles in college. Academic success events will lead to higher student motivation in school and higher retention rates for the school.

How: The academic success events will first be advertised to accommodate student interest by promising that students are going to participate in events that they will not only gain knowledge but rewards for participation, that being potential to win prizes for participating in activities, possible reward for signing up for an academic success event, or even winning a big prize (conducive to their learning like earning school acknowledgement or scholarship opportunities if they are apart of a specific academic success group consistently). The actual academic success events will entail information for students that are taught in activity modules and socratic seminar form for students to stay cognitively active while learning and appeal to student pathos while learning about that academic success characteristics. Student volition should be higher after complete participation in events because they will have learned the value of the information after the session and hopefully will drive students to use the academic success events for what they consider to be their weak points in college.

4. Outcomes

Goal 1 (creating motivation for school culture and student interpersonal skills):

• Positive outcome on personality trait surveys imbedded in back to school culture
• Useful event committee intervention on what should be included in the event
• Better turnout for event “Welcome Bash”, however, using this survey tactic for all events will be nearly impossible to achieve every time.

Goal 2 (getting students motivated to attend academic success events for higher volition and school retention rates)

• Advertisements worked to bring in students that are interested
• Activity and Socratic seminar based events work to keep the student interest
• Consistency in student attendance throughout the year is difficult because students start to understand they will only sometimes get rewards from the event if they come.
• Not every student is taking something away from the academic success event.

5. Implications

In order to remedy the outcome that have come from each goal, the factor of consistent relevant practices of motivation have to be conducted for every event. That being, students involved in campus events (Resident Assistants and Red and Blue Crew) have to consider their roles on campus as a college student and also pay attention to what their peers find interesting and important to include that in the on campus events for student motivation to be a part of the school culture and achieve academically. They will not necessarily ask  students anything, but will conduct their daily job duties to attain the information about students life to target the key areas of motivation for the students on campus.

6. External Resources 

 

1. Student Motivation, Cognition, and Learning. (2009). Google Books. https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rSc-ONYEwnkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=motivation+improvement+in+college+students&ots=2fx7DJHu7t&sig=AOFUHeGHAAL_6Ow_T8Tlq6w7j1U&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=motivation%20improvement%20in%20college%20students&f=false
2. Role of the Big Five personality traits in predicting college students’ academic motivation and achievement. (2009, January 1). ScienceDirect. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1041608008000587
3. Pintrich, P.R. A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning in College Students. Educational Psychology Review 16, 385–407 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-004-0006-x
4. The Effect of Attributional Retraining on Mastery and Performance Motivation Among First-Year College Students. (2010). Taylor & Francis. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01973530802374972
5. Perry, R. P. (1993, December 1). Enhancing achievement motivation and performance in college students: An attributional retraining perspective. Research in Higher Education. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00992156?error=cookies_not_supported&code=bc4d686c-16ce-4d19-810d-a8c6a7c93bca
6. Komarraju, M., Musulkin, S., & Bhattacharya, G. (2010). Role of Student–Faculty Interactions in Developing College Students’ Academic Self-Concept, Motivation, and Achievement. Journal of College Student Development 51(3), 332-342. doi:10.1353/csd.0.0137.
7. Papp, T. A. P. (2017). Gamification Effects on Motivation and Learning: Application to Primary and College Students. Infonomics-Society.Org. https://infonomics-society.org/wp-content/uploads/ijcdse/published-papers/volume-8-2017/Gamification-Effects-on-Motivation-and-Learning.pdf
8. Tuckman, B.W. (2003). The Effect of Learning and Motivation Strategies Training on College Studentsi Achievement. Journal of College Student Development 44(3), 430-437. doi:10.1353/csd.2003.0034.
9. Wibrowski, C. R., Matthews, W. K., & Kitsantas, A. (2017). The Role of a Skills Learning Support Program on First-Generation College Students’ Self-Regulation, Motivation, and Academic Achievement: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 19(3), 317–332. https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025116629152
10. Conti, R. College Goals: Do Self-Determined and Carefully Considered Goals Predict Intrinsic Motivation, Academic Performance, and Adjustment During the First Semester?. Social Psychology of Education 4, 189–211 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009607907509

 

7. References:

Review, P. (2020, December 25). Motivating today’s college students. https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/motivating-todays-college-students.

Oxcognita LLC – Oxford Review Enterprises Ltd. (2018, October 25). The difference between a state and a trait – work psychology. The Oxford Review. https://www.oxford-review.com/oxford-review-encyclopaedia-terms/the-difference-between-an-state-and-a-trait/

Student Motivation and the Affective Domain. (2009). Mesa, AZ Workshop 09. https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective09/index.html

UWG Campus Navigator. (2019). University of West Georgia. https://apps.westga.edu/uwgnavigator/

 

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