Fostering Universal Motivation: Making use of Research Results to Improve my Teaching Practices

Abstract

Many students experience difficulties during their academic progress. For example, dealing with a failing grade on an exam for the first time can be challenging. Most students come out stronger, integrating this experience as a learning process to better adapt to subsequent challenges. However, other students find themselves on an academic journey rife with hurdles, experiencing many setbacks or failing to benefit from factors that promote success (such as parents with advanced education or a comfortable socioeconomic level). The sources of the obstacles to be overcome at school are many and varied, ranging from learning disabilities (diagnosed or not) to personal or organizational difficulties. As teachers, it is difficult for us to develop pedagogical intervention strategies that can bring together the wide range of realities and needs not only for students at risk of failure, but for all our students. The author decided to take an interest in her students on their arduous path towards generating and maintaining motivation at school. For the last ten years, as a researcher she have been studying the motivational profile of college students who meet with great difficulty in achieving success at school. This is because she thinks that by properly identifying their motivational profile, she will be able to better support her students in their learning as well as enrich their college experience. As a teacher, she uses the information that comes from research findings and transfer it to her practice. In doing so, she adjusts how she intervenes, a process that some people refer to as knowledge transfer. In this article, the author wish to share the fruit of her observations and the thoughts that, despite offering more questions than answers, have led her to improve her teaching practices by relying on research results related to motivation and engagement.