Seven Motivating Conceptions of Learning of Tertiary Students
Keywords:
Conceptions of Learning; Motivated Learning; Metacognitive skills; Conceptions of learning; Characteristics of learning; Approaches to learning; Prompts to LearningAbstract
Of the various ways of defining learning, few use students' own terms
as the foundation for the definition of factors. Based on data derived from
student's descriptions of concepts of learning a questionnaire was developed.
Responses from 252 tertiary students were used to evaluate and validate the
conceptions of learning. Exploratory and confirmatory analysis showed that the
seven concepts of Interest, Performance, Effort, Understanding, Ease, Natural
Ability, and Preoccupation were acceptable as were levels of reliability. The
consistency of the factors was tested over the duration of a semester with no
significant differences between times 1 and 2 and no significant gender
differences. The implications for further development and application are
discussed as is the similarity of the seven factors with previous explanations of
learning.
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