A recent article on attitudes and learning Article Understanding the relationship between student attitudes and...
describes a weak relationship between attitudes and learning in Physics. What other research is there that shows a relationship between attitudes and motivation related to learning outcomes?Our intuition tells us that the result of the study above is surprising, so what else is there?
I think you need to explore the literature on student readiness which has a lot to say in this regard.
Hi David,
I think that in learning situations an emphasis on motivation should be the main source of interest. Students can have an aversive attitude towards physics (or any other subject for that matter). The key is to motivate students with a focus on internal motivation. Teaching processes that affect motivation can be guided by our understanding of mulitple intelligences (e.g. Armstrong, 1998; Gardner, 1993), learning styles (Dunn & Dunn, 1982) and preferred learning activities (Goodlad, 1984). Teachers can become their own ongoing reasearcher with their students in some easy-to-implement ways. Periodic surveys might help.
Armstrong, T. (1998). Awakening genius.
Dunn, R., & Dunn, K. (1982). Teaching students through their individual learning styles.
Gardner, H. (1993). Muliple intelligences: The theory in practice.
Goodlad, J. L. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future.
Cheers!
1. An unexpected, especially counter-intuitive finding, might be due to the way the analysis was implemented. (see Article Expanding the Methodological Arsenal of Applied Linguistics ...
)2. It also might be that such relationships could be discipline/subject related. For example, in my area, which is applied linguistics, empirical evidence strongly supports the existence of relationships between language attitudes (i.e., general attitudes and dispositions to speakers of the target language, the language itself, the target culture, etc.) and the learning outcome.
3. Certainly, other factors might be involved. In any case, we researchers make hypotheses that might or might not be rejected. With the hypotheses being falsifiable, research is a continuous process. There are no definitive answers and ultimate truths in social sciences.
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