Using Motivational and Volitional Email Messages to Promote Undergraduate Students’ Motivation, Study Habits and Achievement

This study investigated what kind of supportive information can be effective in improving the situation where there were severe motivational challenges. Motivational and volitional messages were constructed based on a integrated model of four theories and methods, which are Keller’s ARCS model (Keller 2004), Kuhl’s (1987) action control theory, the Rubicon model of motivation and volition (Gollwitzer 1999), and Visser & Keller’s (1990) strategy of motivational messages, and distributed via email with personal messages created based on audience analysis to a large undergraduate class. This study revealed that personal messages addressing specific individual problems raise the positive effects of the motivational and volitional messages constructed based on the integrated model.

Kim, C., Keller, J. M., & Chen, H. (October, 2005). Using motivational and volitional messages to promote undergraduate students’ motivation, study habits and achievement. Proceedings of Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) Conference. Orlando, FL

 

Effectiveness of Using Motivational and Volitional Messages With Undergraduates

The authors attempted to combine motivational and volitions tactics based on an analysis of learner motivation in a large undergraduate general education course. The effectiveness of this approach was tested by distributing the strategies as “motivational messages” (Visser & Keller, 1990) in the form of “Study Tips” via email to the participants. The primary finding was that students who opened the study tips emails increased their study time, maintained confidence, and improved their test scores compared to those who did not open them. This has positive implications for sending motivational and volitional study tips directly to students while they are in the process of studying a course.

Keller, J. M., Deimann, M., Liu, Z. (2005). Effects of integrated motivational and volitional tactics on study habits, attitudes, and performance. Proceedings of Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT) Conference. Orlando, FL

 

Relationship of Volitional and Motivational Strategies on Expectancies

The authors report the results of a study of the effects of a motivationally designed instructional text on motivation and learning. They incorporated volitional strategies such as action control and motivational strategies based on the ARCS model. Results showed a variety of effects in relation to several different categories of participant self-reported expectancies for control and success.

Astleitner, H. & Lintner, P. (2004). The effects of ARCS-strategies on self-regulated learning with instructional texts. E-Journal of Instructional Science and Technology, 7(1). (ISSN 1324-0781, University of Southern Queensland, Australia)

 

© 2006 John M. Keller, All rights reserved.
Contacts l John Keller jkeller@arcsmodel.com l ChanMin Kim webmaster@arcsmodel.com