The Use of Motivational Theories to Enhance Advising Pre-Health Students

• In Event: 31.040 - Learning Strategies for Diverse Learners in the Health Sciences

Abstract

Despite the limitations of an elusive construct such as human motivation, it is imperative when advising pre-health students to incorporate a common theoretical framework to effectively interpret students’ past, present, and future goals and behaviors. One such versatile approach incorporates the Indexes of Motivation (Schunk, Pintrich, Meece, 2008) as we can only infer the presence of motivation from behavioral indicators.

One indicator is choice of tasks. Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett (1973) found expectation for reward to hold a negative relationship with motivation as assessed by amount of time expended on task. A second index of effort indicates a positive relationship between investment of effort and motivation; that is, when students are more motivated, they are likely to expend more effort to achieving their goal (Pintrich, 2003). Lastly, the index of persistence relates directly to the sustainment of motivation despite encounters with obstacles (Zimmerman and Ringle, 1981).

Pre-health students are often individuals with historically strong academic background that have come to overlook the impact of motivation on their current academic achievement. Through a motivational framework, advisors can better assist students to examine their successes and failures, identify short and long-term goals, and implement any needed behavioral or cognitive modifications. One potential approach for intervention of pre-health students encountering academic difficulties would be to help incorporate motivation into their attributions. The presentation concludes with guidelines for helping academically struggling students.

Author

• Joon Kim, Keck Graduate Institute