Chapter 13 - Instructional Practices and Motivation during Middle School (with Special Attention to Science)

Abstract

This chapter discusses instructional practices and motivation during middle school. This chapter says that researchers begin finding and reporting that the transition to middle grades schools is associated with declines in academic motivation and performance. In middle grades, students perceive their middle grades teachers as more remote and impersonal than their elementary teachers and are less certain that their middle school teachers care about them and know them well. Furthermore, state departments of education and local districts have often implemented assessment programs designed “to hold school systems, schools, administrators, and teachers accountable for students performing at standard.” This chapter states that both the middle grades reform movement and the standards-based reform movement share the goal of increasing student achievement and resolving student motivational problems by encouraging “research-based” instructional practices. This chapter identifies some of these research-based instructional practices, which may promote positive changes in middle school students' motivational beliefs and orientations—both generally and in science. In identifying changes in practice that can help students flourish in middle school and in science, this chapter reviews the research of others and presents data from ongoing program of research.