Educational Psychology books

For nearly two decades, this series has reflected and chronicled the interests, insights, findings and concerns of motivational researchers. This volume is unique in that it grew out of a conference honoring a major contributor to the motivational literature, Carol Midgley. Yet, it too reflects the richness and variety that exists across motivation research today. While the authors tend to work within a goal theory perspective, they reflect concerns with the range of questions that interest motivation researchers more broadly. True to the tradition established by Carol Midgley, the chapters also exhibit a considered and creative concern with the "real world of achievement". The studies reported or reviewed are largely field-based. The implications drawn have relevance to practitioner as well as theorist. Especially noteworthy is that this collection of chapters does more than review the past. It points to the future - in several ways: asking challenging questions, regarding the implications of current motivation theory for school reform, portraying the potential of new research methods, re-examining tried and true conceptions of the nature and nurture of motivation, and, suggesting new issues and pointing to new venues for application. All in all, this particular volume stands not only as a testament to the life and work of one major figure in the field, but goes a considerable distance in reflecting the diversity of interests and concerns within motivation research more broadly. It also points to what is missing, what has been overlooked, and what needs to be done. Those who are especially concerned with theory, research methods, or applications will each find something of interest and of worth - regardless of their theoretical perspective or specific research focus.

Considerable evidence indicates that religion is a motivational force in the lives of most of the world's population, and recent social and political events have placed religion center stage. Motivation is considered an essential component of any adequate answer to the question, 'Why religion?'. That question concerned early psychologists, such as Freud and James, but was relatively neglected with the ascendancy of behaviorism. It has since regained momentum as an important area of research and scholarship. In spite of the fact that motivational principles are implicit in many analytical treatments of religion, and that some articles and book chapters discuss motivation and religion, this literature is widely dispersed and confined primarily to Judeo-Christian world views. This volume of the "Advances" series presents a systematic approach to the topic, as viewed through the lens of such contemporary theories of motivation as expectancy-value, self-determination, and achievement goal theory. An international group of scholars offers a comprehensive view of how such theories help to understand religiosity and its impact on human experiences and behavior. In addition, authors consider the implications of religious experiences and behavior for motivation theory. Separately, these contributions provide unique perspectives. Collectively, they represent the prominent theoretical approaches to motivation, include the world's dominant religions, and address a wide variety of significant issues related to this very significant subject.

Advances in Motivation and Achievement, as the premier series in its field, explores current issues at the cutting edge of motivational science and reflects the richness and variety that exists across achievement and motivation research today. It brings together researchers in motivation from around the world to address new directions in measures and methods for motivational research.

This volume is devoted to examining multicultural perspectives in special education. It tackles demographic challenges in today's classrooms, schools, and communities that general and special educators must be aware of, by presenting information on multidimensional methods for dealing with those students who look, talk, behave and learn differently. Chapter authors provide innovative ideas for educators willing to shift their identification, assessment, placement, and instructional paradigms to better serve multicultural learners with exceptionalities.

This volume brings together researchers in motivation from around the world to address new directions in measures and methods for motivational research. There has been a great deal of reliance on self-report measures in motivational research, but the current volume provides a number of new and different methods for assessing motivation. The volume discusses the use of projective techniques, on-line questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, observations, and multiple methods. All of these new methods will provide more dynamic and situated measures of motivation, a much needed development in motivational research. In addition, the volume addresses new data analytic techniques that allow for more dynamic assessment of motivation in context. Person-centered and variable-centered analysis techniques are discussed as well as multi-level modelling. In addition, a chapter on research synthesis is included as well as a discussion of issues of construct validity and analysis of ethnic and cultural differences in motivation. The volume offers new theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and pragmatic tools and perspectives on measuring and assessing motivation.

"New Perspectives on Conceptual Change" brings together the latest research on conceptual change from perspectives in developmental, cognitive and motivational psychology, instructional psychology and science education. The book addresses four main themes: the interplay between the learner's naive knowledge based on everyday experience and new knowledge conveyed by schooling and formal instruction; traditional cognitive views on knowledge acquisition and new socioconstructionist perspectives; constraints on knowledge acquisition and modification within specific learning domains; and instructional aspects of conceptual change and suggestions for the design of learning environments and teaching processes which promote conceptual change.

The arena of International Schooling is growing rapidly and changing in nature. The number of schools delivering a curriculum wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking nation reached 12,000 in 2020. China and the Middle East is the emerging centre of activity, and local parents are the main customers. This is an increasingly important, yet still overlooked, area of schooling. Although it continuously attracts teachers, mainly from Britain and North America, the reality is precarious and insecure. Precarity and Insecurity in International Schooling addresses this paradox, and starts a new discussion, arguing that a more positive lens of inquiry is required to understand the situation. In so doing, the book introduces new sociological evidence, concepts and visions linked to the accumulation of 'resilience' and 'transition capital'. This book will be of interest to students and researchers wishing to gain a new and contemporary insight into the rapidly changing world of International Schooling.

Reform initiatives in mathematics education have been reluctant to embrace racial equity as a core or guiding principle. The field is replete with studies on Black students' poor performance in mathematics education and of its persistence. Conversely, success in mathematics is rarely associated with groups of African or African American descent. The abundance of data on the failure of Black students in mathematics has contributed to mainstream beliefs of a racial hierarchy of mathematics ability in America. This perception has not only shaped attitudes and behaviors of educational practitioners, but it has contributed to the alienation of many students from the community of 'doers of mathematics.' This study examines the mathematics identity of a group of seniors enrolled in honor's pre-calculus at a comprehensive high school. Data collected and analyzed for this book shows that participants, in spite of a history of success in mathematics and despite viewing the classroom as opportunity to challenge disparaging views of Black Americans, refused to seek membership in the math community. Saintine focuses on the mathematic identity construction of 11 Black students and their own perception of mathematics education. This work offers new insights into the racial opportunity-gap in mathematics and challenges longstanding assumptions about 'what' or 'who' is a math person.

The phenomena of motivation cannot be studied separately as an independent research topic because motivation is highly interrelated to cognition, emotion, learning, and decision-making process. The overarching aim of this volume, therefore, is to provide new insight into a unified grand theory of motivation by integrating noteworthy neuroscience research findings on motivation. This volume is dedicated to advancing our understanding of brain mechanisms of underlying various motivational phenomena, including reward, approach, autonomy, intrinsic motivation, learning, effort, curiosity, and self-control. The volume is divided into four parts: The first part introduces classical but fundamental issues such as reward, approach, and individual differences. The second part deals with intrinsic motivation including autonomy and curiosity. The third one examines recent approaches on the interface between motivation and cognition in learning and decision-making. The last part focuses on practically significant issues pertaining to self-regulation development.

The chapters in this volume address how different contexts and environments can facilitate or constrain the motivation of individuals. Motivational theory has tended to focus on internal psychological processes, but the chapters in this volume remind us that contextual factors are also very important contributors to motivation and achievement. The chapters address the role of context in educational settings including both classroom and school analyses, family contexts, work settings, personal and social contexts, as well as cross-cultural analyses of motivation in non-Western contexts.