Motivation and Academic Challenges Lab
All students experience challenges; these might be serious challenges like failing a course, or everyday challenges like finding time to do homework.
Our lab studies the relation between motivation and learning, with a special focus on situations that are challenging. We also design and test interventions that promote motivation in order to help students learn better in challenging situations.
The Motivation and Academic Challenges Lab Group is part of the Joint Motivation Research Lab in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia (co-run by myself and Dr. Michael Barger). We are always looking for new students to join our team and work on projects with either of our co-PIs.
Join the Lab!
Graduate students: In the Applied Cognition and Development Ph.D. Program at the University of Georgia, you will learn to apply principles of cognitive, developmental, and social psychology to the science of learning. Please reach out for more information.
Undergraduate students: I am always recruiting undergraduate students to earn course credit by working on lab projects. You can gain experience in study design, study implementation, and data coding, while learning about motivation and education. Please reach out for more information. Many of our students have received funding for their work with our lab, presented at the undergraduate research symposium, and/or been included as authors in papers and presentations from lab members.
Ongoing Projects
Motivational Interventions
Working with STEM instructors, we are developing interventions to help students value their learning and/or reduce students’ perceptions of the negative consequences of learning in both college and high school. Other recent lab work examines how to design interventions that help Ph.D. mentors in the life sciences feel motivated to learn skills that will address conflicts with their student mentees in an effective way.
Motivational Development and STEM Learning Trajectories
Along with STEM faculty at UGA, we are exploring what motivates students to choose certain careers or courses of study over others during college and what motivational challenges can make students change their career plans. We also are exploring how high school students think about their future plans and whether they involve STEM subject areas. Hand in hand with that focus, we examine how learning contexts and teachers might better be able to support students’ career motivation by giving them new types of resources to help learn about career options.
Examining Negative Motivational Beliefs