Motivation Research in Writing: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations

This article reviews research on motivation in the academic domain of writing situated within a social cognitive perspective. First we summarize major findings related to 4 theorized components of human motivation—self-efficacy beliefs or perceived competence, mastery and performance goal orientations, task interest and value, and attributions for success and failure. For each component we also offer general instructional recommendations gleaned from the literature. Next we discuss how these components play a role in writing motivation, with particular emphasis on self-efficacy for writing skills versus writing tasks. Then we present findings from studies that have examined the motivational characteristics of individuals who struggle with writing, including those with disabilities, and interventions designed to enhance motivation to write. Finally, we offer suggestions for future research in writing motivation

Relationships between writing motivation, writing activity, and writing performance: effects of grade, sex, and ability

A convenience sample of 618 children and adolescents in grades 4 through 10, excluding grade 8, were asked to complete a writing motivation and activity scale and to provide a timed narrative writing sample to permit an examination of the relationships between writing motivation, writing activity, writing performance, and the student characteristics of grade, sex, and teacher judgment of writing ability. Female students and older students wrote qualitatively better fictional stories, as did students with higher levels of writing ability based on teacher judgment. With respect to writing activity, more frequent writing in and out of school was reported by girls, better writers, and younger students. In a path analysis, grade and sex directly influenced writing activity, while sex, teacher judgment of writing ability, and writing activity directly influenced some aspects of writing motivation. Overall, teacher judgment of writing ability, grade level, and motivational beliefs each exerted a significant direct positive influence on narrative quality, whereas performance goals exerted a significant direct negative impact on quality

The Learning-to-Learn Strategies of Adolescent Students With Disabilities

This study focuses on an examination of the learning-to-learn strategies of seventh-grade students as they highlight, takenotes, plan, organize, and write expository texts. Participants consist of 125 students, 41 with disabilities and 84 withoutdisabilities. The results reveal that the students with disabilities have more difficulties in using the learning-to-learn strategiesas they read, study, and write expository texts, although neither group is judged to be highly proficient. The implicationspoint to a renewed emphasis on preparing content-area teachers to teach the literacy and learning strategies thatsupport the development of learners who know how to read to learn and how to write to learn

An Exploratory Study of Reading in Urban and Suburban Middle Schools: Implications for At-Risk and Special Education Learners

Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, school achievement remains segregated by both race and class. Despite an emphasis on reading achievement as required by No Child Left Behind, many students have serious literacy needs, even into the middle and upper grades. The purpose of this study was to ascertain ways in which middle school reading instruction is coordinated to improve academic outcomes for at-risk students. In-depth interviews were conducted with professionals from five urban and five suburban middle schools surrounding five components of reading programming. While both align their curriculum with state expectations, they differ in terms of program continuity and stability. Overall, systemic coherence in schools was a rarity. Implications for literacy programming and systemic reform are presente

Writing Into the 21st Century: An Overview of Research on Writing, 1999 to 2004

This study charts the terrain of research on writing during the 6-year period from 1999 to 2004, asking “What are current trends and foci in research on writing?” In examining a cross-section of writing research, the authors focus on four issues: (a) What are the general problems being investigated by contemporary writing researchers? Which of the various problems dominate recent writing research, and which are not as prominent? (b) What population age groups are prominent in recent writing research? (c) What is the relationship between population age groups and problems under investigation? and (d) What methodologies are being used in research on writing? Based on a body of refereed journal articles (n = 1,502) reporting studies about writing and composition instruction that were located using three databases, the authors characterize various lines of inquiry currently undertaken. Social context and writing practices, bi- or multi-lingualism and writing, and writing instruction are the most actively studied problems during this period, whereas writing and technologies, writing assessment and evaluation, and relationships among literacy modalities are the least studied problems. Undergraduate, adult, and other postsecondary populations are the most prominently studied population age group, whereas preschool-aged children and middle and high school students are least studied. Research on instruction within the preschool through 12th grade (P-12) age group is prominent, whereas research on genre, assessment, and bi- or multilingualism is scarce within this population. The majority of articles employ interpretive methods. This indicator of current writing research should be useful to researchers, policymakers, and funding agencies, as well as to writing teachers and teacher educators

Gratitude moderates the relation between daily hassles and satisfaction with life in university students

Satisfaction with life as a judgmental cognitive process can be negatively influenced by appraisals of daily events such as hassles. Trait-gratitude — a tendency to appraise, recognize and respond to life events through a grateful— is a determinant of mental health and well-being, and has been shown to be related to positive appraisal of life. The aim of the current study was to investigate the moderating role of trait-gratitude in the relationship between daily hassles and satisfaction with life. In the process of carrying out this study, the French version of the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6) was validated. A total of 328 French undergraduates completed questionnaires measuring gratitude, satisfaction with life, and daily hassles to test the main hypothesis. They also completed optimism, coping strategies, depression, and anxiety questionnaires in order to assess the convergent validity of the French version of the GQ-6. First, the results showed satisfactory psychometric properties of the Gratitude Questionnaire. Second, the results indicated the moderating role of trait-gratitude in the relationship between daily hassles disturbance and satisfaction with life. This study further documents the role of gratitude as a determinant of well-being and provides French-speaking clinicians and researchers with a useful tool to measure grateful disposition

Renal stem cells: fact or science fiction?

The kidney is widely regarded as an organ without regenerative abilities. However, in recent years this dogma has been challenged on the basis of observations of kidney recovery following acute injury, and the identification of renal populations that demonstrate stem cell characteristics in various species. It is currently speculated that the human kidney can regenerate in some contexts, but the mechanisms of renal regeneration remain poorly understood. Numerous controversies surround the potency, behaviour and origins of the cell types that are proposed to perform kidney regeneration. The present review explores the current understanding of renal stem cells and kidney regeneration events, and examines the future challenges in using these insights to create new clinical treatments for kidney disease

Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries

Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project examined the tears-social support intentions effect and possible mediating and moderating variables in a fully pre-registered study across 7007 participants (24,886 ratings) and 41 countries spanning all populated continents. Participants were presented with four pictures out of 100 possible targets with or without digitally-added tears. We confirmed the main prediction that seeing a tearful individual elicits the intention to support, d = 0.49 [0.43, 0.55]. Our data suggest that this effect could be mediated by perceiving the crying target as warmer and more helpless, feeling more connected, as well as feeling more empathic concern for the crier, but not by an increase in personal distress of the observer. The effect was moderated by the situational valence, identifying the target as part of one's group, and trait empathic concern. A neutral situation, high trait empathic concern, and low identification increased the effect. We observed high heterogeneity across countries that was, via split-half validation, best explained by country-level GDP per capita and subjective well-being with stronger effects for higher-scoring countries. These findings suggest that tears can function as social glue, providing one possible explanation why emotional crying persists into adulthood.</p

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world