Insights into the Motivation of Online LearnersJudi Shabbat | Senior Lecturer, Montgomery County Community College
Every student approaches college with a variety of needs and motives. The average teenager may be there because his/her parents expect it. The exceptional teenager may love learning and want to pursue education for the sake of learning. Almost all of them come to college with one thought in common, though: they need that piece of paper to get a job. The adult learner, however, approaches college a little differently. He or she is there not because his or her parents expect it, but rather because he or she has experienced the working world and wants more out of it than what a high school diploma will allow. So adults, too, often want the piece of paper, but that desire is caused by different needs, and, therefore, adults and teenagers pursue learning and their degrees in different ways.
Both Internet and written journals have been rife with talk of cheating in online courses and how to prevent it. Rather than concentrating on how to prevent it, I think our time would be better spent in figuring out what causes it and which students are more likely to cheat. This is where the difference between the average teenage college student and the adult learner really stands out. Adults, for the most part, don’t cheat. This is not to say that all teenagers do cheat; obviously, that is untrue, but it seems that the reasons the students come to college has an effect on who is most likely to cheat. Plainly stated, those who come to college of their own volition are, in my experience, less likely to cheat than those who are there only because they think they must be. But it is not simply cheating that’s the problem; more fundamentally, it’s finding the motivation to work hard and achieve something worthwhile rather than just doing enough work to squeeze by. So how can one instructor motivate the “slackers” to work and do more than the minimum while still offering work that is stimulating for the more interested, usually adult, students?
One way to do this is creating a “hidden” mentor-mentee relationship between an obviously motivated adult student and a possibly less-than-motivated traditional student. One way that this is accomplished is through discussion boards where students are not only required to respond with an original thread, but also to respond to at least one classmate’s thread. Insightful posts on discussion boards are one way that adults stimulate the online classroom.Plus, adults are more likely to go back to see how their posts have been received and continue the discussion. Adult students are more likely to comment on more than one thread and often serve as a “cheering section,” commenting to compliment a good idea that a student presented. Everyone loves praise, so this encourages the less-motivated student to write more.
Another chance to use this hidden mentor-mentee relationship comes through peer review of papers. While the initial peer review matchup is random, a student who is struggling with his or her writing can later be matched with a more talented and motivated student, often an adult student, who serves more like a peer tutor than just a simple peer review partner. This challenges the adult mentor student to exercises his or her skills to help another, thus sharpening them, while it also assists the more needy writers in the class. Each benefits in a different way from this relationship. Similarly, when doing group projects, a mixture of adult and traditional learners can ensure a smoother outcome since adult learners often function as natural leaders of the group and have a higher motivation to get a good grade than do some of the teenage students.
The mixture of adult and traditional learners in a class, whether online or face-to-face, can present some unique challenges. In a face-to-face class, there is more flexibility on a day-to-day basis to make changes to the syllabus as needed to accommodate different learning styles. Since this is not really possible in an online class, building the mentor-mentee relationship into the curriculum can offer enrichment for a serious adult student and much needed help for a weaker, less-motivated, and often younger one.
Author Persepctive: Educator