Designed to present some of the current research on student motivation, cognition, and learning, this book serves as a festschrift for Wilbert J. McKeachie who has been a leading figure in college teaching and learning. The contributions to this volume were written by former students, colleagues and friends.
A common focus on a general or social cognitive view of learning is shared throughout the volume, but there are significant differences in the perspectives the researchers bring to bear on the issues. They provide an excellent cross-section of current thinking and research on general cognitive topics such as students' knowledge structures, cognitive and self-regulated learning strategies, as well as reasoning, problem solving, and critical thinking. Social cognitive and motivational topics are also well represented, including self-worth theory and expectancy-value models. More importantly, an explicit attempt is made to link cognitive and motivational constructs theoretically and empirically. This area of research is one of the most important and promising areas of future research in educational psychology. Finally, most of the chapters address instructional implications, but several explicitly discuss instructional issues related to the improvement of college students' motivation and cognition.