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Factors that affect academic motivation in college students
The importance of compassion
Student motivation
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Self-Compassion and Motivation in Undergraduate Students
A review of the empirical literature on the topics of self-compassion, motivation and undergraduate college students was conducted by examining articles in peer reviewed journal from the dates 2003 to 2015. The research on Self-Compassion began with two seminal articles published by Kristen Neff in 2003, thus creating a starting point for this review.
The following databases were searched: ProQuest Central, Jstore, APApsychnet, ProQuest Dissertations, CINAHL, Education Source, EBSCO, ERIC, WorldCat, Google Scholar, Sage, Taylor & Francis, Science Direct and Web of Science.
For the purposes of this study the following keywords were used: undergraduates and self-compassion, and self-determination,
From the perspective of Self-Determination Theory, individuals make more personally rewarding choices without any external rewards. Self- determination theory explains the ways in which human behavior is self-motivated and self-determined. Self-Determination Theory indicates that humans have “inherent growth tendencies” (Deci and Ryan, 1985) and that our behavior is innately positive. Research on the theory has shown these tendencies to be universal and remain stable across gender, age, and culture (Chirkov, Ryan, Kim, & Kaplan,
People who have self-compassion are able to examine their thoughts and accept them as valid more than those who score lower on the SCS (Leary, Tate, Adams, Batts Allen & Hancock, 2007; Neff, Hsieh, Dejitterat, 2005; Neff et al., 2007). The difference is that self-compassion people create positive feelings by accepting their negative feelings, allowing themselves to experience them and not judging themselves harshly. Self-compassionate people tend to understand that all people have difficult situations. (Neff, 2003a) Emotional intelligence, wisdom, social connectedness and satisfaction with life in general are all associated with feeling self-compassionate (Neff, 2003a; Neff, Pisitsungkagarn and Hseih, 2008). Individuals who score high on the SCS tend to experience more happiness, optimism, curiosity, creativity and also more positive emotions that self-critical individuals (Hollis-Walker & Colosimo, 2011; Neff et al.,
In the novel, What the Best College Students Do written by Ken Bain, we learn about how college student goes through rough times in their college life. The author brings up a common issue that occurs in the academic life of college students. It is the need of having self confidence and self esteem. Bain believes that if a student loves and admires themselves it will give the student a better advantage of having a well-being lifestyle than all their other peers that are having difficulties. Many college students focus mainly on their grades other than the knowledges that they are learning in class. The idea of having perfect grades in all the subjects are limiting the students from approaching activities that they might be interested.
Compassion towards someone or something that an individual has can spread to others and change their perspective and thought process on that specific subject. In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, provides a story of a man who
...ws empathy and compassion looking at the world through a nurturing eye. Becoming less self-centered would require a constantly running mindset of sympathy and consideration for everyone you come in contact depending on to which extent you are willing to sympathize. So many more factors would come into play with every encounter. Then there would also be the constant question as mentioned by Ascher of whether what you do is out of empathy or do you do it with ulterior motive? By becoming less self-centered we attempt to view the world through possibilities, “what if’s” and “could be” while disregarding the possibilities that some people just cut you off in traffic to be rude or the homeless man down the street is a drug addict that just is not ready to recover yet. Activating this sense of empathy and compassion but shrinking our awareness of other aspects of reality.
Compassion has became something rare in our society, and something that a lot of people lack. The author, Barbara Lazear Ascher, explains to us that compassion is not a character trait, but rather something that we learn along the way with the help of real life situations we encounter, such as the ones she encountered herself. Ascher persuades her audience that compassion is not just something you are born with by using anecdotes, rhetorical questions, and allusions.
He points out at the end of his article the effect of reflecting and reviewing oneself and the beneficial results it can have on a person mentally. He refers to Henry David Thoreau’s story “Walden” and compares the times when a student can “Seize opportunities to reflect on life—your life and the lives of other.”(Altschuler, 2000) He points out that there are many ways which a student can retain a determination and have confidence in themselves and a chance to rest, relax and let off stress, “Even the traditional organized activities of freshman year – ice cream socials, wilderness reflection weekends, wrestling parties in kiddie swimming pools filled with yogurt—have therapeutic undercurrents to help students let off steam and face the seemingly monumental task ahead.”(Altschuler,
The definition of compassion is “sympathetic consciousness of another’s distress with a desire to alleviate it” (Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2011). Compassion and the desire to nourish may be the deciding factors that would lead one to pursue a career in nursing. Nurses over the span of their career will have extensive exposure to trauma, pain, and unfortunate situations. Workplace stressors such as scheduling and increasing workload along with repeated exposure to the hardships of others predisposes caregivers, especially nurses, to develop a unique type of burnout labeled compassion fatigue (Joinson 1992). Compassion fatigue develops when a nurse unintentionally takes on the misfortune, anxiety, pain, and trauma of the patients they care for.
A study completed by Robert M. Klassen, Lindsey L. Krawchuk and Sukaina Rajani found a relationship between low self-efficacy, low self-esteem, lack of motivation and procrastination. According to their results, significantly lower GPAs were recorded among students who procrastinated, had low levels of self-efficacy and self-regulation. “Almost all of the students defined themselves as procrastinators, with 89% of students reporting more than 1hour of procrastination per day (Klassen, K...
In Jasmine Syedullah “The Abolition of Whiteness”, she confesses to her readers that “one of the things that had drown me into buddhism was the notion of no self. I was fascinated by the prospect of being Jasmine and not being Jasmine.” (16) Most of the times we suffer so much with trying to find ourselves that we become something else. We lost the feeling of wholeness, the feeling of belonging to our own bodies, and the feeling of happiness. Self compassion can often be misunderstood as not being aware of anything else rather than our own dignities. But the importance of self-compassion is treating ourselves gently instead of being harsh and self-critical to please others expectations for them. It’s common to beat ourselves up for faults big and small. But being kind to yourself is not only providing comfort in the moment, it is also committing, whenever possible, to acknowledging that some things are past our control, we become better at coping with failure and whatever consequences our actions may have caused because we learn to have compassion towards ourselves no matter the
Numerous theories have been written on human needs and motivation, focusing on psychological and social needs. The Self-Determination Theory holds that there are three basic human needs that must be met for self-esteem and positive well-being: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy refers to an individual’s sense of choice, initiative, and ownership of one’s behavior; engaging in meaningful and interesting activities is necessary to satisfy this need. Competence is an individual’s sense of power over his or her environment; proficiency in task performance promotes a child’s involvement and determination in task completion. Relatedness is a sense of being connected to valuable people and one’s society; this attachment to others establishes a base for exploring one’s environment. Fulfillment of these needs at all developmental stages relates to a child’s positive emotional affect and results in natural curiosity, desire for learning, and self-controlled behavior. According to researchers Browder, Wood, Test, Karvonen, and Algozzine, “individuals who scored higher on a measure of self-determination than their peers had more positive adult outcomes” (2004, p. 233). Failure to fulfill these needs in children results in poor outcomes, such as reduced engagement, inferior performance, higher dropout rates, difficult behaviors, apathy, distress, and poorer assimilation within social groups (Poulsen, Rodger, & Ziviani, 2006, p. 79; Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 68; Veronneau, Koestner, & Abela, 2005, p. 280; Wehmeyer, 2004).
Today a college education can overload students with too many stressful situations. Not only does Stress overload today's college students, but it is also the leading cause of personality disorders. In her essay, Cathy Bell explains that major depressive disorder strikes 5-12% of men and 10-20% of women; half of these people will have more than one occurrence and 15% of them will commit suicide ("Depression for the young"). For instance, many depressives are first recognized and treated during their years in college. For a large amount of people, depression exposes itself because of traumatizing experiences, such as leaving home and/or academic stress. For other students alcohol and drugs become a first time experience.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum
Compassion cannot be confided to just a feeling or emotion of empathy, or the antidote to pleasure of peace. Compassion is a vehicle to improve one’s being, physically, mentally and emotionally. Even without the desire to reach Buddhahood, everyone can benefit from employing and expressing compassion as it is one of the few things one can do that benefits oneself as much as others.
It seems as though the majority of college students these days aren’t looking to further their education because it’s what they really want, they do it to please their parents, to be accepted by society, or because there’s nothing else for them to do (Bird, 372). These expectations have led to students being unhappy and stressed, and have pushed them into a school or a job that they don’t particularly care for.
Creating inner motivation is important, because the ACT and Policy Center on the First Year of College has identified that lack of motivation is the number one barrier to students’ success in college. The ACT also reported that “about one third of students in the U.S. four-year public colleges and universities fail to return for their second year, and in public two year colleges, it’s even worse: Nearly half of first-year students don’t
Self-improvement initiates both happiness and an increased ability to succeed in things over which we have some but not complete control. Because we cannot control them, the greatest thing we can do is to internalize the goals we form about the things over which we lack complete control. Irvine’s example depicts a person who wants to win a tennis match. This person does not have control over their opponent or how they play, but they do have control over how much they prepare for the match and how they perform during it. If they set goals to train and play to their best ability, then they increase their chances of winning compared to if they did not play as well as they