Using experiential constructivist teaching methods in the college classroom: learning motivation in an American History course

Abstract

The teaching of history in the college classroom is seeing a movement away from the traditional classroom methods of lecture and the showing of a video every week or so. Students are being empowered to use primary sources and personal research to learn the historical facts and to "think like historians." The students should be exposed to the historical documents and artifacts and allowed to create their own interpretation. Experiential and constructivist teaching methods can be used to implement this mandate. Students are allowed to experience the event or material, reflect on that experience and other related life experiences, and formulate their own interpretations of the event. The history course can be organized in such a way as to have a series of these cyclic events that are interrelated to create an ever-expanding upward spiral of learning and knowledge enhancement. This study looked at the effect that this experiential constructivist method would have on the student's motivation to learn. Two sections of an American History class were selected for the study. One was taught in the traditional way and the other was taught using an experiential constructivist method. The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was used to measure the students' motivation in a learning environment. In both the quantitative and the qualitative data there was found to be no significant difference between the motivation of the students in either section. However, there were limitations due to experimental mortality and teaching methodology and delivery that were introduced into the study that could not be controlled. Further study needs to be conducted with better controls on the sample size, teaching methods, and measures of learning. Future research may also be more effective if it more closely looks at learning: compare to motivation to final grades and analyze the reflection papers for synthesis and interpretation. Also, conduct interviews or focus groups to provide a richer body of data to analyze.