Motivation for Achievement: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning

Rating:
Summary: useful literature review - poor textbook
Review: Dr. Kay Alderman has distilled many years of teaching and researching into this helpful book. Scholarly, yet very readable, Alderman backs up her assertions and suggestions with sound research findings. Furthermore, she illustrates her points with interesting classroom scenarios. Dr. Alderman's deep concern for educating society's disenfranchised youth comes through clearly. Readers will come away with practical strategies to motivate students and a deeper understanding of why kids often think they don't want to learn.

Rating:
Summary: Helpful Insight for Educators
Review: Dr. Kay Alderman has distilled many years of teaching and researching into this helpful book. Scholarly, yet very readable, Alderman backs up her assertions and suggestions with sound research findings. Furthermore, she illustrates her points with interesting classroom scenarios. Dr. Alderman's deep concern for educating society's disenfranchised youth comes through clearly. Readers will come away with practical strategies to motivate students and a deeper understanding of why kids often think they don't want to learn.

Rating:
Summary: useful literature review - poor textbook
Review: I used this book as a text for a graduate psychology of education course at the University of Akron where the author teaches.

We probably used this text because the author has control over the course.

The book reads very much like a literature review in a doctoral thesis. If it ever comes out in a second edition, the author should find a decent editor to rewrite it. The style is murky and tedious. The illustrations are crude.

All the key points in this book are covered with greater clarity in any of the standard psychology of learning textbooks along with lists of the key research articles.

If you need to do a literature review in this field, the book could save you a lot of time.