Developing Students' Appreciation for What Is Taught in School

2008/07/23 by Jere Brophy · 1 voice · 2 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Early Childhood Education and Development #Education, Achievement, and Giftedness #Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

paper · doi:10.1080/00461520701756511

openalex publication_date 2008/07/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

This article elaborates a presentation made upon reception of the E. L. Thorndike Career Achievement Award in Educational Psychology from Division 15 of the American Psychological Association. It considers how value aspects of motivation apply to efforts to develop students' appreciation for school learning. Currently, we have only limited knowledge about situations that afford opportunities for learning school content with appreciation of its value, how to exploit those affordances, or even their benefits to learners. We need to develop our theorizing about the benefits that students may derive from learning in school and determine what curriculum makers and teachers might do to foster students' appreciation for these benefits. Teaching for appreciation requires ensuring that what is taught is worth learning, explaining the value of this content and modeling its applications, and scaffolding learning by engaging students in activities that allow them to experience its valued affordances.

Citations

• Expectations and Actions
• Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Goal Contents in Self-Determination Theory: Another Look at the Quality of Academic Motivation
• The Four-Phase Model of Interest Development
• Expectancy–Value Theory of Achievement Motivation

Cited by

• Intrinsic motivation, perceived competence and classroom engagement as longitudinal predictors of adolescent reading achievement
• Engagement in School and Out-of-School Contexts: A Multidimensional View of Engagement

Discussions

• So true! The point about increasing value and meaning of what we teach reminds me of this excellent piece by Jere Brophy (a hero of mine) in which he argues that this is a really key but mostly missin [bsky, 5 points, 1 comments]

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