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Research Articles

Vol. 18 No. 2

Applying Motivation Theory to Faculty Motivation to Utilize Academic Service-Learning Pedagogy

  • Alexa Darby
  • Gabrielle Newman
Submitted
June 16, 2014
Published
2014-06-16

Abstract

This qualitative study provides a theoretical framework for understanding faculty members’ motivation to persist in utilizing academic service-learning pedagogy. Twenty-four faculty members from a private liberal arts university in the southeastern United States were interviewed about the benefits and challenges of teaching academic service-learning courses and the factors influencing their motivation to continue. Bandura’s (1997) model of motivation, which emphasizes the roles of forethought and retrospective reasoning, was adapted to illuminate the faculty members’ motivational cycle. The study examined faculty members’ cognized goals, outcome expectancies, perceptions of success, and perceived causes of difficulty in the academic service-learning experience and elicited their recommendations for enhancing faculty members’ motivation to continue using this pedagogy. Drawing on these voices and perspectives, we proposed a theoretical framework for understanding faculty members’ motivation for persisting in teaching academic service-learning courses and offer recommendations for universities seeking to strengthen faculty members’ continued commitment to this pedagogy.