College Students’ Perceptions of Relevance, Personal Interest, and Task Value

Confronting the Challenges of Undergraduates’ Argumentation Writing in a “Learning How to Learn” Course

“…To support this training of the power of thought , students were always required to summarize the readings they selected in their journals. Further, to make the content and task personally relevant to the students, a controversial topic was used to frame the task, which was based on what an earlier cohort of students regarded as controversial (Alexander, 2003; Markus & Nurius, 1986; Schoute et al, 2022). Besides heightened perceptions of relevance, we made this decision to let students identify the topic also because the most common topics researched in the MSU literature, such as climate change or vaccinations, generated no controversy among the students (Bråten et al, 2011; Monroe et al, 2019).…”

“…The theoretical perspective on the confluence of learning and writing that guided the design of the course curriculum, and the role ascribed to argumentation writing, was shaped by the integration of a pragmatic view of learning (Dewey, 1910;James, 1890;Peirce, 1905) with a social-cognitive orientation toward writing in academic contexts (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987;Graham, 2018). As such, we placed a premium on the relevance of the instructional content of Learning How to Learn (LHL) to students' interests, current academic pursuits, and future career goals (Alexander, 2003;Markus & Nurius, 1986;Schoute et al, 2022). Also, in keeping with the Deweyan principle of "learning by doing" (1916), we engaged students in personally relevant experiences, such as crafting an argumentative essay on a topic that they found controversial and worth investigating.…”