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Faculty and Student Motivation. KFUPM Faculty Perspectives M.R.K. Krishna Rao Information and Computer Science Department College of Computer Science and Engineering King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. KFUPM Faculty Perspectives. Thank you Thank you Thank you!
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Faculty and Student Motivation KFUPM Faculty Perspectives M.R.K. Krishna Rao Information and Computer Science Department College of Computer Science and Engineering King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
KFUPM Faculty Perspectives • Thank you • Thank you • Thank you! • Over 100 faculty members responded within 40 hours. • Highly motivated faculty!!
What is motivation? • You can take a horse to the water but you cannot force it to drink • It will drink only if it's thirsty • So is the case with people. • Whether it is to excel on a sports field or in the 'ivory tower' they must be motivated or driven to it, either by themselves or through external stimulus. • Motivation is a means to reduce the gap between one’s actual state and some desired state. • Extrinsic: to get a reward or to avoid punishment • Intrinsic: working without expecting a reward
Why bother about motivation? • Are we born with the self-motivation? • Not really • Motivation is a skill which can and must be learnt. • performance =f(ability, motivation) • Ability depends on education, experience and training • Its improvement is a slow and long process. • On the other hand, motivation can be improved quickly.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943) • Generativity and Self Actualization (doing things) • Esteem Needs (internal ones like self respect, autonomy, achievement and external ones like status, recognition, attention) • Belongingness (affection, belonging, acceptance, friendship) • Safety (security, protection from physical and emotional harm) • Physiological Needs (hunger, thirst, shelter, etc.) http://psychclassics.asu.edu/Maslow/motivation.htm
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs… • Self Actualization • Esteem Needs • Belongingness • Safety • Physiological Needs • As the lower needs are satisfied, higher level needs become more important
Question 1 – self-satisfaction • Assessing the highest need in Marlow’s hierarchy of needs, self actualization. • Over 80% of the faculty strongly agree that they are motivated to excel in their work by the self-satisfaction and love for the profession.
Question 2 – intellectual challenge • Again assessing self actualization. • Filling the gap between (a) the challenges we face and (b) the skills we possess • Over 50% strongly agree
Question 3 – esteem needs • Assessing the 2nd level in Marlow’s. • Baffled many – I should have explained. • About 70% agreed.
Question 4 – new ideas and recognition • Again assessing the 2nd level. • New ideas and possible world-wide recognition motivate 75% of the faculty.
Question 5 – Motivated students • Assessing the belongingness need. • Over 75% of the faculty said that they value motivated students and many made interesting suggestions on enhancing the motivation
Question 6 – Institutional support • Assessing the belongingness and safety needs. • About 75% of the faculty said that they value the facilities and other support provided by KFUPM
Question 7 – Promotion / increment • The two lower (safety and physiological) needs . • Lowest total of strongly agree and agree • Some noises about salaries in other countries
Student Motivation Levels • Most of the faculty felt that less than 20% of our students are highly motivated – expected • 60% of students are performing upto their potential • I feel at least there is scope for improving 60%
Student motivation 1: Staff development • 80% of the faculty agree that staff development is important • DAD should continue with workshops in Sept
Stud. motivation 2: Integrated curriculum • About 2/3 of the faculty place great emphasis on integrated curriculum addressing various levels of cognitive skills in Bloom’s taxonomy - ABET
Student motivation 3: Language skills • Our faculty is most passionate about these skills • 90% agreeing • Many comments in question 8
Stud. motivation 4: better assessment • Assessment techniques like performance tasks and projects that model real world problems • Needs further investigation to adopt them
Stud. Motivat. 5: employer community • Work with industry and other employer community in designing the curriculum so that the skills and techniques needed at work are given more emphasis in our programs
Student motivation 6: student involvement in material selection • Least number of strongly-agree responses • Concerns about student maturity • Power of student evaluation
Student motivation 7: Online material • Least number of strongly-agree responses • Security concerns – Maslow’s safety • Yet, 60% see it useful as supporting material!
Conclusions • Faculty and student motivation levels at KFUPM are comparable to those levels at other good universities across the globe • Both faculty and students enthusiastically participated in the surveys • Over 100 responses from faculty members within 40 hours – really commendable • Improve the reading skills of our students • Faculty development workshops on topics like critical thinking and active learning • Work closely with industry and employer community
Recommendations – Stud. Motivation • Send our students to spend a semester or two at a foreign university • Develops interpersonal skills • Major 2 exams should be scheduled to finish in a short period • Free mind is an important asset • Tutorial session for courses with no lab comp. • Reduce office hours to 5 • Introduce active learning techniques • Extra-curricular activities • Sporting activities beyond PE course work
Recommendations – Fac. Motivation • Salary survey • Faculty contracts for longer periods, 3 or 4 years • After the first renewal • Get-togethers / surveys to get faculty feedback • Sense of belonging • Issues / concerns addressed quickly • Enjoyable and productive committee work • Membership in no more than 3 or 4 committees • Committees with at most 6-8 members • Committee recommendations acted upon
Recommendations – Fac. Motivation • Examination center to release faculty members from mundane invigilation duty • Gardens and walkways with overhead covers • Frequent college-level meetings with free food • Encourage quality research • Emphasis on quality not quantity • Discourage publications in low quality (money making) conferences and journals • They publish if registration fee is paid • Saw a journal paper with mistakes in the first 5 words!