PSY 3510—Motivation
Three Semester Hours
MA 9/19
Prerequisites
University Requisite: 9 Hours in PSY including 101D or 1010
Course Overview
Survey of theories of motivation, with emphasis on human motivation.
Methods of Course Instruction
All material for this course is print-based. Instructor and students communicate and exchange materials through postal mail. You may submit your assignments as e-mail attachments, but your graded assignments will be returned to you by postal mail.
Textbooks and Supplies
Deckers, Lambert. Motivation: Biological, Psychological, and Environmental . 5th ed. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2018. [ISBN: 9781138036338]
Number of Lessons
The course has eight lessons, including a midcourse examination, and a final examination. These lessons include:
- Lesson 1: Introduction, History, and Evolution
- Lesson 2: Addiction and Homeostasis
- Lesson 3: Arousal States, Stress, and Coping
- Lesson 4: Midcourse Examination Information
- Lesson 5: Drives, Needs, and Personality Factors
- Lesson 6: The Means and Ends of Motivation
- Lesson 7: Emotions, Moods, and Motives
- Lesson 8: Final Examination Information
Types of Writing Assignments
Each lesson (except for the midterm and final) will ask you to answer five questions from the readings. In all, your answers to the main questions for each lesson should be between 10–15 double-spaced pages long, although you are free to write more if you choose. In other words, you should be writing at least 2–3 pages per question. If you are writing rather than typing, you may need to increase the length, depending on the nature of your handwriting. Some of the questions may require longer answers than others. In theory, the quality of an answer should not depend solely on its length. In practice, however, I have tended to find that longer answers are almost always of higher quality than shorter ones. I will give you a single grade for the lesson.
Grading Criteria
Grades will be based entirely on your performance on the eight lessons. No extra-credit opportunities are available. The midcourse and final examinations will each compose 20% of your grade, and each of the other four lessons will be worth 15% each.