The Interplay of Aspirations, Enjoyment, and Work Habits in Academic Endeavors: Why is it So Hard to Keep Long-Term Commitments?

Abstract

This article describes our interest in bringing together students’ emotions and their motivation for academic work as these play out across the school year. We explore three main issues. First, we consider what some view as an incompatibility between students’ use of established work habits (volitional strategies) and real enjoyment of academic tasks (what we call involvement). Rather than seeing these two approaches as diametrically opposed, we show how volitional control can be useful in getting a student to experience involvement in a task. Conversely, we consider how involvement itself can be an incentive to students’ use of volitional strategies. A second issue has to do with students realizing that long-term goals may require different volitional strategies than short-term goals. Finally, we discuss the need to encourage students to develop the habit of seeking enjoyment in academic tasks because the goal of enjoyment focuses them on the rewards of deep concentration rather than on the elation of having finished a task.