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Title
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“When Are We Ever Going to Need This?
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Creator
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Cody Herring
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Degree Name
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Master of Arts in Teaching (initial licensure)
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Project Type
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action_research_project
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Date
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6/13/2026
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Abstract
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Students often ask their teachers about why they need to learn a piece of content or skill. “When will we use this in real life?” The question they are asking is one of relevance. How is this lesson relevant to them? It is well known that students who see a connection between what they are learning and what they care about, will be more motivated. This study looked at how the researcher's own instructional strategy influenced student perceived relevance, motivation, and success. Data was collected through student responses to surveys, colleagues viewing student engagement throughout lessons taught by the researcher, student success in classroom assessments through turning in work and how well that work was completed, and informal observations by the teacher researcher. From this data it could be determined that perceived relevance of a topic by students feeds their motivation and their success, connecting content to future careers and uses has limited utility in communicating relevance, hands-on and gamified activities have great effects on student motivation and success, and there is a feedback loop between success and perceived relevance. The implications are that while driving success requires student interest and motivation, practical usefulness isn’t the most effective way to produce those results.
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Keywords
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Relevance
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Motivation
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Success
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Committee Member
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Coley Lehman
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Trent Schwartz
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Rights
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Western Oregon University Library has determined, as of 07/27/2026, this item is in copyright, which is held by the author. Users may use the item in accordance with copyright limitations and exceptions, including fair use. For other uses, please ask permission from the author.
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https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en
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Language
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eng
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Type
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text
