Note: This document was written prior to the research being completed.
Short name of the research project:
"Possible Selves and the Motivation of High School Students."
Alternative name for the doctoral thesis:
"Possible Selves Stability in a Cohort of Students During the Final Three Years of Secondary School: Maintaining Motivation and Persistence.
What's this all about?
This is a research project being undertaken by Mr G.A. Higgs at the University of South Australia. Schools across South Australia are being invited to participate. The data will be gathered with web-based research instruments, designed to transfer year 10 students' responses to questions, directly to the university via the Internet.
Who's doing it?
The research is already under way. About a dozen metropolitan State, Catholic and Independent Schools have completed the questionnaires. Many High and Area Schools outside the Adelaide metropolitan area are now being invited to take part in this research project. Some remote schools have not been involved in this kind of research before and these schools are particularly encouraged to take part.
What does a school have to do?
The school must have at least one but preferably a class set of computers connected to the Internet. Students can respond to the questionnaires at any time convenient to the school. This process eliminates costly and time-consuming paper research methods and has a minimal impact on participating schools.
School involvement occurs when parents are informed of the process and permission forms are collected. These forms need to be returned to the university after the research questionnaires have been completed. This is a requirement of the Human Research Ethics Committee of the university.
Participating students need to be rated by someone at the school. This form can be returned with the consent forms.
What do students have to do?
Students read the questionnaires sitting at a computer, respond to the questions either with a key stroke, a mouse click or with a few words typed on the keyboard, and the process is completed within a lesson period. No preparation is required or needed.
Students who participate in year 10 and who continue on to year 12 will be invited to take part again in two years time.
