Regulation of motivation in undergraduate business students learning with the case method: examining an underemphasized aspect of self-regulated learning

This dissertation investigates relations among personal epistemology, goal orientation, and regulation of motivation in a case method learning environment. The primary purpose was to examine relations between student characteristics and their use of regulation of motivation strategies. A secondary purpose was to examine whether students' learning through the case method can develop more sophisticated epistemic beliefs and goal orientation that are more adaptive for learning. Eighty seven third- and fourth-year accounting students participated in the study. Thirty six participants were in the treatment, a case method group; the other fifty one participants learned through traditional instructional methods. All participants completed pretest questionnaires at the beginning of the Spring 2010 semester and completed posttest questionnaires at the end of the semester. Various statistical techniques were used to analyze the data. Although no pretest differences were found between the groups, at posttest the treatment group participants were found to have more sophisticated epistemic beliefs and more adaptive goal orientation. Regulation of motivation strategies appeared to vary slightly between the groups.