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Psychology Theory
Student’s name
Instructor
Course
Date
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Psychology Theory
My topic of interest is academic achievement. An educational theory or strategy used in
various contexts may shed light on the relationships between student motivation and features like
accomplishment and engagement. Regarding teaching and learning, academic theories may
provide valuable information. In this line, self-determination theory and Walberg's (1981) theory
are the primary theories I will use to examine how academic performance is decided. Motivating
students to control their education more and meet greater academic difficulties is at the heart of
the Self-determination Theory (SDT). A student's capacity to self-regulate their learning and
enhance their academic performance and well-being is influenced by various circumstances.
Students must have a sense of self-reliance and competence and be able to connect with others.
As an alternative, Walberg's (1981) educational productivity theory is one of the few models that
has been experimentally evaluated. Students' cognitive, behavioural, and attitudinal results are
influenced by their immediate psychological settings, according to Walberg's theory of academic
accomplishment (Colwill, 2016).
These theories show that children from low-income homes and minorities have the same
range of adaptation and learning abilities as children from more affluent families. School
achievement gaps may be traced back to the vastly varied upbringings and environments across
various ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Using cooperative learning and peer tutoring in the
classroom may help students overcome these difficulties, according to my selected academic
theories. Cooperative learning encourages students to work together to accomplish a common
goal in a small group without requiring instructor intervention or constant monitoring (Marr,
2016). According to research, peer tutoring works well in multicultural classrooms since it is an
effective management method for students from underrepresented groups (Moore, 2016). For
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this reason, pupils will feel more confident in their academic abilities if teachers use the Self-
Determination Theory and Walberg's (1981) theory.
References
Colwill, R. M. (2016). Classical conditioning. In H. L. Miller (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of
theory in psychology (pp. 130–134). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Marr, M. J. (2016). Operant conditioning. In H. L. Miller (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of
theory in psychology (pp. 627–631). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Moore, J. (2016). Behaviorism. In H. L. Miller (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of theory in
psychology (pp. 89–94). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
