A Brief Instructional Intervention to Increase Students' Motivation on the First Day of Class

What an instructor does on the first day of a course can impact students' motivation in the course. To build upon these prior research findings, we implemented a first-day intervention to influence students' motivation by increasing their perceptions of course interest, course usefulness, and instructor caring. The participants were undergraduate students ("n" = 111) enrolled in either an introductory or an upper-level psychology class. The instructor implemented an experimental intervention to some sections but not to others. The intervention allowed students to discuss the usefulness of and their interest in the course with one another and to interact with a caring instructor. As hypothesized, students' perceptions of course interest and instructor caring increased significantly; although perceptions of course usefulness did not.