Using technology to motivate students to learn social studies. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, [online] available from http://www.citejournal.org (accessed 31/10/2006

Many teachers struggle with motivating students to learn. This is especially prevalent in social studies classrooms in which students perceive social studies as boring (Schug, Todd, & Berry, 1984; Shaughnessy & Haladyana, 1985). This article advocates the use of technology in social studies as a means to motivate students by engaging students in the learning process with the use of a familiar instructional tool that improves students ’ self-efficacy and self-worth. The potential that technology has to motivate students is discussed as it relates to expectancy-value model of motivation which focuses three areas of motivational theory (Pintrich & Schunk, 1996): value (students ’ beliefs about the importance or value of a task), expectancy (students ’ beliefs about their ability or skill to perform the task), and affective (emotional reactio ns to the task and self-worth evaluation). Recently, during fieldwork, the author was observing in a high school government class. The social studies concepts discussed in the lesson were political parties, the role o