From "I WANT TO LEARN" to "I WILL LEARN": Rediscovering the Concept of Conation

Research on the integrated nature of brain function suggests that it is time to "redisover" the concept of conation.  Psychologists for many years identified three "faculties" or parts of mind:  cognitive (thinking), affective (feeling), and conative (striving).  Learning takes more than wanting to learn or having a goal that requires learning.  It is within the conative domain that students motivate themselves, exercise choice, and see tasks through to completion.  The ascendancy of cognition as an area of research and theory in the early and mid twentieth century gradually eclipsed study of the concept of conation and the atempt to apply it in helping students reach their learning goals.  The concept was not completely forgotten, however, and appears in the writings of psychologists such as Maslow, Piaget, and Fromm.  More recently, neuro-psychologists have recognized the integrated nature of thinking, feeling, and striving, and educational psychologists have examined how teachers can help students develop conation.

This presentation will describe the conative domain and demonstrate its importance to online learning.  We will involve the audience in a discussion about the differences between motivation and conation, how conation relates to self-regulated and self-directed learning, and strategies to help online students develop conative skills.  The presentation will finish with consideration of how specific strategies, including those based on Web 2.0 technologies, can be used by students to manage their individual and collaborative learning tasks.