Procedure

• participants completed the motivation questionnaire at the start of the term in 7th grade.
• They were randomly assigned to either the intervention group or the control group.
• Both groups were told that they had the opportunity to take part in an 8 week voluntary workshop on the brain that would help them with their study skills.
• Intervention group were taught a key message that learning changes the brain by forming new connections and that students are in charge of this process.
• The control group had a lesson on memory and discussed various relevant areas of academic interest.
• 16 undergraduate’s students were recruited and trained as mentors for the participants. Some were trained to teach one of the motivational workshops. Other mentored the control group and were trained to teach an alternative workshop on the structure of memory.
• At the end of the 8 week course students in both the experimental and the control were given multiple-choice quiz on the content of the workshops.
• Three weeks after the last of the 8 sessions participants were given the motivational questionnaire to complete again.
• Maths teacher wrote a report on students showing changes in their motivational behaviour. This was coded as to whether they were positive or not and the researcher doing this did not know which students had received the intervention. Maths grades were recorded in the autumn term of 7th grade and the spring term of 8th grade.