Abilities, Motivation and Methodology

The Minnesota Symposium on Learning and Individual Differences

Diverse developments in ability and motivation research, and in the derivations of new methodological techniques have often run on parallel courses. The editors of this volume felt that communication across domains could be vastly improved through intensive interaction between researchers. This interaction was realized in The Minnesota Symposium on Learning and Individual Differences, which directly addressed ability, motivation and methodology concerns. This book, compiled as a result of the Symposium, unites theoretical and empirical advances in learning and individual differences.

The resulting volume, divided in five parts, encompasses not only prepared papers that were presented at the symposium, but compiled and edited transcriptions of the spontaneous discussions that took place at the symposium.

Part I provides an orientation to the treatment of learning and individual differences from three major perspectives: experimental psychology, motivational psychology, and differential/ methodological psychology. Part II continues and expands the discussion of quantitative methodology and applications to learning and individual differences. Part III is devoted primarily to developments in the cognitive ability domain, while Part IV addresses the impact of non-cognitive, personal constructs on learning and performance. The volume concludes with Part V which contains chapters from the closing session of the conference.