Running head: CASE STUDY

Case Study
Kathryn Hunter
University of New England
June 27, 2015

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I.

Introduction:
Bill is 16, a sophomore who doesnt really care about school and demonstrates

laziness in most activities in Physics class. He passes most of his classes with a C
average and seems to do the minimum to get by. Bill does not do well during direct
instruction in that he distracts himself with people or items left on the table or stuff in his
bag. It is hard to tell if he pays any attention because he does not take good notes and
does is not always able to answer questions in class. Guided notes are always provided
for all students and not only does Bill not fill in the missing pieces but he also cannot
manage to hold on to them. This is true for most papers handed out to him. He likes to
hide them in the classroom so he doesnt lose them in his bag or at home and his thought
is that he will then always has them in class. Although I gave him many folders to use
throughout the semester that he either lost or was demolished in his bag. Bill
demonstrates many disorganized qualities.
Bill seems to enjoy most of the hands on activities although does not like to follow
through with the completion of the lab questions or reports. He obviously does not enjoy
writing and exhibits some of the same habits in his English class. In Physics when there
is a lab write up to complete he will rarely finish it on time. Bill also will not check the
grading rubric or the assignment to make sure all the elements of the report are present.
Bill also does not proof read. So the first time Bill hands in an assignment it is usually
incomplete, difficult to follow and will need at least one revision before it is even
gradable. When the lab is passed back with detailed feedback on how to make the papers
better, Bill does not make the fixes right immediately and it will sit in his bag or get lost.
Eventually, when I follow up on how the rewrite is going and threaten to put the

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assignment in as missing, he reprints what he originally had and passes that in as the
corrected version. When I sit down and talk to him about it he likes to blame it on the
computer not saving any of the changes he made. Eventually he will have a few changes
although not enough to get a passing grade and will sometimes still be missing entire
sections. It is not until I sit down with him after school and go through every section and
concept do I get the desired outcome. He doesnt seem to understand that if he was
careful about checking the grading rubric and assignment criteria for completeness as
well as having either his mom or another teacher proof read for him, that he would only
have to do the assignment once or twice. Without this strategy his assignments carry out
for weeks at a time.
Bill has been pulled out of any study halls and into the standards recovery room for
more support in getting his work done. He also stays for after school help if he falls
behind as mandated by his mother and the school. The extra support should help him
complete assignments on time and keep track of the work he still needs to complete.
Despite the efforts of the teachers and his mother, Bill still struggles getting assignments
done on time and of quality.
His mother is very active in acquiring updates on his progress and making sure that
Bill is keeping up with the work. His father does not play an active role, and is ill often. I
suggested that we have a meeting with Bill, his parents, guidance and some of the
teachers who have been having some of the same issues with his work ethics. In this
meeting some different strategies were discussed to help Bill be more successful in class.
The amount of support Bill will receive next year will be less because of a Technology
Program he would like to take. He will have to learn to self motivate and put in more

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effort. He demonstrates qualities of the Expectancy-Value Theory because he allows
himself to be influenced by the cost of a task and struggles to complete a task if it takes
too much effort (Anderman and Anderman, 2012, pg.17).

II.

Observations:
Bill is goofy and will distract himself with anything that is left out in front of him.

He does not pay attention to verbal or written instructions and I will often find him
sitting at his table not doing anything because he did not read or follow directions.
Although there are activities he has enjoyed, he is not careful to meet requirements of
certain assignments in order to meet standards. There were many assignments that Bill
seemed to really enjoy although he struggled to complete the written portion of the
assignment. Three activities come to mind as exemplars of this behavior: Newtons
Three Laws of Motion (Egg Drop) Activity; Work, Power and Simple Machines (Rube
Goldberg Machine) Activity; and 2-D Motion Lab (Develop your own experiment
activity).
During the Egg Drop activity Bill seemed to enjoy the planning, designing and
construction phases of the project. He and his partner, although were not on task one
hundred percent of the time, were able to complete the task in the amount of time allotted
to them. During the drop itself, Bill did not pay attention to the other drops and were not
able to collect good data. Bill collected data from other teams to fill in the missing pieces
although he then proceeded to loose the data at least twice before he passed in a lab
report with a passing grade. Not paying attention to the drop made parts of the lab report

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difficult for him to write. Not reading through the questions and grading rubric when
writing the report also concluded in him turning in work that was not complete.
The Rube Goldberg Activity seemed to be another type of activity that Bill was
interested in and again seemed very excited to start. Unfortunately during the
construction phase there was a lot of off task behaviors observed and not paying attention
to the criteria for the project. Bill did not respond positively to any positive
encouragement on my part to nudge him in the right direction. The times I referred to the
grading rubric and the criteria he would have to meet in order to pass this assignment was
ignored. In the end it was very difficult for him to be successful because the project itself
did not include all the criteria that needed to be met, and again he procrastinated on
finishing the write up for the lab. This is another example of how Bill tried to turn in an
assignment without it being complete and returning in the same version multiple times
hoping to increase the grade without actually improving upon what was already there.
One of the last assignments completed in the class was to relate thermodynamic
concepts to real world applications through using a form of technology such as a power
point or website. Bill wants to be a mechanic and has been working on engines for a
while so he was excited to talk about how engines work, but refused to work on making
the connections to thermodynamics. For him, it was not worth the effort. So the value of
this assignment was present, although maybe he didnt expect that he could do well on
the technology aspect of the task. According to Brophy (1987), both need to be present
for students to be successful using the expectancy value theory for motivation.
III.

Effective Strategies:

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Bill is highly influenced by the amount of effort and time a task will take to complete.
In other words, according to the Expectancy-Value Theory, this student is influenced by
the Cost of a task and wont complete a task if it will require too much effort
(Anderman and Anderman, pg. 17). As seen in the many examples provided Bill like to
put the bare minimal effort into an assignment and would rather attempt to do the
assignment over multiple times than put in more effort the first time. The amount of
effort applies does get affected when his grades drop below passing.
Bills mother likes to be updated on a regular basis about his progress and his grades.
I have noticed that this student is motivated when his mother threatens to take an activity
away such as snowmobiling. So when she hears that progress is not being made or he
continues to pass in incomplete work she takes away time he can be working on engines
or having fun with his friends. When these activities are threatened Bill will stay after
and apply a little more effort towards completing a task successfully. This is a type of
negative reinforcement in which something is taken away when he does not do his work
(Anderman and Anderman, 2012, pg. 40).
This particular school that Bill attends promotes Positive Behavioral Interventions
and Supports (PBIS). Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports is a model that
promotes and rewards positive behaviors using core elements predetermined by a team of
administrators and teachers (PBIS.org). If this model was utilized to it full extent, Bill
might start to place more value on tasks and apply more effort to the completion of more
tasks. I noticed throughout this semester that the few times there was a reward for being
on task or participating in review games, the student was much more motivated than
without the promise of the reward.

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IV.

Conclusion:

In conclusion Bill needed to see the value in a task to have interest in the task, but he
also needed to believe in himself more in order to complete the task successfully on his
own. Without ample amounts of support and one-on-one time, the completion of any task
was very difficult for him. Using negative reinforcement by taking away something of
meaning and value to him helped with motivation initially, but in the long run is not
going to help instill a solid work ethic in Bill. A reward system at the school such as
PBIS would also be beneficial for this student, the idea that he will receive something
more than a good grade on a task, such as a piece of candy or free time, is highly
motivating for Bill. As I reflect back on my time working with him, I see now that taking
more time to express the importance of being successful of certain tasks would have
benefited this student as well as others in the class. Focusing on the value or meaning of a
task as well as providing positive reinforcement for students that they are capable of
completing the task will most likely produce better student outcomes.

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Reference:
Anderman, Eric M.; Hicks Anderman, Lynley M. (2013-03-04). Classroom Motivation
(2nd Edition) (Pages 1-58). Pearson HE, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Brophy, J. (October 1987). Synthesis of research on strategies for
motivating students to learn. Education Leadership, 40-48.
Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supporst-OSEP. (1025). Retrieved May 28, 2015,
form https://www.pbis.org