Category: Study

Tonight I discovered, much to my surprise, that I passed a subject I’d struggled with last semester. It was an incredibly hard period, after losing Dad in March. I still struggle at times. I often wonder why I am doing this degree, what is in my future. I remember Dad telling me he was proud of me to be studying, so I can’t let it go. I know that if I did, I would regret it the rest of my life. I am close to finishing, only five units to go.

Next week the new semester starts, I’ve enrolled in two more classes. They are Organisational Change & Development, and Freelancing & Small Business. Hopefully I can get my head back into the game.

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

This is one of the assessment tasks I mentioned in my last post. I had a lot of fun with it!

Photo by Samantha Gades on Unsplash

This first video is my contribution for a group assignment in my Business Strategy class. Our case study was a company in Launceston Tasmania that runs a couple of successful restaurants. With four of us in the group we each covered one aspect of the 10 minute presentation, in which we pitched our new strategy proposal and recommendations for how it should be implemented. My part was part of the initial overview leading to the proposal. The way this subject was presented over the 12 weeks of the class made it very challenging for students, but it was great working with the three other students in my group – Olivia, Josie and Millie.

The next video was another group assignment in another class, People and Organisations. It was a very interesting class, it had a psychological element and I learned a lot. For our assignment we had to select a particular occupation and present how we would motivate someone in this job to get the best out of them. I presented the first part with the job outline and rationale for improving job satisfaction. We had a lot of difficulty getting our presentation down to the required 15 minutes and I had to re-write and re-record my part a couple of times. I was getting rather worn down by the process and you can tell by my lacklustre presentation in the last slide!

Photo by Paul Einerhand on Unsplash

Search modifiers are used to improve the effectiveness of database searches.

Precision refers to the relevancy of search results. Recall refers to the range of results. There are situations when either one is important.

Proximity modifiers:

• “quotation marks” around keywords tell the database or search engine to search for those words together in that exact order.
• N# tells the database how close together you want your keywords to be. Use this modifier when you are not looking for an exact phrase, but still want your keywords in the same sentence. Google uses the modifier AROUND(#) to do the same thing.

WIldcard modifiers:

• The asterisk (*) modifier can be used to replace whole words or multiple letters within a word.
• The question mark symbol (?) can be used to replace exactly one letter within a word – useful for making sure your search uses both variants of a word that is spelt differently in British English and American English.
• The hash (#) modifier can be used to replace one optional letter – it can stand in for a letter or the absence of a letter, used commonly where there is a different spelling of the word.

Boolean operators – order of operations:

• Brackets ()
• NOT
• AND
• OR

Adapted from University of Tasmania Library learning materials. Photo by Guzel Maksutova on Unsplash

Last week I spent a lot of time going around in circles with an assignment for my Business Strategy class. We had to write a 2,000-word persuasive essay on why organisations should align their strategy with their mission/vision. I did some preparation but was still looking for answers to the question while I was writing. Determining what I needed to say was very difficult although, on the plus side, my essay structure seems to have improved a little. Determined to improve my writing I showed my essay to a tutor. The tutor made it very clear where my essay needed work, it was really helpful feedback.

So this week I am catching up on last week’s work and in my other class, we have been learning about theories of motivation. It’s an interesting topic, especially when I catch myself (as I did a couple of times last week) wondering why I am putting myself through the mental anguish of study. What creates the state of being motivated?

Every human being has various inbuilt drives. Our drives, such as the classic survival instinct, are hardwired into us through evolution. They are the starting point of motivation because they generate emotions. Emotions are what spur us into action (cognition – logical thought – is what makes us slow down a little with ‘hang on… is this a good idea?’). Drives, channelled by emotions, work in our brains to form needs, which are goal-directed forces. We don’t experience the same intensity of needs because we are unique individuals, with our own personalities and values. Our emotions energise us to act, and with our self-concept, social norms, and past experience, that energy is channelled into goal-directed behaviour.

There are various drive-based motivation theories. The first one I’m learning about is the four-drive theory. The theory states that emotions are the source of human motivation, and these emotions are generated through four drives:

• Drive to acquire produces various needs including achievement, competence, status, and self-esteem. It motivates competition.
• Drive to bond produces the need for belonging and affiliation. It motivates people to cooperate.
• Drive to comprehend produces the need to make sense of our environment and ourselves. It motivates curiosity and knowledge-seeking.
• Drive to defend produces the need to protect ourselves physically, psychologically, and socially. It creates the ‘fight or flight’ response when we are confronted with threats to our safety, our possession, our self-concept, our values and the well-being of others.

These are four broad categories of drives that trigger the emotional responses leading to motivations. During my tussle with the essay, the strongest was the drive to acquire, I had the need for competence in my command of the essay topic and writing the essay. The emotions I experienced were very mixed, to be expected from my Big Five personality measurement, vacillating between positive and negative energies. I took lots of short breaks to help moderate this and stayed motivated to finish the task. I felt good about getting there in the end.

It’s still my goal to write good essays. The feedback I received from the tutor, and the knowledge that my skill is improving, have reinforced my determination to get there. I’m confident it will get easier with more practice.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.