THREADS focuses on factors that promote positive academic and social growth for young males. The THREADS program achieves these goals through matching undergraduates with middle school boys in a weekly activities-based format. The program aims to cultivate an environment where middle school boys and their undergraduate mentors can talk about and strategize around issues that affect the boys’ behavior, development, future goals, and identity with school.
Students of all ages are constantly pestering their teacher with the questions of, “Why do I have to learn this?” and whining while they say, “I’m never going to use this in real life!” There has always been a questionable link between the relevancy of the material to a student and that student’s motivation to study and understand the material. A team of researchers from James Madison University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison set out to test the motivation of undergraduate students when it comes to subjects that don’t pertain directly to their major.
