Motivational Design for Learning and Performance : The Arcs Model Approach

John Keller, Ph.D. in Instructional Systems Technology and Organizational Behavior from Indiana University, is a Professor of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems at Florida State University. Prior to coming to FSU in January, 1985, he was a member of the faculty at Syracuse University which he joined in 1974 after finishing his doctoral program. Prior to going to graduate school, he taught English and multimedia in secondary school in Southern California after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and earning his B.A. in philosophy at the University of California at Riverside. Since earning his Ph.D., he has gained extensive experience working with corporate, governmental, and educational organizations in the United States and abroad. He has made major contributions to the development of approaches to designing motivational systems and he has contributed to the design of performance improvement and systematic training design processes for several school districts, major corporations, and government agencies. In addition, he has extensive international experience, especially but not exclusively in Europe, South America, Northeast Asia, and Southeast Asia. He has delivered addresses, participated in conferences, and completed consultancies in more than 20 countries, and he recently completed a teaching assignment at the University of Salzburg, Austria. He is best known for the motivational design process he created that is called the "ARCS model." His current interests include the study of methods for improving learner motivation in undergraduate courses, motivation in mathematics education, and motivation in relation to technology integration in online and face-to-face instruction.