Richard W. Scholl, Ph.D.
Schmidt Labor Research Center
Director & Professor of Organizational Behavior
Welcome to my professional webpage
I began my academic career over 30 years ago. I typed my doctoral dissertation on an IBM Selectric typewriter and sent drafts to my committee members through the U.S. Postal Service. I produced my exams using a ditto machine. In my undergraduate days at a small men’s finishing school in Maryland, students came to attention when the professor entered the room, never missed classes, and were happy to earn a “C” in their courses.
While I have seen many changes over these years in technology, university and classroom culture, student attitudes, most of the important things remain the same. Here are just of few of them:
- Student development is still essentially a change process. Like all individual change, it follows a process of stages from a perceived need to change through internalization of the change. There is nothing more motivating to a professor than a class full of students open to learning and change. Any incentive-based approach to motivate faculty members will fail with this.
- While students need to acquire certain bodies of knowledge and develop certain work-related skills, the true value of a college education comes in the sharpening of critical thinking and analysis skills. To use a modern metaphor, changing and improving the processor is more important and more lasting that increasing the amount data stored on the hard drive.
- Students learn best when they are motivated by an intrinsic desire to learn and grow. While professors can motivate students to do work and they can (and should) facilitate the learning process, they cannot make them learn and grow through external means.
My approach to all of my classes is to facilitate the student leaning and growth process. My emphasis is on critical thinking, analysis, diagnosis and problem-solving through feedback and re-working assignments. Please explore the “Courses” portion of my web site to learn more.
Research is a critical part of the learning process. This is true for both students and professors. Students need to develop research skills of their own and become knowledgeable consumers of research in order to practice what has recently been termed, “evidence-based management.” When professors do not integrate their research into their courses, the inevitable result is stale courses. In my professional research, working in collaboration with colleagues and doctoral students, I have focused mainly on conceptual and theoretical development. I believe my most important contributions in this area are the Sources of Motivation Model, which incorporates a model of Self Concept-based Motivation; a model of the mechanisms creating Organizational Commitment; and a model of the Political Paradigm of decision-making, an early stakeholder model. To learn more about these models and others, please visit the “Research” and “Classnotes” sections of this web site.
