<?xml version="1.1" encoding="utf-8"?>
<article xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://jats.nlm.nih.gov/publishing/1.1/xsd/JATS-journalpublishing1-mathml3.xsd" dtd-version="1.1" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"><front><journal-meta><journal-id journal-id-type="publisher-id">erd</journal-id><journal-title-group><journal-title>Education Reform and Development</journal-title></journal-title-group><issn>2652-5364</issn><eissn>2652-5372</eissn><publisher><publisher-name>Bio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty. Ltd.</publisher-name></publisher></journal-meta><article-meta><article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.26689/erd.v8i8.15298</article-id><article-categories><subj-group subj-group-type="heading"><subject>Article</subject></subj-group></article-categories><title>Exploration on the Construction of Professional Elective Courses Based on Undergraduates’ Course-Selection Motivations: A Case Study of Oil and Gas Resource Evaluation</title><url>https://artdesignp.com/journal/erd/8/8/10.26689/erd.v8i8.15298</url><author>ZhangXiaomei,ChenHao</author><pub-date pub-type="publication-year"><year>2026</year></pub-date><volume>8</volume><issue>8</issue><history><date date-type="pub"><published-time>2026-09-10</published-time></date></history><abstract>Professional elective courses allow students to freely choose courses based on their interests, career plans, or academic preferences, significantly stimulating their learning motivation and enhancing classroom participation. However, some students select courses merely to accumulate credits, follow their peers&amp;rsquo; choices, or be lured by &amp;ldquo;popular courses,&amp;rdquo; which in turn undermines the cultivation of their core professional competencies. The results of the questionnaire indicate that students have diverse motivations for course selection. Further statistical analysis reveals that externally driven and goal-oriented motivations account for a high proportion, while purely interest-driven motivation is relatively low. Moreover, different motivations significantly affect classroom participation and engagement levels.</abstract><keywords>Professional elective courses, Course-selection motivations, Course construction</keywords></article-meta></front><body/><back><ref-list><ref id="B1" content-type="article"><label>1</label><element-citation publication-type="journal"><p>[1]&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; Tang X, Lai S, 2012, Discussion on Elective Teaching Mode of Professional Courses. Education Teaching Forum, 2012(21): 211&amp;ndash;212.
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