Motivation
The derivation of the word tells us that motivation refers to getting someone moving. When we motivate ourselves or someone else, we develop incentives - we set up conditions that start or stop behavior. In education motivation deals with the problem of setting up conditions so that learners will perform to the best of their abilities in academic settings. We often motivate learners by helping them develop an expectancy that a benefit will occur as a result of their participation in an instructional experience. In short, motivation is concerned with the factors that stimulate or inhibit the desire to engage in a behavior.4
When we look for ways to motivate students, we often look at people who have motivated us ourselves or who are famous for motivating other people. This is often a mistake: the people who have gained fame as motivators have often worked with special audiences who are not at all typical of the students who show up in our classrooms. While what these motivators do is effective with their selective audiences, it is possible that we ourselves deal with people who require entirely different motivational techniques. It is not even remotely reasonable to assume that the tactics that will make a group of football players eager to "win one for the Gipper" or a brigade of soldiers willing to march into the valley of death will have a similar impact on uninterested non-readers in the third grade.
Motivation is an extremely important but sometimes mundane topic. Motivation influences learners in complex ways. For example, in a single situation there may be numerous factors motivating learners to engage in a behavior and an even greater number of factors motivating them to avoid that behavior. A thorough understanding of the principles of motivation will enable you to get students moving - to want to participate and do their share in the instructional process.
It is an axiom/wise saying of most motivational theories that motivation is strongest when the urge to engage in a behavior arises from within the learner rather than from outside pressures. Bruner (1966) has stated the relationship between motivation and learning in the following way:
· The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one that finds both its source and its reward in its own exercise. The will to learn becomes a "problem" only under specialized circumstances like those of a school, where a curriculum is set, students are confined, and a path fixed. The problems exist not so much in learning itself, but in the fact that what the school imposes often fails to enlist the natural energies that sustain spontaneous learning... (p. 127)
Quiz 1
Which of the following teachers is primarily concerned with motivation? (Mark each item Yes or No.}
1. _____ Miss Peters is looking for ways to make Tommy want to study long division more industriously.
2. _____ Professor Vockell is trying to figure out how to make his book more practical, so that readers will want to apply the principles of educational psychology to their daily practice.
3. _____ Mr. Howell is trying to organize his lesson plan in such a way as to make it easier for students to make associations with previous material and thereby remember the information longer.
4. _____ Mr. Jorden is presenting information that will show the connection between his unit on geometry and the practical problems of living in an urban setting. His belief is that if students see this connection, they will be more eager to learn from the unit.
5. _____ Mrs. Jeffries has developed a set of instructional objectives, so that students will know exactly what they need to learn in order to do well on the exam.
Motivating Students to Learn
Other chapters in this book describe how students learn and organize information. The present chapter will focus on motivation - strategies for enticing individuals or groups of learners to actively pursue instructional outcomes. Motivation is certainly not the only factor necessary in order for learning to take place; but without sufficient motivation, not much learning is likely to occur. The following section is designed to motivate you to read and understand this chapter.
What Moves You?
Examine each of the following statements. Which of them would make you most eager to read this chapter?
- If you can pass a simple, ten-item, multiple-choice test at the end of this chapter, we'll refund the entire cost of this textbook - and let you keep it besides!
- If you can pass a simple ten-item multiple-choice test at the end of this chapter, you're about average.
- If you cannot pass a simple ten-item multiple-choice test at the end of this chapter, you're really pretty stupid.
- If you can understand and apply the principles discussed in this chapter, you'll be able to motivate your students more effectively.
- If you can understand and apply the principles discussed in this chapter, you'll be able to motivate those students who have been thus far so impervious to your efforts.
- If you cannot understand and apply the principles discussed in this chapter, you'll never really be much good as a teacher.
- This chapter includes humor and some very practical examples.
The preceding statements all run parallel to techniques that teachers often use to motivate their students. Some of these statements would really stimulate you to read and understand this chapter - but only if you believed them, and it may take more than the simple statement to convince you that the chapter could deliver the promised outcome. Others are just plain offensive - but if you seriously believed them, you just might want to read and understand the chapter. (Incidentally, Statement 1 and a few of the others are not at all true.) By reading and understanding this chapter, you'll be able to evaluate statements like these and have sensible reasons for motivational strategies of your own.
After reading this chapter you should be able to:
· Define and give examples of motivation.
· List, describe, and give examples of the major factors that contribute to intrinsic motivation.
· Describe the relationship of reinforcement and punishment to motivation.
· Describe the major cognitive aspects of motivation.
· Describe the major affective components of motivation.
· Describe how human needs are related to motivation.
· Describe how physiological factors influence motivation.
· Describe how self-efficacy influences motivation and achievement.
· Describe the major components of attribution theory as it relates to motivation.
· Describe classroom atmosphere and its relationship to motivation.
· Describe the relationship between teacher expectancy and motivation.
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o Putting This Chapter in Perspective: If students are going to learn, they must focus attention on the task at hand and sustain that level of intensity while applying procedures and performing activities described in subsequent chapters.
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Motivation as a Personality Characteristic
Because of their personal learning and reinforcement histories, people develop unique predispositions to set goals and to persist at tasks related to those goals. In terms of the previous discussion, some people are more likely to focus on effective intrinsic reinforcers and to make internal and controllable attributions for their successes and failures than persons with lower achievement-orientations. These predispositions (like other features of personality) are learned, and therefore classroom activity definitely can have an impact on motivation as a personality characteristic. Although these predispositions cannot easily be changed during a single unit of instruction or even during an entire academic career, teachers should be aware that the way they interact with students can influence not only their motivation for particular tasks but also motivation as a personality characteristic (Ames, 1990).
A large number of personality characteristics are related to motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985), but only a few can be covered even briefly in this book. For example, Atkinson (1964) has classified people as motivated either by seeking success or avoiding failure. Research has shown that for success seekers motivation increases following failure; but failure avoiders decrease their efforts after failing at a task. In addition, success seekers seem to be most strongly motivated by tasks that have a medium level of difficulty; whereas failure avoiders seem to prefer either very easy or very difficult tasks. Finally, success seekers are more likely to set realistic goals, whereas failure avoiders tend to set goals for themselves that are unrealistically easy or difficult.
Teachers often use the term self-motivated to refer to students who become easily motivated to learn, without much external persuasion. These students are learners who have learned to identify and implement the principles described in this chapter. Self-motivation of this kind is often the strongest form of motivation. Self motivated learners are likely to be the best learners, if their motivation is directed toward productive goals. Self-motivation is not an innate characteristic, but rather is learned in much the same fashion as the metacognitive skills described in chapter 7. Teachers should be aware that by enabling learners to employ motivational strategies effectively and by focusing attention on the principles discussed in this chapter, they can help students develop a personality trait of self motivation that can be helpful for both academic and non-academic tasks.
Table 5.2 summarizes some of the major characteristics of learners with intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivational orientations. Table 5.3 summarizes strategies for promoting intrinsic motivation. By incorporating these strategies, teachers can help students not only master specific tasks, but also develop a motivational orientation that will assist them in many other learning situations.
Table 5.2. Characteristics of Intrinsically versus Extrinsically Motivated Learners (based on Lepper, 1988).1. If perceived ability is low, extrinsically motivated students are more likely to quit after failure.
2. If the task is mundane or algorithmic, the extrinsically motivated student may be superior to the intrinsically motivated student.
3. If the task is conceptual or requires higher level thinking skills, the intrinsically motivated student is likely to be superior to the extrinsically motivated student.
4. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to apply effective metacognitive strategies and "deeper" study strategies.
5. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to select problems and subgoals of moderate difficulty, whereas the extrinsically motivated student is more likely to select the easiest problems and subgoals.
6. The intrinsically motivated student is more likely to take risks and to explore freely.
7. If the task is complex, the intrinsically motivated student is more likely to employ logical and efficient performance strategies.
8. Students who have previously been extrinsically motivated to engage in a particular activity are less likely to engage in that activity when external incentives are no longer available.
9. Intrinsically motivated students are more likely than extrinsically motivated students to be able to handle artificial rewards without experiencing negative consequences.
Table 5.3. Strategies for Promoting Intrinsic Motivation (based on Lepper, 1988).
Technique / Description / How to do it
Control / Promote the learners' sense of control over activities / 1. Minimize extrinsic constraints on the activity. (If an activity is of initial intrinsic interest, avoid adding superfluous extrinsic control. If an activity is of low intrinsic interest, use minimal sufficient external control.)
2. Reduce extrinsic constraints over time. (If it is necessary to use external pressures or incentives, fade these over time.)
3. Minimize the salience of extrinsic constraints. (Make the constraints seem logical; and embed them in the activity itself, if it is possible to do so.)
Challenge / Provide students with a continuously challenging activity. / 1. Help students set goals of uncertain attainment, and give feedback regarding current status of accomplishments. (Help students short-term and long-term goals at intermediate levels of difficulty. Also help students set multiple levels of goals, so that students at different levels will feel motivated and so that students can move on to new goals as they attain earlier goals. )
Curiosity / Provoke the learners' curiosity. / 1. Highlight areas of inconsistency and incompleteness and focus on paradoxes or possible simplifications that will provoke the interest of the learners.
2. Focus on activities, domains of knowledge, persons, and problems that are already of interest to the learners.
Contextualization / Highlight the functionality of the activity. / 1. Present the activity in a natural, interesting context.
2. Present the activity in a simulation or fantasy context of interest to the student.
As you may have noticed, the strategies in Table 5.3 closely resemble those employed by authoritative (as opposed to permissive or authoritarian) parents in Baumrind's (1973, 1978, 1980) research, which was summarized in chapter 4.
Students who internalize their motivation to learn tend to display numerous characteristics related to successful learning, including generally higher self-esteem (Ryan & Connell, 1989), more self-confidence (Lorion, Cowen, & Caldwell, 1975), and a better ability to cope with failure (Ryan, Connell, & Grolnick, 1992). In addition, students with more internalized or intrinsic motivation are much less likely to succumb to the negative side effects of artificial reinforcement (Flink et al., 1992). This is an important consideration: it means that children with an intrinsic motivational orientation are less likely than their extrinsically motivated peers to have their subsequent effort undermined by artificial reinforcers that may occasionally be necessary to motivate other members of a class (Boggiano & Barrett, 1985).
Even students who appear to be self-motivated can often benefit from experiencing and adopting new motivational strategies. For example, a child who is self-motivated by a powerful urge to succeed at competitions would become a potentially better learner by discovering that curiosity and cooperation are also powerful motivating factors. Expanding the child's self-motivational repertoire in this way would be especially useful if the child moved into a new setting where the factors that previously stimulated self-motivation were no longer present. For example, a student who is very strongly self-motivated by a competitive drive might be at a loss if he graduated from high school and went to a college where he was no longer able to win at competitions; but if this child had also learned to be self-motivated by curiosity, then he would continue to be a self-motivated student in the new school.