Motivation - Part 1

Motivation is the energy that drives and sustains behaviour in people. Intrinsic sources within learners: needs, interests, affect, beliefs - in contrast to extrinsic sources - praise, rewards - that are from the environment.

Why is understanding motivation important?

• Teachers’ beliefs about their students’ motivation affected teachers’ behaviours to be either more controlling or autonomy supportive (Deci, 1991).

• While motivation is best sustained through intrinsic sources, developing this in certain profile of learners might require careful and appropriate use of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators for a time period.

• Targeting the 4 ‘C’s : confidence, connection, competence and choice.

How do we impacting students’ motivation?

1. Confidence is about self-efficacy and personal expectations. Students who believe they can accomplish the tasks will persist to get the desired outcomes. According to Bandura (1977), one way to grow self-efficacy is to experience success. This means for struggling learners, we need to engineer their success by starting at the level of they can do to spark their belief and perseverance as we gradually raise the bar. This is what I call the 'push up' strategy which can sometimes be 'frightening' for teachers in the school.

We need to tap on both intrinsic and ‘internalised’ extrinsic motivations (environment, rewards, praises) in our classrooms. We highlight three other psychological needs (Ryan & Deci, 2000):

2. Connection with the content, with the community/class and/or with the teacher. They work due to influence of peers or teachers they like even if they have little interest for the subject (refer to post on positive Teacher Student Relationship).

3.Competence is related to the level of their ability for the task. Student motivation tend to be low for tasks that are too easy or too difficult. Targeting the proximal zone of development (PZD) where they are sufficiently and not under or over challenged. Internalisation of ‘perceived competence’ depends on external motivations like behaviour specific praises and their success experience (mentioned in point 1).

4.Choice is related to the teenage developmental need for independence. Providing options for them to choose and explaining the relevance of learning meet this need for autonomy. Exercising choice also allows them to take responsibility and learn from their mistakes they might make.

Another take on motivation: In his humourous TEDx talk, Scott Geller explains self-motivation using his 4 Cs : competence, consequences, choice and community. His story of ‘interdependence’ between his drum teacher and him is rather refreshing.

References:

• Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review. (84), 191-215.

• Deci et al (1991). Motivation and Education: The self-determination perspective. Educational Psychologist 26(3-4), 325-4-346.

• Ryan & Deci (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Classic definitions and a new direction. Contemporary Educational Psychology. (25): 54-67.