MOTIVATION AND LEARNING

What Is Student Motivation?

Student motivation naturally has to do with students' desire to participate in the learning process. But it also concerns the reasons or goals that underlie their involvement or noninvolvement in academic activities. Although students may be equally motivated to perform a task, the sources of their motivation may differ.

A student who is INTRINSICALLY motivated undertakes an activity "for its own sake, for the enjoyment it provides, the learning it permits, or the feelings of accomplishment it evokes" (Mark Lepper 1988). An EXTRINSICALLY motivated student performs "IN ORDER TO obtain some reward or avoid some punishment external to the activity itself," such as grades, stickers, or teacher approval (Lepper).

The term MOTIVATION TO LEARN has a slightly different meaning. It is defined by one author as "the meaningfulness, value, and benefits of academic tasks to the learner--regardless of whether or not they are intrinsically interesting" (Hermine Marshall 1987). Another notes that motivation to learn is characterized by long-term, quality involvement in learning and commitment to the process of learning (Carole Ames 1990).

WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS' MOTIVATION?

According to Jere Brophy (1987), motivation to learn is a competence acquired "through general experience but stimulated most directly through modeling, communication of expectations, and direct instruction or socialization by significant others (especially parents and teachers)."

Children's home environment shapes the initial constellation of attitudes they develop toward learning. When parents nurture their children's natural curiosity about the world by welcoming their questions, encouraging exploration, and familiarizing them with resources that can enlarge their world, they are giving their children the message that learning is worthwhile and frequently fun and satisfying.

When children are raised in a home that nurtures a sense of self-worth, competence, autonomy, and self-efficacy, they will be more apt to accept the risks inherent in learning. Conversely, when children do not view themselves as basically competent and able, their freedom to engage in academically challenging pursuits and capacity to tolerate and cope with failure are greatly diminished.

Once children start school, they begin forming beliefs about their school-related successes and failures. The sources to which children attribute their successes (commonly effort, ability, luck, or level of task difficulty) and failures (often lack of ability or lack of effort) have important implications for how they approach and cope with learning situations.

The beliefs teachers themselves have about teaching and learning and the nature of the expectations they hold for students also exert a powerful influence (Raffini). As Deborah Stipek (1988) notes, "To a very large degree, students expect to learn if their teachers expect them to learn."

Schoolwide goals, policies, and procedures also interact with classroom climate and practices to affirm or alter students' increasingly complex learning-related attitudes and beliefs.

And developmental changes comprise one more strand of the motivational web. For example, although young children tend to maintain high expectations for success even in the face of repeated failure, older students do not. And although younger children tend to see effort as uniformly positive, older children view it as a "double-edged sword" (Ames). To them, failure following high effort appears to carry more negative implications--especially for their self-concept of ability--than failure that results from minimal or no effort.

ARE THERE ADVANTAGES TO INTRINSIC MOTIVATION?

Does it really matter whether students are primarily intrinsically or extrinsically oriented toward learning? A growing body of evidence suggests that it does.

When intrinsically motivated, students tend to employ strategies that demand more effort and that enable them to process information more deeply (Lepper).

J. Condry and J. Chambers (1978) found that when students were confronted with complex intellectual tasks, those with an intrinsic orientation used more logical information-gathering and decision-making strategies than did students who were extrinsically oriented.

Students with an intrinsic orientation also tend to prefer tasks that are moderately challenging, whereas extrinsically oriented students gravitate toward tasks that are low in degree of difficulty. Extrinsically oriented students are inclined to put forth the minimal amount of effort necessary to get the maximal reward (Lepper).

Although every educational activity cannot, and perhaps should not, be intrinsically motivating, thesefindings suggest that when teachers can capitalize on existing intrinsic motivation, there are several potential benefits.

HOW CAN MOTIVATION TO LEARN BE FOSTERED IN THE SCHOOL SETTING?

Although students' motivational histories accompany them into each new classroom setting, it is essential for teachers to view themselves as "ACTIVE SOCIALIZATION AGENTS capable of stimulating...student motivation to learn" (Brophy 1987).

Classroom climate is important. If students experience the classroom as a caring, supportive place where there is a sense of belonging and everyone is valued and respected, they will tend to participate more fully in the process of learning.

Various task dimensions can also foster motivation to learn. Ideally, tasks should be challenging but achievable. Relevance also promotes motivation, as does "contextualizing" learning, that is, helping students to see how skills can be applied in the real world (Lepper). Tasks that involve "a moderate amount of discrepancy or incongruity" are beneficial because they stimulate students' curiosity, an intrinsic motivator (Lepper).

In addition, defining tasks in terms of specific, short-term goals can assist students to associate effort with success (Stipek). Verbally noting the purposes of specific tasks when introducing them to students is also beneficial (Brophy 1986).

Extrinsic rewards, on the other hand, should be used with caution, for they have the potential for decreasing existing intrinsic motivation.

What takes place in the classroom is critical, but "the classroom is not an island" (Martin Maehr and Carol Midgley 1991). Depending on their degree of congruence with classroom goals and practices, schoolwide goals either dilute or enhance classroom efforts. To support motivation to learn, school-level policies and practices should stress "learning, task mastery, and effort" (Maehr and Midgley) rather than relative performance and competition.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO HELP UNMOTIVATED STUDENTS?

A first step is for educators to recognize that even when students use strategies that are ultimately self-defeating (such as withholding effort, cheating, procrastination, and so forth), their goal is actually to protect their sense of self-worth (Raffini).

A process called ATTRIBUTION RETRAINING, which involves modeling, socialization, and practice exercises, is sometimes used with discouraged students. The goals of attribution retraining are to help students to (1) concentrate on the tasks rather than becoming distracted by fear of failure; (2) respond to frustration by retracing their steps to find mistakes or figuring out alternative ways of approaching a problem instead of giving up; and (3) attribute their failures to insufficient effort, lack of information, or reliance on ineffective strategies rather than to lack of ability (Brophy 1986).

Other potentially useful strategies include the following: portray effort as investment rather than risk, portray skill development as incremental and domain-specific, focus on mastery (Brophy 1986).

Because the potential payoff--having students who value learning for its own sake--is priceless, it is crucial for parents, teachers, and school leaders to devote themselves fully to engendering, maintaining, and rekindling students' motivation to learn.

Broadly speaking, motivation is either intrinsic/expressive (doing something for its own sake) or extrinsic/ instrumental (doing something for some other reason). A useful, slightly more detailed, categorisation is:

	Intrinsic			Extrinsic
	Expressive	Achievement	Social	Instrumental
Characteristics	Interest for its own sake: satisfaction derived directly from understanding/ skill	Desire to succeed: “I'm not going to let this beat me”: mastery represents something important	In order to gain social acceptance, either within the class/course etc. (“Pleasing teacher” or being one of the in-crowd, or outside	In order to gain a tangible reward or avoid negative consequences
Strengths	Enthusiasm, commitment	Commitment	Co-operativeness if class-oriented	Can develop into more significant commitment
Weaknesses	May get “carried away”: lose sight of wood for trees	Potentially fickle  What the learning represents to the student may not be the same as what it represents to you	May concentrate on the appearance of achievement to the detriment of “deep” learning  Social aspirations may change	Achievement rests on strict criteria of “relevance”  Aspirations may be met in other ways  Anxiety may impede learning

Also look at the useful categorisation suggested by Morgan (1983).

LEVELS OF MOTIVATION

Maslow is the classic model here. Abraham H Maslow (1908-1970) was a humanistic psychologist who rejected the prevalent paradigm of exploring psychology either from experimentation with animals (behaviourism) or from the experience of mixed-up people (principally psycho-analysis), and concentrated on human potential for self-actualisation. He is chiefly known for his “hierarchy of needs” (but beware, because this is often mis-represented).

 

The essence of the hierarchy is the notion of “pre-potency”, which means that you are not going to be motivated by any higher-level needs until your lower-level ones have been satisfied. Note however, that pre-potency only makes sense over a substantial time-scale. I ate a good breakfast this morning, but I shall be hungry again tonight: thus I may become concerned about Physiological needs again then. But if I “know where the next meal is coming from”, concern about meeting those needs will not be a great motivator.  

Where the model is useful is in identifying individuals who get stuck on the lower levels, and who because of early insecurity or later trauma, cannot afford to be concerned with the higher levels: but this is chiefly relevant to mental health professionals rather than teachers. It also, of course, draws attention to how very basic problems—such as being too hot or too cold—can inhibit motivation to learn at higher levels, but we did not really need Maslow to tell us that.

The major difficulty with Maslow is that although his hierarchy makes sense in general terms — if I am pre-occupied with physical needs, I am not usually going to be interested in self-esteem needs, for example — there are equally many occasions on which it does not hold good. It is excessively individualistic, and does not allow for altruism. And although most of Motivation and Personality is about defining “self-actualisation”, he never really succeeds in doing it. It is one of those models in which there is actually less to it than meets the eye!

MOTIVATIONAL HYGIENE

A similar point is made in Herzberg's “motivational hygiene” theory, according to which demotivators (or "hygiene factors") have to be reduced as well as motivators (or incentives) increased, to develop positive motivation (Herzberg 1966):

MOTIVATION AND LEARNING

Recent brain research using imaging technologies suggests how both children and adults learn. These findings merit attention because they have implications for how we teach (see "Insights From Neuroscience"). They can also help us to update our knowledge about adult learning so that we can design brain-compatible professional development.

The brain's biological mechanisms responsible for learning and remembering are roughly the same for learners of different ages. However, the efficiency of these mechanisms varies with the degree of development of the brain regions involved (Shaw et al., 2006). Emotional and social factors and past experiences also enter into play in terms of the brain's efficiency and an individual learner's motivation. Because these factors are more developed in adults than in children, they have greater influence over adults than they have over children.

Imaging studies show that regions in the brain's emotional and cognitive processing areas are activated when an individual is motivated to perform learning behaviors. All of us are motivated to learn because learning enables us to survive. For many teenagers, a major motivator is the desire to fit in with their peers (Schulteiss et al., 2008). Adults, however, are less concerned about peer approval and usually want to learn things that help them become more skilled in their chosen field.

This inherent desire to learn to do something simply for the satisfaction of doing the job well is an intrinsic motivation. Four key factors affect the intensity of a learner's intrinsic motivation in any given situation: emotions, feedback, past experiences, and meaning. These factors are all connected and influence one another to some degree.

The Role of Emotions

Our brain pays more attention to stimuli and events that are accompanied by emotions. We remember the best and worst things that happen to us while forgetting emotionally neutral events. Do you remember what you ate for lunch two weeks ago last Thursday? Probably not, unless it was a special occasion or the food made you sick. In either case, the accompanying emotions enabled you to remember it.

How we feel about a learning situation often affects attention and memory more quickly than what we think about it. In most adolescents, the brain region that processes emotions (the limbic area) is fully operational, whereas the regions responsible for thinking, reflecting, and controlling emotional reactions (located in the prefrontal cortex) are still developing. This is why middle school students overtly display emotions inappropriately in the classroom (through pained sighs, rolling eyes, and blank looks).

Adults may also come to a learning activity with strong emotions. But a fully developed prefrontal cortex enables most adults to consciously dampen their emotions. If the activity captures an adult learner's interest, the mature cortex will override any negative feelings, and learning will occur. But teachers who are deeply annoyed by mandatory attendance or who feel emotionally detached may resist learning. They can conceal their negative feelings, but they may surreptitiously turn to activities like grading papers unless the activity is engaging enough to hook into some positive emotion.

When people feel positive about a learning situation, chemicals called endorphins and dopamine become active. Endorphins provide a feeling of euphoria. Dopamine stimulates the prefrontal cortex, keeping the individual attentive, interactive, and likely to remember what he or she experiences. Negative feelings, on the other hand, cause the hormone cortisol to enter the bloodstream. Cortisol puts the brain into survival mode; this shifts the brain's attention away from learning so it can deal with the source of stress. Instead of learning, the brain remembers the pressure and registers these kinds of situations as unpleasant.

Professional development leaders should ask themselves the following questions to determine whether the format and content of their programs connect to positive emotions in most teachers and avoid triggering negative ones:

 Does the program offer learning experiences associated with moderate challenge, excitement, creativity, and joy so teachers will be more likely to remember what they learn and implement it in the classroom?

 Does the program speak to a problem that teachers identified rather than some outside entity? If not, can we connect this content to teachers' concerns?

 Are teachers excited about this initiative?

 Have we included opportunities for hands-on participation and activities that address a variety of learning styles?

 Will participants give leaders feedback on the program—and receive regular feedback?

When I worked with the West Orange School District in New Jersey to design professional development on applying brain research to classroom practice, we included teachers in the development and assessment of the program and planned ways to elicit positive emotions. To generate excitement, we asked teachers who were using brain-compatible strategies to share their positive experiences at faculty meetings. Workshop presentations included direct instruction, audiovisual segments, and opportunities for self-reflection and small-group discussion. The district administration also agreed to sustain building-centered support groups, peer coaching, and follow-up workshops for a minimum of three years.

Teachers who participated in this program reported that it made a difference in their selection of teaching strategies and that students seemed to learn better when they used these revised strategies.

Feedback Fuels Learning

Recent imaging studies have shown that brain regions associated with motivation are more active in subjects who are learning tasks and receiving feedback than in subjects doing the same tasks with no feedback (van Duijvenvoorde et al., 2008). This finding should come as no surprise to teachers who use constructive feedback to encourage struggling students. Feedback is a key contributor to motivation. The need to be valued is a potent emotional force, and positive feedback fills that need. In our professional development with West Orange teachers, each participant presented a minilesson and received constructive feedback. But feedback is often a neglected or halfhearted component of professional development programs.

Effective feedback is timely. The sooner an observer provides reinforcement for a teacher's desirable behavior (such as trying out a new instructional strategy), the more likely that teacher is to repeat that behavior. Using peer coaches (teacher pairs who observe in each other's classrooms) is one way to provide frequent job-embedded professional development that uses nonthreatening feedback.

Good feedback is also specific. Telling someone, "You're doing a nice job" doesn't help that person's brain explore and apply modifications to behavior that might lead to continued success. Nor will vague statements fire up the positive emotions needed to motivate a teacher who's trying out a new strategy and hitting snags. A better example of positive feedback might be, "Your students seemed engaged when you had them create graphs using data from their online survey."

Specific, positive feedback stimulates the prefrontal cortex to reflect on ways to improve performance. Negative feedback may never reach the prefrontal cortex. Instead, it is often diverted to the limbic area, where it produces stress and results in the release of cortisol so that the individual goes into survival mode. Powerful negative feelings surface, intrinsic motivation declines, and the learning portion of the brain shuts down.

When professional development leaders need to give teachers feedback about areas in which they should improve, they can make this feedback less negative by building on teachers' strengths. For example, if a teacher presents a lesson that is well organized and on target for achieving the learning objective but that embeds essential information too far into the middle of the lesson, compliment the teacher on the overall great organization early in the conversation. Then ask if students might remember the important information better if the teacher placed it at the beginning of the lesson rather than in the middle.

Past Experiences and Meaning

Past experiences here refers to experiences that the brain encodes into long-term memory and readily recalls. Past experiences always affect new learning. As we learn something new, our brain transfers into working memory any long-stored items it perceives as related to the new information. These items interact with new learning to help us interpret information and extract meaning, which is part of the principle called transfer (Sousa, 2006).

This process affects whether a teacher will be disposed to commit to a new professional initiative.