What Motivation is and Why It is Important in Classroom Situation

Friday, 01 October 2010 09:37 | Written by Shabait Admin |     

Educators, like Connie Firth, an expert on Educational Communication Technology in the

University of Saskatchewan, defined motivation as an internal drive that directs behavior
towards some end. The same subject has also been defined by Linda S. Lumsden, as cause for
an organism’s behavior or the reason that an organism carries out some activity. The
following is a mix of points taken from different educators on the same subject: The role of
motivation in the teaching-learning process: Human behavior is complex and people are
naturally curious. Therefore, instructional designers should meet the challenges of designing
instruction assisted by motivation; because it is of paramount importance to student success.
Students work longer, harder and with more vigor and intensity when they are motivated than
they are not. In other words, motivation helps individuals overcome inertia.

This happens so because in the teaching-learning process, as in other various activities, there
should be something that propels their mind or dangles in front to make them more active and
vibrant, in classroom teaching, the major task is to nurture student curiosity as a motivation
for learning. This is important because curiosity is motivation that is intrinsic to learning. The
source of motivation is complex. It can be categorized into external and internal. The latter
sustains behavior. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are two types of motivation that affect
achievement of students. However, the value of external motivation, for instance,
reinforcement, is questioned from those who suggest that once it is withdrawn the behavior
stops. Critics go on to say that students must have intrinsic motivation to accomplish the
required activities. In intrinsic motivation the “doing” is the main reason for finishing an
activity whereas in extrinsic motivation the “value” is placed at the end of an action. Infants
and young Children appear to be propelled by curiosity, driven by an intense need to explore,
interact with, and make sense of their environment.

As one author puts it, “Rarely does one hear parents complain that their pre-school child is
‘unmotivated’, unfortunately, as children grow, their passion for learning frequently seems to
shrink. Learning often becomes associated with drudgery instead of delight. A large number
of students-more than one in four-leave schools before graduating. Many more are physically
present in the classroom but largely mentally absent; they fail to invest themselves fully in
the experience of learning. Awareness of how students’ attitudes and beliefs about learning
develop and what facilitates learning for its own sake can assist educators in reducing student
apathy towards learning. Therefore, the role and importance of motivation is worth looking at
in this regard.

What is student Motivation? Student motivation has to do with students’ desire participate in
the learning process. But it also concerns the reasons or goals that underlie their involvement
in academic activities. Although students may be equally motivated to perform a task, the
source 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”. 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. As stated above, the term motivation to learn has a
slightly different meaning. It is defined by some author as “the meaningfulness, value, and
benefits of academic tasks to the learner-regardless of whether or not they are intrinsically
interesting”.
Others note that motivation to learn is characterized by long-term, quality involvement in
learning and commitment to the process of learning. Factors that influence the development
of students’ motivation: According to educators, 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 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 at home that nurtures a sense of self-
worth, competence, autonomy, and self-efficiency, 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 enlarge 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 source to which children attribute their successes and failures have
important implications on how they can 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. As one notable educator
remarked, “To a very large degree, students expect to learn if their teachers expect them to
learn". School-wide goals, policies, and procedures also interact with classroom climate and
practices affirm or alter students’ increasingly complex learning-related attitudes and beliefs.
Developmental changes comprise one more strand of the motivational web as well. For
example, although young children tend to maintain high expectations for success even in the
face of repeated failure, older students do not. Although younger children tend to see effort as
uniformly positive, older children view it as a “double-edged sword”. To them, failure
following high effort appears to carry more negative implication-especially for their self-
concept of ability-than failure that results from minimal or no effort.

What are advantages of intrinsic motivation? Does it really matter whether students are
primarily intrinsically or extrinsically oriented towards 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.
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. Although every educational activity cannot, and
perhaps should not, be intrinsically motivating, findings 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 socializing agents capable of stimulating student motivation to learn”.

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 appreciate 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, i.e., helping students to see how
skills can be applied in the real world. Tasks that involve “moderate amount of discrepancy
or incongruity are beneficial because they stimulate students’ curiosity”, and this is an
intrinsic motivator. 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”. Depending on their degree of
congruence with classroom goals and practices, school wide goals either dilute or enhance
classroom efforts. To support motivation to learn, school-level policies and practices should
stress “learning, task mastery and effort” 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. A process called attribution retraining, which involves modeling, socialization,
and practice exercise, is sometimes used with discouraged students. The goals of attribution
retraining are to help students to: Concentrate on the tasks rather than becoming distracted by
fear of failure; respond to frustration by retracting their steps to find mistake or figuring out
alternative ways of approaching a problem instead of giving up; and attribute their failures to
insufficient effort, lack of information or reliance on effective strategies rather than to lack of
ability. Other potentiality useful strategies include: portray effort as investment rather than
risk; portray skill development as incremental and domain specific and focus on mastery.
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 rekindling students’ motivation
to learn.

Conclusion: The behaviorists talk about reward and punishment as being the main influence
on learning. It is clear that behavior can be focused toward a reward or away from a
punishment. Therefore, the involvement or non-involvement of motivation in the classroom
situation is more or less a question of a carrot-and-stick approach. This is really a subject of
discussion that educators broach to each other on different occasions. The basic question is
should the student (the human child) be, like Pavlov’s dog, driven/encouraged to a stimulus
that dangles in front of him/her?  

Source: “Education Horizon”, Magazine, Ministry of Education

Last Updated (Friday, 01 October 2010 09:50)

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classroom-situation

Motivation in the Classroom

Children locked into classroom discussion are no different than adults locked into boring,
irrelevant meetings. If you do not understand how something relates to your goals, you will
not care about that thing. If an adult cannot see the relevance of the material covered in a
meeting, and has no desire to score political points, he will tune out or drop out. If a child
does not understand how knowing the elements of the periodic table will help to address the
concerns of his life, and he is not particularly interested in pleasing the teacher, he will do the
same.

Because we do not want our children to be motivated solely by a desire to please the
teacher, what we need to address is how to make the content of the curriculum fit into the
concerns of the child. Sometimes, this is easy. The child who wants to design a roof for the
family doghouse will gladly sit through a lesson on the Pythagorean theorem if he
understands that the lesson will teach him how to calculate the dimensions of the roof he
needs. If a piece of content addresses a particular concern of a student, or even a general area
of interest, that student will not tune it out.

Most children, as they work through their years of school do, in fact, find areas of study
they genuinely enjoy. But these areas are different for different people. The general problem
of matching individual interests to fixed curricula is one that is impossible to solve. People
obviously have different backgrounds, beliefs, and goals. What is relevant for one will not be
relevant to another. Of course, we can force something to be relevant to students--we can put
it on the test. But this only makes it have the appearance of significance, it does not make it
interesting.

Some children decide not to play the game this system offers. Instead, they continue to
search for ways in which what is taught makes sense in their day-to-day lives, becoming
frustrated as they realize that much of what is covered is irrelevant to them. If children are
unwilling to believe that their own questions do not matter, then they can easily conclude that
it is the material covered in class that does not matter.

What is left, then, if the content has no intrinsic value to a student? Any teacher knows
the answer to this question. Tests. Grades. When students don't care about what they are
learning, tests and grades force them to learn what they don't care about knowing. Of course,
students can win this game in the long run by instantly forgetting the material they crammed
into their heads the night before the test. Unfortunately, this happens nearly every time. What
is the point of a system that teaches students to temporarily memorize facts? The only facts
that stay are the ones we were forced to memorize again and again, and those we were not
forced to memorize at all but that we learned because we truly needed to know them, because
we were motivated to know them. Motivation can be induced artificially, but its effects then
are temporary. There is no substitute for the real thing.

There are ways to design curricula so that the learners intrinsic motivation makes them
want to learn. Here are three efforts headed by Roger Schank based on the principles outlined
in this book.

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Friday, September 01, 2006

Definitions, Types and Theories of Motivation.

Definitions. Motivation (motus, movere = to move) has been defined variously by

psychologists as: 'the phenomena involved in a person's drives and goal-seeking behaviour';
'the tendencies to activity which commence with a persistent stimulus (drive) and end with an
appropriate adjustive response'; 'the arousal, regulation and sustaining of a pattern of
behaviour'; 'the internal state or condition that results in behaviour directed towards a specific
goal' (Curzon, 1990). The term will be used in this site as a general sense to refer to a person's
aroused desire for participation in a learning process. Dewey speaks of the teacher in their
role of guide and director as steering a boat, '. . . but the energy that propels it must come
from those who are learning'. The arousal, regulation and sustaining of the student's
enthusiasm for learning, that is, the utilization of his power of motivation in the service of the
lesson, constitute an important task for the teacher. The harnessing of the learner's drive is to
be seen as of paramount importance in learning, for drive is the basis of self-motivation in the
classroom.

Types of motivation. Some psychologists concerned with understanding learning have

attempted to formulate 'categories of motivation', i.e. groupings of students' motives for
learning. Categories have been presented under four headings: instrumental motivation;
social motivation; achievement motivation; and intrinsic motivation. It should be noted that
more than one category may dominate learner motivation at a given time (Biggs and Teller,
1987.)

Instrumental motivation: This type of motivation, which is purely extrinsic, is in evidence

where students perform tasks solely because of the consequences likely to ensue, e.g. the
chance of obtaining some tangible reward or avoiding a reprimand. It is in total contrast to
intrinsic motivation (see below). In the face of motivation of this nature, the teacher should
ensure that the task to be performed is placed in a context perceived as pleasant.

Social motivation: Students influenced by this type of motivation tend to perform tasks so as

to please those they respect, admire, or whose opinions are of some importance to them.
Rewards are of limited significance even if tangible; the reward here is nonmaterial and is
related in direct measure to the perceived relationship between the student and the person
whose reinforcement activity (praise or approval, for example) is considered important.

Achievement motivation: This is involved where students learn 'in the hope of success'.
Ausubel suggests that there are three elements in motivation of this type:

(a) cognitive drive—the learner is attempting to satisfy a perceived 'need to know';

(b) self enhancement—the learner is satisfying the need for self-esteem;

(c) affiliation—the learner is seeking the approval of others.

Intrinsic motivation: In this case there are no external rewards; the task is undertaken for the
pleasure ind satisfaction it brings to the student. It seems to be central to 'high quality
involvement' in a task and to be self-maintaining and self-terminating. Curiosity and a desire
to meet challenges may characterize the learning of students motivated in this style.

Theories of Motivation

A Humanist Approach to Motivation; Self-Actualisation.

Maslow saw motivation in terms of an individual's striving for growth; he sought to explain it
by reference to a 'hierarchy of human needs'. People are 'wanting animals'. He believed that at
any given moment a person's benaviour is dominated by those of his needs which have the
greatest potency. As their 'lower', physiological needs are adequately satisfied, motives at a
'higher' level in the hierarchy come into play. The hierarchy is made up as follows:

1. Physiological needs, e.g. hunger, thirst, leading to a desire tor food and water.

2. Safety needs, e.g. security.

3. Belonging needs, e.g. friendship and love.

4. Esteem needs, e.g. success, approval from others.

5. Self-actualization needs, e.g. desire for self-fulfilment.

These needs are hierarchical; high-level needs will be attended to only after low-level needs
are satisfied. Maslow's basic needs (physiological, safety and belonging) are termed
deficiency because they motivate (lead to behavior) when the organism has a deficiency with
respect to a need (for example, lacks food or water). The metaneeds (esteem and self-
actualisation) are termed growth needs because they motivate behaviors that do not result
from deficiencies but from a natural human tendency toward growth. The growth needs will
be attended to only after the basic needs are reasonably satisfied. The ultimate need is that of
self-actualisation. Self-actualization is a difficult concept to explain. Leclerc et al (1998) in
their survey of 26 "experts" indicates a general consensus that self-actualization is a process
rather than a state. It is a process of growth—of becoming—evident in the unfolding and
fulfillment of self. In a sense it is trying to become the best we can, as individuals, become.

For Maslow, true motivation is intrinsic. In other words, it comes from within, and the more
that extrinsic motivators (money, rewards, etc) are used to encourage learning the less our
intrinsic motivation to learn will be present. Thus the use of external/extrinsic motivators to
encourage learning will ultimatley demotivate the student, because when they are no longer
present, or become meaningless there will be little desire to learn. The extrinsic motivators
will have replaced the innate intrinsic desire to learn.

Application to education:
The essential point is that from Maslow's persepctive, no learning will take place unless the
students basic needs are met. Thus they need to have their physiological needs met along with
feelings of safety and also experience a sense of belonging. This makes intutive sense (has
face validity) because a student who is hungry will never work well, nor will a student who is
being bullied (lack of safety) and neither will the student who feels that they are an 'outsider'
and that they have no friends. If these basic needs are met then motivation to learn should be
present, especially if the student gains some esteem from their efforts. Indeed, for Malsow,
the best motivation for learning will occur when we are attempting to self-actualise, for this is
when we will be truly experiencing growth and development. Ultimately any factor which
prevents us from self-actualising will be a hinderence to our motivation to learn.

A Cognitive Approach to Motivation;Self-efficacy.

Bandura informs us that self-efficacy has to do with our own estimates of our personal
effectiveness. "Perceived self-efficacy," he writes, "refers to beliefs in one's capabilities to
organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments" (1997, p.
3). The most efficacious people are those who are most competent. Accordingly, self-efficacy
has two related components: The first has to do with the skills—the actual competencies—
required for successful performance; the second concerns the individual's personal estimates
of competence.

Personal estimates of competence are extremely important in education. As Zimmerman,

Bandura, and Martinez-Pons put it, "Numerous studies have shown that students with a high
sense of academic efficacy display greater persistence, effort, and intrinsic interest n their
academic learning and performance" (1992, p. 664). Our beliefs about how likely we are to
succeed in a given subject or endeavor (our notions of self-efficacy for that subject or
activity) profoundly influence what we choose to do, how much effort we are willing to put
into it, and how persistent we will be. For example, following a study of 246 students at the
end of their eighth and tenth years of school (USA schools) Marsh and Yeung (1997) found
that positive self-concepts in specific subjects (the extent to which students expected to do
well) were among the best predictors of what students subsequently choose to study. In fact,
this research showed academic self-concept he to be a better predictor of future course
selections than actual grades in various subjects.

A Behaviourist Approach to Motivation; Reinforcement/Extrinsic Motivation.

Skinner demonstrated how positive reinforcement increases the probability of a behavior

when it follows as a consequence of the behavior. Negative reinforcement also increases the
probability of a response, but it does so as a function of being removed as a consequence of
behavior. See the material on Behaviourist approaches to learning for more detail.
Positive and negative reinforcement are used in virtually all classrooms; teachers praise and
admonish students, they give high and low grades, they smile and frown. These and a
thousand other indicators of approval or disapproval are examples of reinforcement. When
reinforcement is used judiciously and systematically, it can have profound effects on
behavior. However we are not simply hungry rats in a Skinner box. If we look into a
classroom, we will see that behaviour is not simply driven by external rewards like chocolate
bars or gold stars or high marks. Rather behaviour is driven by cognitions and by emotions. It
is not surprising that current applications of behavioursit principles to the classroom take
thinking into account. As Stipek (1988) notes, the most powerful reinforcers for students are
stimuli such as praise, and that given that the effectiveness of these stimuli clearly depend on
a student's interpretations of the teacher's behavior, it is apparant that cognition is central to
understanding how reinforcement works as a motvator. Thus a simplistic stimulus-response
reading of behaviouristic principles will not offer an adequate understanding of the use of
reinforcement in the classroom.

posted by ardord at 10:42 AM | 3 comments

Improving Motivation

DeCharms (1984) reports on one ten-week training unit designed to emphasize four major
concepts: (a) the self-concept, (b) achievement motivation, (c) realistic goal setting, and (d)
the origin-pawn concept. The last goal was important in that students and teachers were
taught to see themselves as "origins" (people who can take responsibility and control
outcome) as opposed to "pawns" (people who cannot take responsibility and whose outcome
is controlled by others). The trained students were compared with a control group who did
not receive any training. Results significantly favored the trained group on composite scores
of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The trained students also had fewer absences and less
tardiness. DeCharms has conducted other studies to train teachers to see themselves as origins
instead of pawns. The most important thing a teacher can do to maximize motivation in
educational settings, according to deCharms, is to believe that all students can be origins.

A program developed by McCombs (1982) attempts to develop motivation not only by

changing students' attributions to internal causes like effort, but also by
teaching cognitive strategies and metacognitive skills. As students become more adept at the
management of these skills and strategies (as they learn more about learning) it follows that
they will also begin to realise that they can exercise a great deal of control over learning and
achievement—that it isn't just a matter of luck and faith. In most school related tasks, luck
should have little bearing on performance. Teachers can exercise some control over the other
three major categories to which performance outcomes can be attributed (effort, ability, and
task difficulty), but luck can only be left to chance.

posted by ardord at 10:41 AM | 0 comments

Motivation Issues: Attribution Theory and Learned Helplessness.

Attribution Theory.

Bernard Weiner (1984) developed a theory about student's attempts to know why an event
occurred, particularly in relation to the student's achievement. He argued that causal
attributions (ideas about why we succeed or fail) are produced when there has been either an
unexpected outcome or an aversive outcome. Students generate a variety of explanations for
these unexpected outcomes. Some of the ways students explain their success or failure are
that it has been caused by -

(a) high or low ability or aptitude

(b) good or poor effort

(c) task ease or difficulty

(d) good or bad luck

(e) effective or ineffective strategies

(f) help or lack of help from other persons.

The student who succeeds or fails, according to Weiner's (1984)attribution theory, will base
the cause on either internal or external factors and stable or unstable causes. The internal
factors are ability (i.e., level of or skill) or effort (i.e., degree of work or self-discipline). In
effect, the student sees success or failure as related to ability, to effort, or to both. The student
who is externally oriented will attribute performance outcomes to luck or task difficulty.
Stable characterisitcs would be psychological phenomena such as personality; unstable
characterisitcs would be factors such as amount and quality of revision undertaken and luck.
For example, I did well in the exam because I am a discplined student (internal) who knows
how to revise (stable). Or, I did not do well in the exam because the teacher did not help me
(external) and the exam paper covered all the wrong topics (unstable).

This can be related to Rotter's concept of Locus of Control, by which we tend to view control
of events in our lives as either occuring because of some feature of ourselves (internal Locus
of Control) or factors outside of ourselves (external Locus of Control). If a student considers
success to be related to controllable factors, they will assume responsibility for the success
and therefore experience pride and satisfaction (internal Locus of Control). If on the
otherhand, success is thought to have been brought about by an uncontrollable factor, the
student will feel gratitude toward that factor. If failure is viewed by the student as caused by
some uncontrollable factor, the student may feel anger or self-pity (external Locus of
Control). Thus the attributions student make about where control is located in their lives will
effect the type and extent of motivation they have towards their studies.

Learned Helplessness.

Seligman and Maier (1967) conducted studies in which dogs that had no control over events
in the experimental situation where more likely to show apathetic behaviours than dogs
which had had a degree of control over events in the experiment. Seligman refered to this
apathetic behaviour as learned helplessness because it was through continued experience of
failure that these dogs did not bother to show appropriate behaviour in later experiments.
Presumably this was because their previous experience had informed them that it would be
unlikely for a positive outcome to occur even if they bothered to do anything. Thus they had
learned to become helpless.

This theory is based largely on some pretty nasty animal experiments, that the experience of
being put in a position in which there is no possibility of escape from harm or pain can lead
to an overall fatalism and resignation, in which it is believed that there is no point in trying to
improve the situation. More generally, learned helplessness can describe a belief in one's own
powerlessness, which makes any attempt to learn, futile. Typical experiments include the
demonstration that dogs, confined in a cage where they have no possibility of escaping
shocks from an electrified floor, no longer attempt to escape such shocks when the
opportunity is presented.

This type of behaviour could be conditioned into a student if they experience continued
failure irrespective of any learning behaviours they show. They would get into a 'why bother'
frame of mind, due to their past experiences of percieved failure. However this would be
made worse if the student makes external attributions about why they do not succeed (e.g. I
get no support from my parents so how can I expect to do well) . Internal attributions make
encourage them to try harder in the face of continued adversity. Learned helplessness
provides an elegant account of disaffection among students, who have "given up" on the
formal educational process as a way of learning anything. They have lost (or never gained)
any sense of the connection between their efforts in school or college and any meaningful
achievement, and therefore the major task for them is to re-establish this link.

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How Motivation Affects Learning and Behavior

By J.E. Ormrod
Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall

When it comes to art, Anya is highly motivated. We can reasonably draw this conclusion
based on her close attention in class, her eagerness to draw whenever she can, and her career
goal. Motivation is something that energizes, directs, and sustains behavior; it gets students
moving, points them in a particular direction, and keeps them going. We often see students’
motivation reflected in personal investment and in cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral engagement in school activities (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Maehr &
Meyer, 2004; Reeve, 2006).
Virtually all students are motivated in one way or another. One student may be keenly
interested in classroom subject matter and seek out challenging course work, participate
actively in class discussions, and earn high marks on assigned projects. Another student may
be more concerned with the social side of school, interacting with classmates frequently,
attending extracurricular activities almost every day, and perhaps running for a student
government office. Still another may be focused on athletics, excelling in physical education
classes, playing or watching sports most afternoons and weekends, and faithfully following a
physical fitness regimen. Yet another student—perhaps because of an undetected learning
disability, a shy temperament, or a seemingly uncoordinated body—may be motivated
to avoid academics, social situations, or athletic activities.
When Anya comes to school each day, she brings her strong interest in art with her. But
motivation is not necessarily something that learners bring to school; it can also arise from
environmental conditions at school. When we talk about how the environment can enhance a
learner’s motivation to learn particular things or behave in particular ways, we are talking
about situated motivation (Paris & Turner, 1994; Rueda & Moll, 1994). In the pages to come,
we’ll find that as teachers, we can do many things to motivate students to learn and behave in
ways that promote their long-term success and productivity.

How Motivation Affects Learning and Behavior

Motivation has several effects on students’ learning and behavior.

  Motivation directs behavior toward particular goals. As we discovered in

Chapter 10, social cognitive theorists propose that individuals set goals for themselves
and direct their behavior accordingly. Motivation determines the specific goals toward
which learners strive (Maehr & Meyer, 1997; Pintrich et al., 1993). Thus, it affects the
choices students make—for instance, whether to enroll in physics or studio art, whether
to spend an evening completing a challenging homework assignment or playing
videogames with friends.
 Motivation leads to increased effort and energy. Motivation increases the amount of
effort and energy that learners expend in activities directly related to their needs and
goals (Csikszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 1989; Maehr, 1984; Pintrich et al., 1993). It
determines whether they pursue a task enthusiastically and wholeheartedly or
apathetically and lackadaisically.
 Motivation increases initiation of and persistence in activities.Learners are more
likely to begin a task they actually want to do. They are also more likely to continue
 working at it until they’ve completed it, even if they are occasionally interrupted or
frustrated in the process (Larson, 2000; Maehr, 1984; Wigfield, 1994). In general, then,
motivation increases students’ time on task, an important factor affecting their learning
and achievement (Brophy, 1988; Larson, 2000; Wigfield, 1994).
 Motivation affects cognitive processes. Motivation affects what learners pay attention
to and how effectively they process it (Eccles & Wigfield, 1985; Pintrich & Schunk,
2002; Pugh & Bergin, 2006). For instance, motivated learners often make a concerted
effort to truly understand classroom material—to learn it meaningfully—and consider
how they might use it in their own lives.
 Motivation determines which consequences are reinforcing and punishing. The more
learners are motivated to achieve academic success, the more they will be proud of an A
and upset by a low grade. The more learners want to be accepted and respected by peers,
the more they will value membership in the “in” group and be distressed by the ridicule
of classmates. To a teenage boy uninterested in athletics, making or not making the
school football team is no big deal, but to a teen whose life revolves around football,
making or not making the team may be a consequence of monumental importance.
 Motivation often enhances performance. Because of the other effects just identified—
goal-directed behavior, effort and energy, initiation and persistence, cognitive processing,
and the impact of consequences—motivation often leads to improved performance. As
you might guess, then, students who are most motivated to learn and excel in classroom
activities tend to be our highest achievers (A. E. Gottfried, 1990; Schiefele, Krapp, &
Winteler, 1992; Walberg & Uguroglu, 1980). Conversely, students who have little
interest in academic achievement are at high risk for dropping out before they graduate
from high school (Hardré & Reeve, 2003; Hymel et al., 1996; Vallerand, Fortier, &
Guay, 1997).

Extrinsic Versus Intrinsic Motivation

Not all forms of motivation have exactly the same effects on human learning and
performance. Consider these two students in an advanced high school writing class:

Sheryl doesn’t enjoy writing and is taking the class for only one reason: Earning an A or B in
the class will help her earn a scholarship at State University, where she desperately wants to
go.

Shannon has always liked to write. The class will help her get a scholarship at State
University, but in addition, Shannon truly wants to become a better writer. She sees its
usefulness for her future profession as a journalist. Besides, she’s learning many new
techniques for making what she writes more vivid and engaging.

Sheryl exhibits extrinsic motivation: She is motivated by factors external to herself and
unrelated to the task she is performing. Learners who are extrinsically motivated may want
the good grades, money, or recognition that particular activities and accomplishments bring.
Essentially, they are motivated to perform a task as a means to an end, not as an end in itself.

In contrast, Shannon exhibits intrinsic motivation: She is motivated by factors within herself
and inherent in the task she is performing. Learners who are intrinsically motivated may
engage in an activity because it gives them pleasure, helps them develop a skill they think is
important, or seems to be the ethically and morally right thing to do. Some learners with high
levels of intrinsic motivation become so focused on and absorbed in an activity that they lose
track of time and completely ignore other tasks—a phenomenon known as flow
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1996; Schweinle, Turner, & Meyer, 2006).

Learners are most likely to show the beneficial effects of motivation when they
are intrinsically motivated to engage in classroom activities. Intrinsically motivated learners
tackle assigned tasks willingly and are eager to learn classroom material, more likely to
process information in effective ways (e.g., by engaging in meaningful learning), and more
likely to achieve at high levels. In contrast, extrinsically motivated learners may have to be
enticed or prodded, may process information only superficially, and are often interested in
performing only easy tasks and meeting minimal classroom requirements (A. E. Gottfried,
Fleming, & Gottfried, 2001; Reeve, 2006; Schiefele, 1991; Tobias, 1994).
In the early elementary grades, students are often eager and excited to learn new things at
school. But sometime between Grades 3 and 9, their intrinsic motivation to learn and master
school subject matter declines (Covington & Müeller, 2001; Lepper, Corpus, & Iyengar,
2005; Otis, Grouzet, & Pelletier, 2005). This decline is probably the result of several factors.
As students get older, they are increasingly reminded of the importance of good grades
(extrinsic motivators) for promotion, graduation, and college admission, causing them to
focus their efforts on earning high grade point averages. Furthermore, they become more
cognitively able to set and strive for long-term goals, and they begin to evaluate school
subjects in terms of their relevance to such goals, rather than in terms of any intrinsic appeal.
In addition, students may grow increasingly impatient with the overly structured, repetitive,
and boring activities that they often encounter at school (Battistich, Solomon, Kim, Watson,
& Schaps, 1995; Larson, 2000).

Extrinsic motivation is not necessarily a bad thing, however; often learners are
simultaneously motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors (Cameron & Pierce, 1994;
Covington, 2000; Lepper et al., 2005). For example, although Shannon enjoys her writing
course, she also knows that a good grade will help her get a scholarship at State U.
Furthermore, good grades and other external rewards for high achievement may confirm for
Shannon that she is mastering school subject matter (Hynd, 2003). And over the course of
time, extrinsic motivation may gradually move inward, as we’ll discover in Chapter 12 in our
discussion of internalized motivation.
In some instances, extrinsic motivation—perhaps in the form of extrinsic reinforcers for
academic achievement or productive behavior—may be the only thing that can get students
on the road to successful classroom learning and productive behavior. Yet intrinsic
motivation is ultimately what will sustain students over the long run. It will encourage them
to make sense of and apply what they are studying and will increase the odds that they will
continue to read and learn about writing, science, history, and other academic subject matter
long after they have left their formal education behind.

Excerpt from Educational Psychology Developing Learners, by J.E. Ormrod, 2008 edition, p.
384-386.

© ______ 2008, Merrill, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission.  All
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