Psychology and Motivation

Motivation is that which propels a person to put effort into a task. Motivation can come from internal interest and desire or from external rewards or requirements. Students who have high interest and a reasonable challenge may find themselves highly motivated towards learning and have high achievement. Students with low interest or too great a challenge will not be supported sufficient internal motivation to highly achieve in the academic task. Students can be motivated externally by rewards or requirements but there is a risk that the achievement will become solely tied to the reward and interest and intrinsic (internal) motivation will be low. This sort of motivation can result in low quality work or "just enough" achievement. It is important to try to reinforce intrinsic motivation and use extrinsic (external) motivation sparingly. A student with only extrinsic motivation will not achieve highly, and if they attempt to due to requirement, may be met with anxiety or burnout. A student intrinsically motivated will be more likely to keep themselves on task and complete higher quality work because they want to put more effort into the task in order to receive enjoyment and emotional reward!

Weiner's attribution theory states that individuals are motivated to discover the attributions (perceived causes of outcomes) of their own performance and behavior (Santrock 2011). In other words, when something happens to them as a result of something they did, they ask why. If a student gets a bad grade on a test they are not content with knowing their grade, they want feedback. They want to know what they did poorly on, they want to know "what they did or did not do" to get a bad grade (hopefully in order to correct it). The student will come to a causal conclusion based on their perceptions of a situation and their combination of causal attributions. According to Weiner there are three dimensions to attributions: locus (they are the cause, or something else of the cause), stability (the extent to which the cause remains the same or changes), and controllability (the extent to which the individual can control the cause). A student with a set of causal attributions described as "internal-stable-uncontrollable" may conclude that they are simply not smart enough to take the exam properly. A student with "internal-stable-controllable" causal attributions may blame themselves for "never studying". Students with "external-stable-controllable" attributions may blame the teacher for being biased, and "external-unstable-controllable" attributions may cause the student to blame their friends for not helping them enough!

A student that thinks the reason they do poorly is because the teacher does not like them has an external locus of control. This attribution is stable: they blame something that can consistently be the cause (as opposed to an unstable cause like bad luck). They student does have control of the situation and the cause, either in their method of test preparation (or lack thereof). A teacher can attempt to change these attributions by identifying them and then working with the student to move their locus of control into their own hands. Giving a student the tools and scaffolding to succeed gives them control; whether or not they use that material comes down to motivation.

According to Maslow's Hierarchy of needs a human being's needs must be satisfied in a particular sequence. A human being must first have adequate food, sleep, and water. Without these the human does not function. Next the human being requires safety. This can come in the form of a home or shelter, or protection from physical harm within those structures. Without these the human cannot have love and belongingness, which is the next set of needs. A human being needs affection and community. Once these are achieved the human can progress to have self-esteem. From this point in the hierarchy it is easy to see how failings in any of the previous tiers preclude people from having self esteem. A hungry child cannot feel safe. An abused child cannot readily feel love. A lonely child cannot achieve positive self-esteem. Without all this a human cannot realize one's potential and reach the top tier, "self actualization".

A teacher can work to give students the motivation to self-actualize and realize their potential in the classroom via extrinsic motivation, but must first understand what kind of motivation orientation the student has. According to Developmental psychologists children can display "helpless orientation" and seem trapped by their perceived lack of ability. They may frequently say things like "I'm not very good at this" even though they may have demonstrated success in the task previously (Santrock 2011). Students may have "performance orientation" and be focused on the outcome of their actions or abilities. These students believe that success results from winning. "Mastery oriented" students may be self-motivation students that attack tasks analytically and are happily challenged by difficult tasks instead of feeling overwhelmed by them. Students may exhibit combinations of these orientations. For example, I recognize that I have both mastery and helpless orientation. I organize difficult challenges for myself, analyzing how and when I could complete them, and am excited as much by the planning process and execution as the result. However, less than significant setbacks result in my shying away. This chapter particularly struck me as it almost seems my key phrase is "I'm just not very good at this". It became a crutch when I was younger and I still work on it today. Examples of this orientation mix litter my house in minor ways, in the form of unfinished sewing projects, half filled puzzle books, abandoned roller blades, etc. I started the project, excited by something new and difficult (freehand embroidery, let's say) and when I made a mistake that would require me to undo almost an hour of stitching, I put it away and declared myself a poor embroiderer. I have not gotten completely away from the helpless orientation but I am actively working on it.



References:
Microsoft Free Clipart. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=motivation&ex=2
Santrock, John W. (2011) Educational Psychology. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Willems, Patricia. (2006) Educational Psychology Casebook. Pearson Education, Inc.
Willems, Patricia. (2013) Motivation (Slides). Retrieved from www.Blackboard.com.