Kyion Roebuck

Kelsey Scott

Reid Tornquist

Chapter 3 What Motivates Students to Learn

My students are going to love this NOT

Professor Tyrone Hill relates a story about he was excited to teach a class that directly related to

his field. In his enthusiasm, he prepared a lot of material that he found interesting, and assigned a

research paper to get his students to delve into the historical aspects of philosophy. The outcome,

however, did not match his expectations, and the work produced was very poor with only the two

philosophy majors and the prospective student producing quality work. His takeaway was that

students just arent interested in philosophy.

A third of you will not pass this class

Professor Valencia Robles relates a story about how she was assigned a Thermodynamics class that

was normally taught by her colleague. In advance, she was warned that students found the material

really hard and only engineering students took it because it was required for their major. She was

also warned that students stop attending early on, and the ones that do come are not prepared. So, in

an attempt to motivate them, she told them that they would have to work harder than they ever have,

and even with that, a third of them would still fail. The result was that they slacked off and had even

lower scores than in previous semesters. Her takeaway was that todays students are just lazy.

What is going on in these stories?

Both professors try to motivate their students; however, they make the common mistake of believing

that their students will be motivated in the same ways that they were. When this doesnt work, they

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label the students as either apathetic or lazy. Professor Hill is so enthusiastic about course content that

he doesnt see that certain assignments dont have the same value for his students, which leads to them

approaching it half-heartedly. Professor Robles hoped to appeal to the students competitive nature, yet

instead, she decreased their motivation. Her approach fuelled the students prior perception of the class

and the prospect of failing even when giving full effort led to many of them not trying.

What principle of learning is at work here?

Principle: Students motivation generates, directs and sustains what they do to learn.

Motivation is key in getting students to learn. They have many outside factors vying for their

attention, so if they do not see the value in an assignment, or if they dont believe their efforts would

lead them to success, they will not try and move on to something else. For this reason, we must

understand that goals are subjective.

What does the research tell us about motivation?

Goals

Goals are features that organize motivation, and guide our actions. Normally, we have several goals

at once, and this is no different our student. We want them to learn for the sake of learning, but they

may only be interested in making the grade (performance goals).

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 Performance goals often take two forms, performance-approach goals and performance-

avoidance goals. Performance-approach goals focuses on reaching competency by achieving normal

standards, while performance-avoidance goals focuses on avoiding incompetency by reaching normal

standards. In contrast, learning goals focus on mastering the material. These are the goals we have in

mind for students. Often, however, students have work-avoidant goals, which lead to them working as

quickly and doing as little as possible. They appear lazy and disengaged overall, but we must remember

that just because they feel this way about our material does not mean they will feel the same about

others. Students need to see the merit in learning the material to truly set learning goals for themselves.

Other factors to consider are complementary and conflicting goals. If an activity satisfies more than one

goal, the student is more likely to fully apply his or herself. In contrast, if successfully completing a

school activity leads to failure of another, such as social, the student may dismiss one or the other.

Value

A goals importance is referred to as its subjective value. A goals value is one of the key

features influencing the motivation to pursue it. There are three determinants of subjective value. The

first is attainment value, which represents the satisfaction that an individual feels from accomplishing

something (i.e. playing video games for hours to reach a higher level). The second is intrinsic value,

which represents the satisfaction an individual gains from just doing the task as opposed to caring

about the outcome (i.e. writing a computer program for fun). The final source of value is instrumental

value, which represents the degree to which an activity or goal helps one to accomplish other

important goals (i.e. going to law school to become a lawyer). A single source of value may motivate

behavior but often it is a combination of the three sources the influence how a person will act.

Expectancies

Value alone is insufficient to motivate behavior. People are motivated to pursue goals that

they can successfully achieve. Expectancies is the term used to describe the expectations that a

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person has in terms of if they will achieve a goal or not. To be motivated to achieve a goal, students

must hold positive outcome expectancies (doing the work will get me a good grade) as opposed to

negative outcome expectancies (even if I do the work I will get a bad grade). Additionally, efficacy

expectancies are essential. Efficacy expectancies represent the belief that one is capable of doing the

work necessary to successfully complete a goal (the individual is capable of identifying, organizing,

initiating and executing a course of action). Students expectations for success are influenced by

prior experiences. Additionally, if students attribute their success to internal or controllable causes

then they are more likely to have success in the future. However, if the student attributes their

success to external or uncontrollable causes then they are less likely to expect success in the future.

How Perceptions of the Environment Affect the Interaction of Value and Expectancies

Value and expectancies also depend on if students perceive themselves to be in a supportive (i.e.

instructor is approachable) or unsupportive environment. Value, expectancies and the environment

all work together to influence motivation. None of these three categories can be neglected. For

example, in both supportive and unsupportive environments if a student sees little value in a goal

but is confident in their ability to achieve it they will tend to act in an evading manor (i.e. texting in

class). Another example is if a student sees value in a goal, is in a supportive environment but does

not believe that they can achieve their goal then they will be fragile (i.e want to protect their self-

esteem and make excuses to explain poor performance). In conclusion, no single variable is

deterministic with regards to motivating students.

Strategies to Improve Student Performance

These strategies can be used by teachers to engage students in course material, make sure they

are treated fairly, and put them in the best position to succeed.

Strategies to Establish Value

Connect class material to students interests. This will increase student engagement.

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 Rigorous class work and learning can still be accomplished using material that is related to

entertainment, or other popular topics.

Make it clear to your students that the material taught in your course is important for the

students to know. This could be done by highlighting real world applications, applications

in students future careers, or applications for future courses.

Decide what you value in students work, and make sure to reward what is valued.

Show enthusiasm for your subject. Excitement about material will rub off on your students.

Strategies to Build Positive Expectancies

Make sure that class objectives, class assessments, and instructional strategies are all designed

to work together to foster student learning.

Identify an appropriate level of challenge. Classes that are too difficult intimidate students

and can cause them to lose interest. Classes that are too easy will be viewed as a waste of

time and will not be taken seriously. Once a level of challenge has been identified, it is

important to design assignments that succeed in providing the desired level of challenge.

Articulate your expectations. This should be done in multiple ways. It can be done verbally

in class with rubrics and through detailed feedback. All of these methods will help ensure

that students understand what is expected of them and are able to meet those expectations.

Be fair and consistent. Students must feel that they are being treated fairly. This is especially

important when multiple instructors are used for a course (like the labs we teach). If students

do not think that everyone is being graded in a consistent manner, they will be upset.

Teach students to attribute failure to factors they can control, such as study habits. If they can

learn to stop externalizing causes of failure, they can improve class performance. Teachers

should also describe effective study strategies and time management skills to students.