Motivating Students to Learn John Biggs and David Watkins a Rosalita sighed. She stared out the window at a golden rooster perched - ____n-the_school_fence, wishing she-could_fly_away_like that _bird could. “Why do I have to learn about the conquest of Mexico?” she wondered. Mr. Hernandez had said that he was only teaching it because it was in the curriculum. He then winked, adding: “I think it a waste of time too!” If only he was teaching hairdressing! “And what about algebra?” she wondered, “Y the unknown. If it’s unknown, I wouldn’t know it if I fell over it, so how can I be expected to find out what it is? Tell me that! And quadratic equations! I can’t understand any of this. I’ve got no hope.” Nothing about school appealed to Rosalita. She was a lively, pretty girl, popular with the other kids. All school did was make her feel defeated, struggling to learn stuff that had no value to her that she could see. And even if she could see any value in it, she had no hope of achieving it. As soon as she turned 15, she begged her parents to let her go to Manila, where she got a job as an apprentice in Uncle Sam’s hairdressing salon. Students like Rosalita are found all too often in classrooms in Asia and worldwide. Talk to most teachers and you will hear a common complaint: “My students don’t want to learn ... they are not interested in what we teach at school”. Such a lack of motivation can lead to behavioral problems in classrooms (see Chapter 9) and poor quality leaming outcomes (see Chapter 11). In this chapter you will discover: © Why students learn; © That students will not be motivated if they do not expect to succeed; © How students may be led to value their learning in various ways; © How to maximize academic motivation; 19Learning and Development of Asian Students © About different types of motivation; © How classroom environments can affect student motivation; and © How students can be led to expect success. WHY DO STUDENTS LEARN? Outside school, most students show-a strong willingness ust think about how they can spend many hours mastering complex computer games or learn the details of the lives and loves of their favorite pop or sports stars. How can they work so hard in one context but not another? Like Rosalita, many children don’t see that what they learn in school is important, So we spend a lot of time and trouble trying to make it artificially important; hence the whole structure of exams, penalties, prizes, approval for this, disapproval for that. Unfortunately, this structure, although necessary, distracts from the real purpose of learning. The student’s main aim often is to get the task finished and out of the way; there is no felt need to try to understand what the activity is intended to teach. For students to be academically motivated, they need to see that the academic activities they are expected to do are meaningful and worthwhile. So that’s the problem. What is a possible solution? How do you make what you teach meaningful and worthwhile? Making Learning Important and Possible Two factors make students (or anyone else) want to learn something: 1. That something has to be important; it must have some value to the learner. 2. It must be possible to do the leaming task; the leamer has to expect success. Nobody wants to do something they perceive as worthless. They'd rather do something they do sce as important. Neither do they want to do something, however valuable they might see it, if they have no chance of succeeding, In both cases, attempting the task is a waste of time. 80Motivating Students to Learn Psychologists have put this common-sense theory of motivation into a theory called the expectancy-value theory of motivation. Expectancy-value theory states that if anyone is to engage in an activity, he or she needs to expect some valued outcome (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). Therefore, if students are to be brought to want to learn, they will need to develop the expectation that something worthwhile will emerge from their learning. The teacher’s task then becomes twofold: 1. To help students see the value of what they are doing, and 2._ To give them a reasonable expectation of suecess in achieving it, ___ Value and expectancy ‘multiply’ in that both factors have to be present. If either one is zero, no motivated activity would occur. If students do not value succeeding in the task in question, or if they do not expect to be successful however much they might want to succeed, they will not be motivated to handle the task. In this chapter, we explain the ways in which a task may be valued, how expectancies of success are conveyed, and what teaching strategies for motivating students emerge. VALUING THE TASK How do we enhance the value of academic work to students? By making the work be of importance to them. Things can be important to people in four basic ways, which are essentially the four kinds of motivation: 1. Extrinsie motivation. Students learn because of the consequences: to obtain a reward, or to avoid punishment for not doing it. 2. Social motivation. Students learn in order to please people who are important to them, for example their families. 3. Achievement motivation. Students lea in order to compete against other students: winning makes them feel good. 4, Intrinsic motivation. Students lear because they are interested in the task or activity itself, and performing it gives them pleasure. 81Learning and Development of Asian Students Students may operate from a mixture of these motives. You can work at a task because you think you're likely to beat everyone else, and because you'll be pleasing other people important to you, and because you'll be winning a cash prize, and because you find it interesting. However, such a package is for the lucky few. Most students do not find their school tasks particularly interesting; nor do they feel sufficiently self-confident to compete for the highest grades. Teachers thus feel that they have to motivate extrinsically, by rewarding and punishing, but they should do so carefully because some ways of motivating extrinsically may prevent intrinsic motivation from developing later on. Now, bere’s a little more about each. Extrinsic Motivation Extrinsic motivation is based on what the American psychologist B.F. Skinner called ‘operant conditioning’, in which his subjects, often rats and pigeons, were motivated to do what Skinner wanted them to do, which was to press a lever or peck a target for food, rather than what they wanted to do, which was to run around as they pleased. This is close to what teachers have to do: to motivate children to sit still and leam, instead of talking to each other, or running around. Like the rats and pigeons, it’s a question of motivating them to do one thing rather than another. Operant conditioning is the basis for the behavioral approach to classroom management (see Chapter 9). Here we place it in a broader context, and see how operant conditioning works in all sorts of ways in the classroom: Take for example, the following scene: Wai-ming (ina sing-song, ‘funny’, voice): Sir-Sir-Sir. Teacher: Don't address me in that way! How many times do I have to tell you? Just “Sir!” Wai-ming: Yes Sir. But Sir-Sir, I want to know how to do No. 3. ...Sir-Sir-Sir, (Class giggles) Teacher: STOP THAT! Wai-ming: Sorry.... (quietly but audibly) Sir-Sir-Sir. 82Motivating Students to Learn (Class yells with laughter. Teacher screams and charges at Wai-ming). What a disaster! Wai-ming has made the teacher look a complete fool, and he has gained the admiration of the whole class. However, the teacher deserved it; as he broke all the rules of operant conditioning. He rewarded the very behavior he was trying to suppress. What should he have done? He should have studied Table 5.1, which describes the effects of different consequences on behavior. If desirable ‘behaviors are to increase, we should see that they lead to some kind of reward, either leading to something the student wants (positive reinforcement), or avoiding something the student does not want (negative reinforcement). If undesirable behaviors are to decrease, we may either’ gee that there are no consequences at all (extinction), ot that the consequences are clearly unpleasant (punishment). Let us first define our terms: Positive reinforcement occurs when a behavior is followed by a reward, such as sweets, money, praise, or even eye contact, showing that you are listening closely. Positive reinforcement gives pleasure; you repeat doing those things that have pleasurable results. Wai-ming had two rewards for his silly attention-secking behavior: he got the teacher's attention all right, and even better, was seen to be the one in charge; he was controlling the teacher; and of course he got the class’s attention and their admiration. Negative reinforcement is rewarding in the sense that the desired response removes something unpleasant. One of the commonest negative reinforcers is anxiety, created when punishment is threatened; the reward is the relief of knowing you are not going to be punished after all. Positive reinforcement is rewarding because the consequence is desirable for its own sake; negative reinforcement because the consequence eliminates something that is undesirable. When teachers shout and threaten they are using negative reinforcement. The problems with that method of reinforcing are: (a) if the students don’t do what they are supposed to do, the teacher must follow up with the punishment, or lose credibility; (b) an atmosphere of threats and anxiety is not conducive to good learning, and is very unpleasant for everyone, except for those teachers who like bullying students. 83Learning and Development of Asian Students Extinction involves withholding reward; the response weakens, and eventually dies. You don’t do things that lead to a disappointing nowhere. Extinction may however be extremely difficult to achieve in practice, ‘The teacher should really ignore Wai-ming, but not only is his clowning very difficult to ignore, the positive reinforcement that Wai-ming’s behavior is receiving has to be removed. How might the teacher do that? Punishment is widely used to stop undesirable behavior, but it can be a very unreliable weapon. Sometimes it works; other times it actually increases the unwanted behavior. Like the other consequences, it depends on the emotion aroused, but unlike the other case, here it is often unpredictable. How do you think Wai-ming is likely to react to being screamed at and shaken? Be a good little boy? Promise not to upset Sir in future? How do you think the class will react? Box 5.1 summarizes what Wester research says about the use of punishment, Would punishment be more successful in your country? The timing of rewards is important, Reinforcement should follow as soon as possible after the behavior: the longer the delay, the weaker the reinforcing effect. Teachers should mark assignments as soon as possible. Do not stop a student in the corridor and say: “Oh, by the way Maria, that was a good assignment you did last week. Well done!” Tell her last week. Box 5.1: What does Wester research say about the use of punishment?” Punishment is unreliable. It works best when: f 1. The initial intensity of punishment is as great as possible, and this intensity is maintained. No letting off with a caution for the first offence. In today’s schools this degree of severity is unacceptable. 2. Punishment must be administered each time it is warranted. No “Tl let you off this time but in future...” 3. Punishment is more effective when combined with reward; the student has an ’out‘. 100 lines for talking; a credit mark for not talking. 84Motivating Students to Learn 4. Administer punishment unemotionally. Keep your cool; don’t make it a personal issue, That invites revenge. 5. Don’t use schoolwork as a punishment. That’s making students hate the very thing you should be trying to make them like! 6. Don’t use punishment as a means of moral education. It encourages the student to say: “I want to do what you don’t want me to do. You have set the price of my doing it. I think your price is worth my pleasure, so Ill do it and pay your price. Then I’m free to do it again.” Moral education? Still think you can use punishment effectively? (Biggs & Moore, 1993) The main points are summarized in Table 5.1. Positive reinforcement Pleasure: More (reward) likely oceur in future Desirable Avoid Negative reinforcement Relief: More likely ‘unpleasant (reward) to occur in future Undesirable None Extinction Disappointment: Less likely to occur in future Undesirable Unpleasant Punishment Emotion: Unpredictable except in special circumstances Each of these consequences has quite different effects on valuing the task, and thus on future intrinsic motivation. This is one very important reason why the positive reinforcemenv/extinetion combination is better than the negative reinforcement/punishment combination. You will value something much more if it is associated with positive, not negative, feelings. 85Learning and Development of Asian Students However, it depends on how the rewarding takes place. A money reward establishes the value of the task in the most direct way; it conveys the message that it is only worth doing if you're paid. Giving material rewards for doing a task that the child is already interested in has the unfortunate effect of making the child less interested in it in future. Praise, on the other hand, can be very effective in conveying ownership and hence in increasing intrinsic motivation: “That's excellent, Yuk-hing, you really are good at that!” Negative reinforcement immediately sets up an association with feelings of anxiety, which makes it unlikely that intrinsic motivation will occur, because you don’t usually get to like things that make you anxious. Punishment is worse of course; you like things that hurt even less than things that make you anxious. Social Motivation We value activities that other people value. We do things because it is important to us that we appear favorably in the eyes of significant others, such as peer group, parents, or teacher. Most hobbies or life-long interests can be traced to what someone we admired once said or did. Social motivation is particularly important in the collective cultures that characterize most Asian socicties. Praise. Praise from someone admired helps the student feel ownership about the task in question: “I must be good at this if Miss Park says so!” If, however, a teacher is disliked, praise from that source will be seen as irritating, or patronizing. Clearly, the classroom climate the teacher has set up is crucial here. The way the teacher uses praise is crucial in saying whether or not the student will take much notice of what is said, Some teachers are naturally spontaneous and warm, which is good. Others are reserved, but when they do praise it is like a burst of sun on a cloudy day, and that too is good. What is not good is praise that is too frequent, and delivered in a monotonous voice. That tells the student that the praise is insincere, or that it doesn’t matter how well or badly the task is being done, they still get praised, so that they have no way of telling how good their performance really was. It also tells them the teacher doesn’t care. Signals that the praise is not sincere devalue it, Unfortunately, there is a 86Motivating Students to Learn Chinese belief that ‘praise enervates but criticism builds character’, which applies in some other Asian societies. This is misleading as we all need positive reinforcement from those important to us. Modeling. People tend to imitate each other in the absence of direct reward for doing so; it makes us feel important to do what other important people do. We model on those we like to resemble, and can identify with. Typically, adolescents like to resemble their own peers, and consequently model current fashions, and pop and sporting celebrities. Academically oriented students especially may model on an admired teacher, but this is unlikely to be true of less academic students. In Confucian societies, the teacher is typically held responsible for moral as well as intellectual development, and is held up as a character model in a way that is not so true of teachers in Western schools (see Chapter 2). Aggressive behavior is more easily modeled than non-aggressive. Kounin and Gump (1961) found that aggression was markedly higher in the playtime activities of children who had just come from classes taught by feachers who were sarcastic, who emphasized negative sanctions and punishment, and who blamed students for wrongdoing rather than who praised them for good behavior. The teachers” aggression had rubbed off on the children. Not good. Here is another reason why threats and negative reinforcement should be avoided, Social motivation marks the first move to a more personal kind of commitment to the task. Such a commitment is more likely to occur when it is perceived that other people, particularly those seen as role models. If you like your subject, and take care. to show it, then your students are much more likely to like it too; enthusiasm is infectious. If you think that a particularly topic you are teaching is boring, keep it to yourself; negative feelings are even more infectious. Achievement Motivation A form of social motivation that excites some people is the drive to perform a task better than other people. - 87Learning and Development of Asian Students Achievement motivation was first described years ago by McClelland and his associates, but Atkinson (1966) later became particularly interested in applying it to the situation in which people: 1. _ know that they will be evaluated on their performance, 2. know that the evaluation will be favorable (success) or unfavorable (failure), and 3. see themselves as responsible for the outcome. This is an accurate representation of what goes in most classrooms. Students are evaluated-by their teachers, their peers and their parents—in terms of success and failure defined by comparison with other students, and in tasks that reflect their competence. Two major motives are involved in achieving situations: © the motive to achieve success, to gain face by winning, and © the motive to avoid failure, to lose face by failing. Some people are more concerned with the pleasure of gaining face, others with the pain of losing it. The first are called high need-achievers. They find the greatest glory in winning comes when they are evenly matched with their opponent, when the chances are about 50-50. If victory is certain, there’s no glory in winning. Those who are more concerned with losing face are called low need-achievers. The relationship between persistence and probability of success is exactly the reverse of that for high need-achievers. Those who fear failure don’t mind not winning, as long as they preserve face; a 50-50 chance is thus the most threatening situation, not ‘the most attractive. It is better to win cheaply by competing against someone who is certain to be beaten, or to fail gloriously by competing when the odds are hopeless. In the first case, success is certain; in the second, failure is blameless (“Well, at least he tried!”). Thus, high need-achievers love competition; low need-achievers hate it. Schools adopt many practices that encourage competition between students, by defining goals (‘being top‘, winning scholarships, prizes and other awards) and limiting access to them (only one person can be top). Publicly ranking students on their performance is a very common 88Motivating Students to Learn practice. Such situations positively motivate the high need achievers, but the low need achievers do worse than they would otherwise. To be graded according to public comparisons with pecrs is highly ego-involving, This is called norm-referenced assessment, which we will discuss further in Chapter 13. Competition refers to a need, felt by some people more than others, to achieve success for its own sake. ‘The rewards are mainly in the struggle to get to the top of the heap, beating the competition. Competition is particularly apparent in many Asian countries. What drives millionaires to become billionaires is not material reward as such (you can only drive, or be driven in, one Rolls-Royce at‘a time), but the status of being richer, flasher, or more powerful, than others. But you don’t have to be in the zillionaire class to do it; academics do it (“My publication list is longer than yours!”), business people do it (“My cellular phone is smaller than yours!”), tai-tais do it (“My outfit is more expensive than yours!”), even hawkers in the streets of Delhi or Manila do it (“My stall is busier than yours!”), But not all do it. Some people would simply prefer not to. In some Asian countries, this individualistic kind of competition occurs to an extreme degree (the high stake public exams in countries such as Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong are often described as examination hells‘), but there is also a more collectivist form of achievement motivation that applies in Asian cultures. The person is performing not only to gain face for his or herself, but also for the family or for some other primary group; and likewise, if the person fails the whole family loses face. This double-edge to achievement motivation in Asian cultures makes it particularly powerful as a motivating stimulus (Yu, 1996). Research in the schools of Japan, Hong Kong, Nepal, and Mainland China (see for example Watkins, in press, and Watkins & Fulop, 2003) shows that most students have a positive view of competition, which they seen as consistent with, not contrary to, cooperation: competition can lead to everyone improving. Used in the right way, such competition should be encouraged not discouraged in such societies. Intrinsic Motivation Humans have an intrinsic need to build up competence in dealing with the environment; we are wired up biologically to get pleasure out of leaming to do increasingly complex things that are important. Take the 89Learning and Development of Asian Students — case of a toddler beginning to walk; he stands, totters, falls, stands up again, walks a step or two, falls, back up. The pattern seems to be: If you walk, you fall over and might burt yourself. Such behavior cannot be extrinsically motivated. Clearly, at that critical stage of development, walking is self-motivated. Curiosity is another intrinsic motive, pulling us to experience new things. This not only helps us to find out more about our world, but forces us to make our intemal ‘programs’ more complex. Play in young animals and humans are an important way of pleasurably developing skills that will be important to us later. The crucial factor separating pleasure from negative feelings about novelty is the degree of mismatch between incoming experiences and what we already know. Degree of mismatch and motivation. Curiosity occurs in a special condition: when there is optimal mismatch between what we know and can do already, and what each experience demands of us. We are not curious about that of which we are entirely ignorant; that would be boring. We are not curious about something we already know well; that too is boring. We are curious when we perceive a challenging mismatch between what we think we know and what we are now experiencing. If that mismatch becomes too challenging, it will be threatening, or overwhelming. These relationships between motivation and the demands of experience are given in Table 5.2: Table 5.2: Intrinsic motivation and the demands of experience. Too little: contents of experience all ‘Boring: been there, done that familiar Just right: mixture of familiar and Curiosity awakened: A unfamiliar challenge, motivating Too much: contents mostly unfamiliar Overwhelming: can’t cope Much too much: contents entirely Boring: no possible unfamiliar engagement. People are intrinsically motivated according to the right mix of familiar and unfamiliar: right for them, that is. What one person will find interesting and challenging, another will find boring, and yet another too complex and overwhelming. This is one reason why intrinsic motivation is rare in the classroom; the pace and level of presentation is unlikely to provide optimalMotivating Students 10 Learn mismatch for everyone. Yet it is more likely to occur for some students, some of the time, under some classroom conditions. It’s worth going for. Several teaching techniques can help create the degree of conceptual conflict that leads to positive intrinsic motivation. One of these is the exploitation of surprise. By surprise we don’t mean that the teacher walks in wearing a false nose and a funny hat. We want surprise that is intrinsic to the content, Rather, the teacher could begin by taking a bimetallic strip and holding it over a low flame; the strip sags downwards, Students are then invited to suggest why this occurs. Usually the class agrees that the heat has melted the strip and it droops with gravity. So the teacher holds the strip the other way and heats it. “Wah! it ‘droops’ toward the ceiling!” Class questioning produces various hypotheses, which bring out the need for more evidence. The teacher then settles the issue with the ball-and-ring apparatus; the class concludes that metals expand when heated, some metals more than others. That conclusion is embedded in a series of observations and arguments, cemented with the super-glue of intrinsically produced surprise. Questioning is important in creating and maintaining intrinsic interest. Questions open out knowledge; they arouse and maintain curiosity. Giving facts closes the issue; curiosity is killed before it is aroused. Several educators have recommended that any teacher who supplies more than three facts per lesson should be fired. Think about it. Positive intrinsic motivation has the following properties, which make it educationally so desirable. It: signals high-quality involvement; involves feelings of pleasure; is self-maintaining; and leads to deep level learning strategies (see Chapter 7). oo00 If one word is to sum up intrinsic motivation, it would be ‘ownership’. Students become intrinsically motivated about what they can feel is peculiarly ‘theirs’—an argument, a position, a responsibility, identification with a career-related step. And remember, public recognition accompanies ownership. Ownership can be encouraged by almost anything that opens out individual choice. You choose it, it’s yours: an elective, an assignment topic, a field of expertise. / a1Sa Learning and Development of Asian Students Ownership can be established and expressed in quite subtle ways in student-teacher interaction, a comment over an essay or in conversatio! “Let’s ask Po-lin o comment on this, as she’s especially good at this. Po-lin will glow, and even if she wasn’t especially interested she probably will be from now on. On the other hand, giving students no say in what they are to learn, and not letting them run with their own ideas, will deprive them of ownership, and they will be less interested in their work. Box 5, ‘our ways of putting value in the task. 1. Extrinsic: doing it gets you something you want, or preventing you from getting something you don’t want. 2. Social: doing it helps you identify with those you admire or gain recognition from them. 3. Achieving: doing it better than anyone else gives you, and yours, face. 4, Intrinsic: doing it gives you a great feeling. EXPECTING SUCCESS The sccond factor affecting academic motivation relates to students’ expectations of success. There are several factors that affect success expectations. Teacher Expectations How well teachers expect their students to achieve can create self-fulfilling prophecies by the way they affect students’ expectations of success. Letting students know you expect them to fail, makes it likely that they will fail. Teachers should do what they can to help students expect success, and avoid conveying to students the expectation of failure. ‘Amazingly, some tcachers seem to see this from another perspective, avoiding ways of encouraging a belief in success, but delighting'@n predicting failure (“What’s the cube root of 512? Bet I can pick those who can’t tell me!”). 92 'Motivating Students to Learn There are so thany ways, verbal and nonverbal, by which students can get a clear message that the teacher expects them to do well, or to fail. And so they do. (See Box 5.3 for a description of the most famous study in this arca). ‘ Stud&nt Expectations The actual clarity and difficulty of the task is one thing. How the student sees it is another. Central here are beliefs about the self. ‘Box 5.3: The Rosenthal and Jacobsen (1968) study of the teacher expectations effect. Rosenthal and Jacobsen told teachers that based on the results of a special test of general ability, they had identified certain children who were capable of showing great academic performance in the future These children were called "bloomérs’ (because they were supposedly capable of blooming like flowers in the spring). In fact, the test was not capable of identifying such children, and the bloomers were actually chosen at random. Despite this fact, after another 10 months these bloomers scored higher on a test of general ability than did other children, and (according to teachers) progressed faster in reading, were more curious, appealing and interesting, and were happier than their schoolmates. Teachers also reported that the bloomers needed less approval than other children. Rosenthal and Jacobsen called their study "Pygmalion in the Classroom’. The word ’Pygmalion’ was actually'the name of a sculptor who, according to ancient Greek legend, made a sculpture of his ideal woman, which then came to life. The name was also used as the title of a famous play by George Berard Shaw, involving a professor who bets his friends that he can change a poor uneducated woman into a sophisticated society lady. You may know the story as the musical and film My Fair Lady. Beliefs about the self. How students see their chances of success depends to a large extent on how they see themselves. The relationship between how we feel about ourselves. and our performance has clearly been established with respect to schoolwork (see also Chapter 4), and goes something like this: “If I know I can’t do it, I won't attempt to. But if I 93,Learning and Development of Asian Students know I can, I might if it is worth my while.” We have dealt with the issue of making it worthwhile, so here we look at the question of personal belief in success. Teachers play an important role in forming and maintaining these beliefs. You have already studied much about self-concept in Chapter 4. Particularly relevant here is a very specific form of self-concept: self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977). When people approach a task, they form expectations about how well they think they will be able to carry out that particular task. Such expectations derive from a variety of sources, but particularly on: 1. how well they have done that task in the past; 2. what they attribute their past performance to; and 3. how their teachers and even other students think they will perform. ‘The attributions or beliefs the student has about the causes of success and failure are particularly important. To what does the student attribute success and failure? In forming efficacy beliefs, it is important that individuals attribute the success or failure of previous performance to causes that will encourage, not discourage, farther involvement, Attribution theory (Weiner, 1986) relates future involvement in the task to what we think the reasons were for succeeding ot failing. These reasons have three main dimensions: , i. © Stability-instability. If we attribute failure to something that is unstable, such as bad luck, which may not occur in future, expectations about future performance may be unaffected. However, if failure is attributed to a stable factor that will occur in future, such as low ability, then one would expect to continue failing in future. © Controltable-uncontrollable, Some causes are within our control (cg, the amount of effort we put in), or somebody else’s (e.g. the difficulty of the task set), Our feelings of control are important in determining how we fecl about performing in future. Ownership is an important aspect of control. 94Motivating Students to Learn © Internal-external. The cause lies within ourselves (e.g. ability, which in this case is also uncontrollable), or in someone else (e.g. poor quality teaching), Let us logk first at what we attribute failure to and what effect that might have on expectations about future performance: Jaime has failed in arithmetic, and he attributes his failure to an unstable factor (luck): “Just my luck to get Miss Gonzalez! It was all her fault; at least I won't get her next year.” Future expectations: probably optimistic, Wai-yee attributes her failure to a controllable factor (poor study strategy): “But I’m studying properly now.” Future expectations: success likely. Janak attributes his failure to a stable internal factor (ability): “T’'m just not good at arithmetic. Never was, never will be.” Future expectations: future failure and lack of interest. King-hai attributes his failure to an unstable uncontrollable factor (task difficulty): “It's not that I'm dumb or anything; the test was just too hard.” Future expectations: open, possibly optimistic. Now let us take attributions for success and future expectations: Pedro has passed the arithmetic test very well. He attributes his success to an unstable factor (luck): “Man, wasn't Ijust one lucky cat! Chances are I won't strike it like that next semester.” Future expectations: pessimistic Mei Yuk attributes her success to a controllable factor (effort): “T worked hard for this and I succeeded. Good, I'll keep at it.” Future expectations: optimistic. Satya attributes his success to something stable (ability): “I’m smart, this stuff is a piece of cake.” Future expectations: optimistic-but if he thinks he’s that smart he may not bother to put in enough effort next time. 95Learning and Development of Asian Students Suki attributes her success to a stable internal factor (ownership). “] just love math. It’s really my thing. Unlike history.” Future expectations: optimistic within a narrow task range. ‘These little scenarios don’t cover all possible attributions, but they convey the general idea: some attributions will lead to optimism about future success, others to pessimism. Tt is important that-after-suecess-or failure, students be guided into making attributions that will be optimistic for future performance. Failing students may be led to believe that they can do better; successful students should be'led to believe that their success will continue. Failure should be attributed to unstable attributions such as lack of effort and success to stable ones, such as ability. Skill or strategy attributions seem to be particularly important after failure because then there is always @ way out, Clearly teachers should try to structure things so that the most hopeful attribution will be made in the events of success and failure. In the West, success and failure are usually attributed to: ability, task difficulty, luck, and effort. The top five attributions for success of Hong. Kong secondary students were (in order of importance): effort, interest in stady, stady skill, mood, and ability (Hau & Salili, 1991). The first four ‘are more or less controllable; the fifth, which Western students see as most important for success, is not. In this, Hong Kong students are typical of many Asians cultures, which emphasize diligence and effort as being the keys to success. Do you think it likely that such attributions account for the high degree of success that Asian immigrants have in Western schools? Learned helplessness. A particularly bad form of attribution reduces the student to a state known as ‘learned helplessness’ (Seligman, 1995). This occurs when the attributions are stable, internal, uncontrollable, and general, so that a broad range of performance is affected. The result is a deep depression; “Things are bad on all fronts, and I can’t do anything about it.” The world is tnpredictable and uncontrollable. In these circumstances, a belief in effort only makes matters worse, because if a student knows he or she is putting in every effort possible, and teachers and parents are still not satisfied, then what hope is there? It is probably such a belief that drives many students to suicide (See Box 5.4). 96: Motivating Students to Learn Box 5.4: The downside of effort attributions: A letter left by a student suicide. Nevertheless, there is hardship in studying as well. Every day, there are many homeworks. They are not only in large quantity, but also difficult to do ... Though after 12 o’clock in every night, I still have to revise my homeworks. I can’t go to bed until one o’clock odd. At 6.50 hours, in the next moming, I have to get up. (1) am so hard. Tdo wish no studying. Written by a 10 year-old who jumped from his 19th floor bedroom, rather than tell his parents he could not do his math homework when he’d studied as hard as he could. (‘South China Mornir Task Difficulty Expectations for success will be guided by how difficult the students see the tasks to be. This in turn depends on their own past experience, and on the messages the teachers get across: “This is really hard, but with effort you'll be able to handle it. If you do have trouble, come and talk to me about it.” Compare that with: “This may look hard, but it’s not. If you're having trouble, then you really do have problems. You're obviously out of your depth.” ., THE CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT There are several important contextual factors that relate to both valuing the task and to expected probability of success. Setting the Right Atmosphere: Getting to Like the Squeak Classroom climate can be either emotionally ‘cold’ or ‘warm’. This climate more than anything will determine the quality of students? motivations. Students cannot be expected to find academic activities worthwhile and meaningful if they are alienated, anxious, or cynical about their learning. Students fall of aggression, anger, fear, or mischief, 97Learning and Development of Asian Students ‘will not be in the right mood for academic involvement. Setting the right ‘feel’ of the classroom is a very personal thing, depending to an important extent on the teacher’s personality and value system. However, there are particular things teachers can do, and not do, in order to achieve the atmosphere they want. ‘A task, or a context, becomes pleasant (and is therefore approached) or unpleasant (and is therefore avoided) by association with pleasant or unpleasant stimuli. Pavlov, the Russian physiologist, noted that when his laboratory dogs were being fed, one of the doors leading to the lab squeaked and that the dogs salivated soon after hearing the squeak of the door, before they saw the food itself. Those dogs got to like the squeak when it occurred. And that is what teachers need to do; see that students. get to like the squeak. A Well-managed Context ‘The task has to be meaningful and set in a meaningful context, Artificial exercises, out of context, are not easily seen as meaningful, and thus of little value. The probability of success and task value are enhanced when goals are near, not far. A task set for tonight is more likely to extract action than one set for the end of next month. A series of sub-goals lets students know where they stand, and how their performance can be monitored. Goals should be clear and specific. Setting up a discussion group to discuss last week’s lecture is unclear: What aspects of the lecture? What are we supposed to discuss? How can we succeed at such a badly defined task? Likewise with essay topics: manageable topic, with clear guidelines, and a firm deadline. It makes the task more valued, and the perceived likelihood of success higher. While it is possible to be too pedantic and directive, students cannot be expected to commit themselves to something they perceive only dimly. They should be able to see what the teacher is driving at, and also be able to have the criteria spelled out clearly so that they can be continually monitoring their own chances of success. Stumbling about in a fog is not pleasant. 98Motivating Students to Learn y Box 5.5: Ways of helping students expect success. 1, Expect them to succeed yourself: set reasonable tasks; 2. Get them to attribute success to ability, failure to lack of effort; and 3. Establish a warm and supportive classroom climate. MAXIMIZING THE CHANCES OF ACADEMIC MOTIVATION The ultimate motivational goal is to maximize intrinsic motivation. This may seem difficult the way most classrooms are structured, but there are many practical things that can be done, and equally as important, things that shouldn’t be done as they are damaging to motivation. Remember, the underlying principles are twofold: to make sure the students see the tasks you sct them as meaningful and worthwhile, and that they have a reasonable chance of completing them satisfactorily. What Maximizes Motivation 1. Positive associations of pleasure. We tend to like activities set in pleasant:surroundings, in contexts evoking positive associations. We like the squeak. 2. Social reinforcement (praise) and the example of admired figures (modeling). Social motivation in its various forms is a major basis for intrinsic motivation. 3. Ownership, anything to suggest that “this is mine”. Freedom to make own choice of an activity, freedom to proceed at own pace. 4. Indications of competence, anything to suggest that the student is good at the activity, such’ as a reward, but only if it follows especially good performance. Rewarding an already liked activity on a contract basis can actually depress motivation of it. 5. The right mix of familiar and unfamiliar. This is the cognitive bottom line of intrinsic motivation, but is the hardest to sct up in 99Learning and Development of Asian Students practice. Expository, lock-step teaching styles make it even more difficult to obtain; more open, group or individually oriented styles make it easicr. What Diminishes Motivation 1. Negative reinforcement (threats of punishment). An atmosphere of threat associates anxiety and dislike with the task. And if the task is done wrongly, punishment follows: not a good way to get students to like their work. 2. Unpleasant associations in general, but particularly those conveying the expectation of failure. Surveillance (supervising the learner) is especially nasty, even if it isn’t meant to be. Standing over the student, looking down at her work while she is working, is a sure killer. It is saying one or all of: “You are incompetent. You are about to make a mistake. I’m bere to make sure you don’t.” or “You are untrustworthy. You hate what you are doing. You'll stop if I don’t stand over you.” or even “I’ve got power ‘over you. I have the right to stand over you and humiliate you. It makes quite clear who is boss around here.” Any messages that suggest incompetence are damaging: “Well Class, guess who’s going to get this one wrong!” 3. Setting work that is either too easy or too difficult. Easy work leads to boredom; difficult work leads to despair. The key here is the right mix between familiar and unfamiliar. In general, intrinsic motivation is enhanced by attributions and conditions . that suggest competence and control over the situation; it is depressed by attributions suggesting powerlessness and incompetence. This statement has powerful implications for just about everything the teacher says or does. meno thth@ onMotivating Students to Learn SUMMARY AND CONCLSIONS Why Do Students Learn? In their natural setting, people learn because it comes naturally; they do what they have to do. School learning does not come naturally for most students. Accordingly, we have a problem of ‘motivation’. We are’ not motivated unless we both expect to be successful, and to value the activity or its outcome; we have to make Icarning important and possible. _____Who would pursue the impossible or the unwanted? The teacher has therefore to see that academic activities and tasks are valued in some way, and that students can expect a reasonable chance of success if they undertake them. ‘ Valuing the Task There are several ways of valuing the task, which refer to different kinds of motivation, The most direct way is extrinsic by ensuring that the consequences lead to something desired, and that undesirable behavior leads nowhere. The main ‘but’ is that the teacher has to be consistent, and that may be very difficult in practice. Social motivation depends on valuing what important other people value, and doing what other people do. Unfortunately, it is easy to model unpleasant behaviors such as aggression; and often adolescents freely model on those whom we would rather they didn’t. Those who are achievement motivated value the idea that they are better than anyone else at whatever it is. The down side is that many of those who are worse than whoever is better are turned off from the entire proceedings. In intrinsic motivation, the activity itself is valued. It is bound up with the development of competence; the conditions for meaningful learning simultaneously promote interest. The key is complexity that is optimal for the individual, relating to a task over which the individual has feelings of ownership. 101Learning and Development of Asian Students Expecting Success Beliefs about the self may refer in general terms to self-concept, or more specifically to self-efficacy, which relates more to how confident students are that they can do specific tasks. Such beliefs are very significant in determining future motivation in the task in question. Self-efficacy is affected by many factors, including what their teachers convey, past performance in the task, but perhaps even more importantly, what past performance is attributed to. If students believe their successes are due to stable conditions then the motivational outlook is good. If they believe that their failures are due to factors which they can control and rectify in future, such as learning appropriate strategies and putting in more effort, failure can be a positive leaming experience, rather than a face-losing embarrassment. Setting assessment goals which are challenging but reachable for each student is important here (see Chapter 13). ‘The Context of Learning : The context in which tasks are given to students affects both the value the task has and the expected success. A well-managed context, with the task clearly defined, the surroundings pleasant, and the classroom climate warm, collectively tell the student that the teacher cares: he or she wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble over a task that was not valued. Similarly, you can’t expect to succeed when you are not sure what you are doing. Maximizing the Chances of Academic Motivation Several factors maximize academic motivation: positive associations of pleasure (getting to like the squeak); social reinforcement (praise) and the example of admired figures (modeling); ownership, or anything to suggest that “this is mine”; indications of competence, such as a reward ‘that is contingent on exemplary performance, but reward as a contract puts a fixed price on the activity; and the right mix of familiar and unfamiliar. Equally important is to minimize those factors that depress academic motivation. Such factors include: negative reinforcement (threats of punishment) and its demon-rider, punishment; unpleasant associations in general, particularly those conveying the expectation of failure; 102Motivating Students 10 Learn surveillance (supervising the learner) is especially nasty, even if it isn’t meant to be; setting work that is either too easy or too difficult. FOOD FOR THOUGHT 1. To what do you usually attribute success when you do well in a subject: ability, luck, effort, good teaching? To what do you attribute failure? In order to maintain success and to diminish the chances of failing, do you need to rethink your attributions for success and failure? 2. Traditional Chinese views saw reward as weakening character and punishment as strengthening character. What view do you take? Do you think that Western approaches to discipline that emphasize rewarding wanted behavior and ignoring unwanted are unlikely to work in Asian cultures? 3. What things in your school encourage competition? Is this good for students or bad? Which students like competition? Which ones do not? KEY. CONCEPTS 1 Achievement motivation: Motivation for academic leaming that is based on the ego-enhancement achieved by winning in a competitive situation; desire to achieve success, as opposed to desire to avoid failure. Attribution theory: A theory which bases motivation for performance of a particular task on previous performance of that task, Specifically, attribution theory emphasizes the factors (such as ability, luck, effort or task difficulty) to which the subject attributes his or her performance. What attributions students make have an effect on future performance. Behavior modification: A technique of changing the behavior of individuals by deliberately altering the consequences of a particular behavior in order to change the frequency of future occurrence of that behavior, based on Skinner’s principles of operant conditioning, 103Learning and Development of Asian Students Expectancy-value theory: A family of motivational theories proposing that students will be *motivated* to do a task only when it is perceived both as valuable in some way, and that they have a reasonable chance of succeeding if they attempt it. Schools tend to get it wrong on both counts. Extinetion: The weakening and disappearance of a learned response through lack of reinforcement. Extrinsic motivation: Where learning or performance takes place as a means of gaining some material reward or avoiding a punishment, it is extrinsically motivated; learning for the material consequences. Intrinsic motivation: Where learning or performance takes place independently of intrinsic, social or achicvement motivation, it is positively intrinsically motivated; where learning is abruptly terminated for no evident reasons it is negatively intrinsically motivated. Positive intrinsic motivation usually signals high quality learning. Learned helplessness: A state of depression and inability to cope brought about by the realization that one has no control over one’s environment, Match-mismateh: The extent of match between the demands of an experience and what the individual can handle in response. An ideal level of mismatch creates intrinsic motivations (as ’challenge"); more or less than this leads to negative motivational states. Modeling: Learning that takes place as a result of seeing someone else carry out the performance. Motivation: The reasons for undertaking a task: a particular problem in institutionalized learning. See expectancy-value theory. Motive: The reason(s) why a student approaches a task. In general, motives may be instrumental, intrinsic, achieving and social. Punishment: An unpleasant event that follows a particular behavior as a result of a deliberate decision by an authority figure. Its effects on students are unpredictable.Motivating Students t0 Learn Reinforcement: The process whereby a (rewarding) consequence of a response results in the increased likelihood of that response occurring in future. A positive reinforcer refers to a pleasant consequence; a negative reinforcer to the avoidance of an unpleasant consequence. Self-efficacy: The confidence that a person has that he or she can succestfully perform a specific task. Sclf-fulfilling prophecy: A teachers’ expectations of a student can help bring about that student's academic performance or behavior. Social motivation: Where leaming or performance takes place because of the influence of one or more other people, as in modeling, or conforming to a group. LEARNING ACTIVITIES 1. Taking the example of Rosalita at the beginning of this chapter, discuss in your group in terms of expectancy-value theory how the curriculum for girls and boys like her can be changed. 2. Bach student in the ,group is to describe a case of leaned hopelessness: ‘Take a few-of the more interesting cases, and identify the factors that make that student perceive him or her self to be hopeless, What might be done about it? 3. Whilst doing teaching, or in a class you have a chance of observing, list the attributions you hear the teacher make during the course of a lesson or two. (E.g.: “You must have been lucky that time”; “You could if you tried hard enough”; “See how Kim does it”) What sort of pattern emerges? Is the teacher conveying the right messages do you think? Treat this as a class activity and share your results and discussion. REFERENCES Atkinson, J. (1966). Mainsprings of achievement-oriented activity. In J. Krumbolz (Ed.), Learning and the Educational Process. Chicago: Rand McNally. 105Learning and Development of Asian Students Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Towards a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215. Biggs, J, & Moore, P, (1993). The Process of Learning. Sydney: Prentice Hall of ‘Australia. Chapters 6 & 17. Fulop, M. (1999). Japanese students’ perception of the role of competition in their country. Asian and African Studies, 3, 148-174. Hau, K.T., & Salili, F, (1991). Structure and semantic differential placement of specific causes: Academic causal attributions by Chinese students in Hong Kong. International Journal of Psychology, 26, 18-31. Rosenthal, R.,, & Jacobsen, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the Classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Seligman, M. (1995). Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death, San Francisco: Freeman, ‘Watkins, D., & Fulop, M. (2005). Competition from a cross-cultural, perspective. Invited paper, Asian Association of Social Psychology, Wellington, New Zealand. i Watkins, D. (2008). Competition in Hong Kong secondary schools: ‘The students’ perspective. In C. Chan & N. Rao (Eds), Beyond the Chinese Learner. Hong Kong/Netherlands: Comparative Education Research Center/Elsevier. Weiner, B. (1986). Hunan Motivation. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Wigfield, A. & Eccles, J.S. (2000). Expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 68-81. Yu, A.B. (1996). Ulimate life concerning, self, and Chinese achievement motivation. In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The Handbook of Chinese Psychology (pp.227-246). Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. FURTHER READING Deci, E.L., & Ryan, RM, (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination in Human Behavior. New York: Plenum Press. Pajares, B. (2003). Self-efficacy beliefs, motivation, and achievement in writing. Reading ‘and Writing Quarterly, 19, 139-158. Pintrich, P. (2003), A motivation science perspective on the role of student motivation in learning and teaching contexts, Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 667-686. 106Motivating Students to Learn Watkins, D., & Biggs, J. (Eds.) (1996). The Chinese Learner. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, Weiner, B. (1986). Human Motivation, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. ‘ USEFUL WEBSITES Understanding the keys {0 motivation to leam. Barbara McCombs: htp:/www.merel.org/PDF/Noteworthy/Leamers Learning Schooling/barbaram.asp Helping children achieve their _best._In school. At home. In _ life. Thitp://www nasponline.org/resources/home_schooVearlychildmotiv_ho.aspx Teaching tips: Motivating leaming, http:/tlc.eku.edu/tips/motivating_ learning/ 107