Motivation: Issues and Explanations I. WHAT IS MOTIVATION? A.

Definition: an internal state that arouses, directs and maintains behaviour B. Often involves choice, duration, intensity, persistence, and emotional response C. Motivation can be seen as both stable and unstable 1. Motivation can be seen as traits, or stable characteristics of individuals 2. motivation can be seen as a temporary state that fluctuates in response to environmental or internal states II. INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION A. Intrinsic association 1. activities that are their own reward 2. enjoyment of a task or sense of accomplishment that it brings B. Extrinsic association 1. motivation created by external factors like rewards and punishments 2. participation based on possible gains, not on interest in the activity itself C. Locus of causality explains the students reason for performing tasks 1. Internal/Intrinsic - students freely choose to perform an activity 2. External/Extrinsic - students are influenced by someone or something outside themselves D. Four General Approaches to Motivation 1. Behavioural approaches to motivation a) Reward is an attractive object or event supplied as a consequence of a particular behaviour b) Incentive is an object or event that encourages or discourages behaviour 2. Humanistic approaches to motivation a) Reaction against behaviourism and Freudian psychoanalysis

b) Emphasis on personal freedom, choice, self-determination, and personal growth (example, Maslow's hierarchy of needs) c) Role of needs is central; people are motivated to fulfil their potential 3. Cognitive approaches to motivation a) Behaviour is determined by thinking, not simply by reward or punishment for past behaviour b) people's behaviour is initiated and regulated by plans, goals, schemas, expectations, and attributions c) a central assumption is that people respond not to external or physical conditions or events, but to interpretations d) people are seen as active and curious, searching for information to solve personally relevant problems 4. Social learning approaches to motivation a) integration of behavioural and cognitive approaches b) expectancy X-value theories: motivation is the product of two forces 1) expectation of success 2) value of the goal 3) example - Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory III. Goals (what an individual strives to accomplish) and Motivation A. Types of goals that are most effective: specific, moderately difficult, within reach 1. Learning goals a) seek challenge and mastery of a topic b) task-involved c) persistent 2. Performance goals a) seek to perform well b) ego-involved c) give up easily B. Feedback and goal acceptance 1. Feedback - an accurate sense of where one is and how far one has to go 2. Goal acceptance - students accept goals set by teachers or establish own goals

C. Goals: Lessons for teachers 1. Students are more likely to work toward goals that are clear, specific, moderately challenging, attainable in short time 2. Emphasis should be on learning and improving, not just performing well IV. Needs and Motivations A. Needs; what a deficiency person requires or thinks he/she requires for overall well-being; needs activate motivation B. Maslow believed that needs function as a hierarchy 1. Deficiency needs (four) a. Survival, safety, belonging, and self-esteem b. These must be satisfied first 2. Being needs (three) a. Intellectual achievement, aesthetic appreciation, and self-actualization b. There are never completely fulfilled/endlessly renewed 3. Criticisms of the theory 4. Educational implications 1. Enables look at full person: physical emotional, and intellectual need interrelated 2. Students with deficiency needs will not seek knowledge and understanding 3. Students' needs and teacher's goals may conflict C. Needs for Achievement: Desire to Excel for the Sake of Achieving 1. Origins lie in the family and cultural group of the child 2. Resultant motivation: when the achievement motivation is greater than the need to avoid failure 3. Fear of failure: when the achievement motivation is less than the need to avoid failure 4. The student will usually be discouraged by failure and encouraged by success D. The Need for Self-Determination 1. The desire to have our own wishes rather than external rewards 2. People strive to become the causal agent for their own behaviour 3. DeCharms model: origins versus pawns E. Need for relatedness

1. The need to develop bonds with others in order to be connected to important people in our lives 2. Two components: involvement and autonomy support a) involvement: the degree to which teachers are interested in and involved with children's interests and experiences b) autonomy support: the degree to which teachers and parents encourage children to make their own choices F. Needs and Motivation: lessons for teachers 1. Meet lower level needs first, providing a secure learning environment 2. Make sure that tasks offer a sense of achievement 3. Students need to form positive relationships with others 4. Teachers need to make students feel secure, competent, and cared for 5. Students need to feel like origins rather than pawns VII. Attributions, beliefs and motivations A. Attribution theory describes how an individual's justifications and excuses influence motivation (B. Weiner) B. 3 dimensions: locus, stability, responsibility C. Locus 1. Internal locus is related to confidence and self-esteem, or loss of self-esteem 2. Students with internal locus feel responsible for success through skill and effort 3. Students with external locus prefer to work in situations governed by luck D. Stability( stable or unstable dimensions) is related to expectations about the future 1. If success is attributed to stable factors, similar expectation of past to future 2. If success is attributed to unstable factors, expectation is that the future will differ from the past E. Responsibility: whether a student can control the causes of success; it is related to emotional reaction 1. If attribution is that success or failure is due to controllable factors, the outcome is feeling of pride or shame

2. If attribution is to uncontrollable factors, outcome will be gratitude for good luck F. Attributions are linked to emotional responses that may be support continued activity or diminished motivated behaviour G. Distinguishing between self-determination and control by others 1. Deci and Ryan's concept of intrinsic motivation 2. DeCharms' concept of origins and pawns 3. Rotter's concept of locus of control H. Learned Helplessness 1. Belief that events and outcomes are controlled 2. Results in cognitive, motivational, and affective deficits I. Attributions and Student Motivation 1. Positive, adaptive mastery-oriented response: failure attributed to lack of effort (internal and controllable); focus on strategies for succeeding next time 2. Negative, unmotivated: failure attributed to internal, stable, and uncontrollable causes (resigned to failure and apathetic) Cues about causes 1. Teach behaviour with respect to praise, providing help, questions 2. Social comparison by self or others

A. Mastery-oriented students 1. Set learning goals 2. Assume responsibility for success and failure 3. Competitive B. Failure-avoiding students 1. set performance goals 2. seek to protect image 3. take few risks or may decide they are incompetent C. Failure-accepting students 1. failure avoidance leads to failure acceptance 2. believe that their problems are due to low ability D. Lessons for teachers 1. help failure-avoiding students to set realistic goals 2. avoid encouraging self-defeating attitudes E. Guidelines: Encouraging Students Self-Worth

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K. Beliefs about ability 1. Entity view a) intelligence fixed, stable, uncontrollable b) students tend to set performance goals 2. Incremental view: intelligence is a set of skills that can be changed; it is unstable, yet controllable a) young children hold this view almost exclusively b) value effort c) between 10 and 12 years of age, children learn to differentiate among effort, ability and performance 1) students tend to set learning goals 2) failure is not as threatening 3) tend to set moderately difficult goals which are the most motivating

VII. Attributions, Achievement Motivation, and Self-Worth