Paper presented at the

British Psychological Society Education Section Conference in Blackpool, April 1991

Motivation and learning strategies

Noel Entwistle University of Edinburgh

What is motivation ?
For psychologists and teachers alike 'motivation' has been one of the key concepts used to
explain different levels of performance. It purports to explain differences in the amount of effort
applied to learning tasks and is thus expected to be strongly related to differences in levels of
performance. At its simplest, motivation has been related to the amount of intellectual energy
typically used in learning activities, and this led to a belief that motivation could been seen as a
stable characteristic of the individual, on a par with personality.
Today we are more likely to stress the importance of two-way interactions between
individual differences, such as motivation, and the learning environment. We have to be cautious
in looking for simple causal explanations of differences in academic performance, yet the use of
the concept of motivation seems to carry with it an implication of unidirectional causality. In
reality, motivation is affected by experiences of learning, as well as itself influencing the quantity
and the quality of what is learned. In discussing motivation, we shall also have to beware of the
mechanistic and moralistic overtones often associated with its use as an explanation of success or
failure. Mechanistic models lead to simplistic and misleading explanations, while seeing
motivation as akin to personality may lead us to believe that differences in effort stem entirely
from the nature, or the moral rectitude, of the individual. Some pupils are 'motivated', others are
'lazy'. This may be part of the explanation, but it all too conveniently lays the blame for poor
performance soley on the learner. And we would still have to explain, and change, that 'laziness'.
It will be important to remember that our real focus of interest is not on motivation itself,
rather it is on the amount of effort pupils put into their work. Motivation contains implications
about the origins of effort, but if we accept that it is not a fixed quality of the individual, then we
shall have to widen our search for explanations of effort. Time and again we shall find that
behind both motivation and effort lie reward and punishment. And associated with those are
strong emotional reactions to perceived success and failure. Motivation may seem to explain
hard work, but striving ceases if rewards are removed, prove unobtainable, or cease to be valued.
Moreover, if feelings of failure predominate, incentives may fail altogether to produce effort. It
seems, therefore, that we shall find the roots of motivation in the availability and use of rewards,
and in how those rewards are perceived and interpreted by the pupils .
The main focus of this paper will be on recent developments in research on motivation and
learning strategies, but they need to be put in the context of earlier resaerch which developed
along two main fronts. One followed the precepts of behaviourist theories, while the other
looked for evidence of individual traits describing different forms of motivation.

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Reinforcement and Drive Reduction
The early behaviourists saw motivation in terms of the motive power which could explain the
effort applied to learning tasks. They used an analogy from mechanics to suggest that actions
were dependent on the combined effects of various forces acting on the individual. These forces
could be external or internal. Externally, behaviour could be manipulated by rewarding or
reinforcing the desired behaviours, while the reduction in the level of internal drive states could
also be used for reinforcement. In animals, hunger and fear were used as internal drives towards
required behaviour. It was seen that such drives might also explain human behaviour. The
amount of effort put into a task depended on the level of drive, and what was learned could be
explained in terms of the combined effects of external rewards or correctives and internal drives
rooted ultimately in physiological needs.
Even in these early days, it was recognised by Abraham Maslow, among others, that humans
had both psychological and physiological needs, and that those needs could be presented as a
hierarchy, implying that lower order needs had to be satisfied before higher order ones could be
addressed. Thus children who were hungry or felt rejected or ineffective could not be expected
to respond to the higher-order needs for knowledge, intellectual understanding, or aesthetic
appreciation. These ideas remain true and important today, but for many years mainstream
psychological research persisted along a track which remained mechanistic and deterministic.

Motivation and Contrasting Reward Patterns

The behaviourists had highlighted the influence of reinforcement on behaviour and had
shown how patterns of reinforcement led to stable habits.
There was also an indication from social psychologists of how child rearing practices might
affect the development of motivation (Rosen & d'Andrade, 1959). More recently attempts have
been made to develop a theory of motivation, rooted in the use of rewards and corrective
devices, which brings together the influences of parents, teachers, and other pupils in explaining
differences in school motivation.
Bela Kozeki (1985), in Hungary, has pointed out that parents and teachers make use of
different types of reward which shape a child's personality and motivational style, and so their
characteristic reactions to learning tasks. From an extensive series of interviews, he came to the
conclusion that children exhibit distinctive motivational styles which are rooted in their
relationships with 'significant others' - particularly with their parents, teachers, and close friends.
The various motivational sources and reinforcements provided by these significant others are
more or less available to all children in school, but they respond in very different ways to them,
due to individual differences in temperament and in past experiences of contrasting patterns of
reward and correction (Kozeki,1975,1985; Kozeki & Entwistle,1983).
The experiences at home and at school gradually drive children to react more sensitively to
certain reinforcements than to others. Kozeki identified three motivational domains as the first

2
step in relating motives to rewards. He then went on to subdivide each of these three broad
motivational domains, into three more narrowly defined motives.
The first domain describes emotional and social forms of reinforcement. The relationship
with the parents establishes one strong and continuing motive. Pleasing parents provides as its
reward the expression of warmth through caring and loving sentiments. Identification , with
parents and later with teachers, becomes for the child one sure way of ensuring adult approval by
modelling their own behaviour. It thus becomes a strong secondary form of reinforcement. As
the child's social network extends, approval from peers or sociability becomes increasingly
important with its rewards in acceptance by friends. These first three motives were clearly
recognisable in interviews at all ages, and represent the affective domain of motivation rarely
found in previous descriptions of school motivation, yet it is of fundamental importance for
teachers both in understanding pupils' behaviour and in planning effective methods of education.
Reinforcement within the second domain of motivation comes from cognitive and practical
accomplishments. As children develop, the strong bond with parents is challenged by an
increasing demand for autonomy and independence. The sense of freedom, of achieving
something in their own way, becomes increasingly important for adolescents, but was also
identified in younger pupils. Children seek to extend their mastery over the environment through
acquiring knowledge and skills - a feeling of competence which has its own strong reinforcing
quality. Interest , and the rewards of self-expression, represent the last cognitive dimension
which could be delineated from the interview data.
Finally, there are rewards deriving from personal and social responsiveness - the moral
domain. It describes the attempts to integrate and control the various sources of pleasure and
pain, and to reach personal decisions on what types of action are right or wrong, or potentially
rewarding or punishing, according to both personal and social values. Feeling that you are living
up to the trust of others develops self-esteem, and can be seen as a form of control internalised in
the conscience from previous actions of parents, teachers and friends. The next motive,
compliance, reflects the controlling influence of accepted social norms, higher-order moral
values, or religious beliefs and the feeling that you are following these codes of behaviour can be
satisfying. Finally, pupils develop, and enjoy, personal responsibility , judging their behaviour in
terms of their own internalised standards of what is acceptable.
These nine motives were established from interviews, but they have since been identified
from a series of inventories designed to assess the relative strength of these motives in pupils of
ages between 8 and 18. The factor structure has repeated shown the existence of three domains
generally with two distinguishable motives in each, but across different samples eight of the nine
hypothesized motives have appeared as factors (Kozeki and Entwistle, 1984).

Distinctive motivational styles

In considering how to influence children's behaviour, we need to take account not just of the
strength of a child's motives, either separately or in total, but more importantly to assess the
balance between them. It is the distinctive balance between motives which can be described as a
motivational style. Few children have high, or low, motivation in all three domains; most
children with balanced and effective motivational styles show a pattern in which one motive is
3
dominant, one is positive, and the other is neutral (Kozeki & Entwistle,1983; Entwistle, Kozeki
& Pollitt,1987). Strong motivation in one domain only creates what can become a serious
personality problem. For example, over-reliance on emotional rewards alone often carries with it
immature dependence on adults, while concentration on cognitive rewards is regularly associated
with aggressive competiveness, if not balanced by either moral or affective motives. More recent
factor analyses imply that, empirically, there is a complementarity between affective and moral
domains with the cognitive domain staying uniformly separate (Entwistle & Kozeki, 1985).
Parents and teachers, Kozeki argues, need to recognize that child-rearing and teaching
practices should be based on patterns of reinforcement which will produce balanced motivational
styles. Often parents and teachers will themselves rely too much on one or other type of rewards
or corrections. They may, for example, be unconditionally supporting or coldy demanding; they
may guide, encourage and explain or leave the child to his own devices; finally, they may show
trust and consistent control or demand unthinking obedience. Although in each case one extreme
might be seen as positive and the other negative, it was clear from Kozeki's interviews that even
the positive pole, without complementary treatment in the other domains, led to weaker and less
successful motivational styles. Thus parents who showed unconditional love and support were
likely to develop in the children an overdependence on personal relationships, leaving them
anxious and uncertain of their own capabilities. Strong reliance on reward or punishment in the
cognitive domain seemed to produce excessive competiveness and rivalry, while overemphasis
on the moral domain often led either to apathetic compliance or, in contrast, a form of fanaticism,
accepting a particular belief system without question and trying to impose it on others.
Kozeki's ideas are summarized in diagramatic form in Figure 1. The central core of the
diagram contains the three most positive motivational styles, labelled dependent, independent,
and dependable. The middle ring contains the nine motives, while the outer ring indicates the
types of behaviour likely to develop the contrasting motivational patterns identified.

Motivation as an individual difference

Returning to the early research on motivation, we have seen how appropriate reinforcement was
thought to control behaviour both immediately, and through the creation of habits and the
development of personality traits which regulated behaviour thereafter. The second track
followed by the early researchers concentrated on these individual differences.
The original idea of motivation as the energy invested in learning implied unidimensionality
- a single form of motivation. Even the early attempts to measure motivational traits dispelled
that simple view. Researchers found it necessary to describe several different forms of
motivation. The first distinction, anticipated by the behaviourists, was betweenintrinsic and
extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation was seen as being fuelled by attitudes to the subject
matter itself. And those attitudes have since been subdivided into interest , easiness , and the
perceived utility or relevance of what is being learned for life beyond school (Entwistle &
Duckworth,1977). In contrast, extrinsic or instrumental motivation was seen to depend on the
use of external rewards in the form of, say, gold stars, marks or exam grades, presents for good
exam results, or qualifications which promise good employment prospects.

4
 The second main distinction was between need for achievement and fear of failure. Need
for achievement can be seen as a search for success intended to boost, or at least maintain, self-
esteem. Fear of failure is its obverse - an anticipated threat to self-esteem rooted in pessimism
about the outcomes of learning. When these concepts were first introduced it was expected that
academic success would be driven solely by need for achievement (Atkinson & Feather,1966).
Fear of failure, in contrast, would lead to failure. However, it subsequently appeared that the
relationships were less clear-cut. In competitive situations and under time pressure, the expected
relationships were found, but under more collaborative, relaxed and informal learning conditions,
fear of failure was no disadvantage (Birney, Burdick & Teevan,1969).
In more recent research, the distinction between need for achievement and fear of failure
was seen very clearly in interviews carried out at Lancaster University, when students with high
scores on one or other of these traits were asked about their reactions to situations they had met
(Entwistle, Thompson & Wilson,1974). The most striking difference was found in their
comments about examinations. Students motivated by need for achievement welcomed the
challenge as an opportunity to prove their worth.
I enjoy doing exams. I think it's the challenge. You've got three or four hours and, somehow or other, you've
got to get out of yourself enough of a pattern to knit something up, to knit three or four different garments
out of a tangle of wool. It's fun - when you know enough to make it fun.
In contrast, students dominated by fear of failure expressed feelings of depression or panic.
I was hysterical at 'O' Levels, 'A' Levels too. I don't know what's going to happen this summer...As soon as I
look at the paper I panic and think I can't do anything. Eventually, I get my nerve back and regain control.
(Even so) perhaps two or three times throughout the exam, I go all hot and think I've got it all wrong. And
one bad question really mucks me up.
Even though the pessimism is clear in these comments, many of these anxious students had done
quite well. But in spite of repeated evidence of their academic competence, they still anticipated
future academic disaster. The analyses of the interviews suggested strongly that these
contrasting motivations were rooted in very different personalities. And it seemed that
students of differing personality and motivational types not only tackle their academic work in different ways
but,from descriptions of their university experience, they evidently perceive themselves to be in
differing environments.
The interviews highlighted how different were students' subjective perceptions of what
were, objectively, comparable sets of experiences. Moreover, their feelings about their
achievements and their explanations of their past successes and failures were in total contrast.
Thus, to some extent at least, it makes sense to talk about motivation as a characteristic of the
individual which colours the experiences of learning. And it is also important to recognise that
students see their experiences of success and failure in very different ways, and this influences
their investment of effort.

Explanations of success and failure

As mentioned earlier, our main concern is not with motivation itself, but with the effort which
students put into their work. A good deal of recent research has been directed towards
understanding differences in effort. At one extreme, most teachers have come across pupils who,
5
paradoxically, put effort into avoiding effort. They do all they can to avoid carrying out the tasks
set by the teacher. What seems to be happening here, is that pupils are trying hard to avoid either
tasks they describe as boring, or situations with which they associate feelings of failure
(Rollett,1987). 'Boredom' is the term most frequently used by low-achieving pupils when they
complain about their experiences of schooling, particularly at secondary level (Gow &
McPherson,1980; Sharp & Thomson,1984). If pressed, such pupils may go on to suggest that
they find school a painful experience. They see themselves as 'failures'.
Whereas our successful students used their fear of failure as a source of continued effort,
less successful students see failure as a repeated attack on their self-esteem, and have to try to
come to terms with it. In a society which stresses the importance of both academic and
vocational achievements, strong feelings become associated with the judgements made of
success and failure. People have to explain these outcomes to themselves, and so they attribute
their success or failure to a variety of different causes. They may take responsibility for the
outcomes of their learning by making internal attributions , or they may instead seek external
reasons, particularly to defend their feelings of 'self-worth' against the pain of repeated failure. If
we are seeking to explain differences in the effort, or lack of effort, that people put into learning,
it is essential to understand their emotional responses to, and rationalisations of, the outcomes of
learning.
When pupils are asked to explain how well or how badly they have done at school, a striking
distinction between internal and external attributions emerges. Pupils make internal attributions
to explain the outcomes of their schoolwork by mentioning ability, the amount of effort put into
the work, or the strategy adopted. External attributions of failure refer to bad luck, the difficulty
of the task, or unfairness on the teacher's part. Pupils who use external attributions are, in effect,
denying responsibility for their own learning. If pupils can be helped to move from external to
internal attributions, if in other words they can be induced to take charge of their own learning,
then they are more likely to increase the effort they put into it. This procedure seems to lead to
beneficial results for some pupils, but not for others. There is, as we shall see, a subtle danger in
encouraging less able pupils to use internal attributions.
Among the three main forms of internal attribution, an important distinction can be made in
their relative stability (Weiner,1984). To attribute failure to effort or to strategy means that next
time, with more effort or with a better strategy, success may be possible. To explain failure in
terms of lack of ability, however, carries with it an implicit expectation of continuing failure on
similar tasks. Effort and strategy can be varied, but ability cannot be changed at will. This
creates a painful dilemma for some low ability pupils. If they do badly, the teacher will often
exhort them to 'try harder' - to use more effort. But if they do try harder and still fail, they are
forced to face up to a more painful attribution. Their ability and so their 'self-worth' is under
threat. In such situations pupils may well resort to effort avoidance, as we have seen, or they
may try to opt out altogether. But, as an American researcher - Martin Covington (1983) - has
pointed out, neither effort avoidance nor opting out is a sustainable tactic for the pupil.
The realities of classroom life make untenable such crude and obvious tactics as simply not trying.
Teachers value effort: they reward success more and punish failure less when the student has tried hard...
Thus many students must thread their way between the threatening extremes of high effort and no effort at
6
all. It is for that reason that effort has been characterized as a
'double-edged sword'. Excuses ... are the student's basic ally in achieving this precarious balance.
Attributionally, excuses function to externalize blame for failure away from the internal, stable element of
ability... Excuses maintain a balance between trying and not trying, ... (and) reduce student shame and
feelings of worthlessness regardless of effort level ... We can (thus) piece together the elements of a safe
strategy for students when risking failure... Try, or at least appear to try, but not too energetically and with
excuses always handy !
This rather pessimistic conclusion is not inevitable, however. Failure may be perceived as
inevitable when effort fails and ability is impugned. But the main problem may lie in a faulty
strategy. Like effort, strategies are variable but, unlike effort, strategies can also be modelled and
taught. Recent research has been describing the contrasting strategies and approaches used in
learning and studying, and suggesting how they might be improved.

Learning strategies and metacognitive awareness

Nisbet and Shucksmith (1986) have recently described the learning strategies which primary and
secondary pupils need to follow if they are to complete learning tasks satisfactorily. These are
summarized in Table 1 and are backed up by suggestions about how to encourage pupils to adopt
these more systematic strategies. Similar sets of suggestions have been put forward recently by
Roger & MacDonald (1987) and by Selmes(1987).
[Table 1 about here]
These reports are united in their emphasis on the need for schools to be more systematic and
active in helping pupils to 'learn how to learn'. They urge schools to go beyond the provision of
conventional study skills courses, which have proved to be of limited value (Selmes,1987). The
main problem about study skills courses is that while students may find them interesting and
potentially useful, they rarely go on to incorporate the techniques recommended into their
subsequent study activities. The problem seems to be that they are not able to translate from the
general technique to the specific demands of individual subjects. Part of the answer may be in
teaching study skills also within subjects, but there is a more basic problem. Students are not
used to monitoring their own study activities. The more recent research on learning strategies
stresses above all the need to help students develop metacognitive awareness - to direct their
skills more consciously towards task requirements and to monitor their effectiveness. Lyn
Corno (1986) has begun to evaluate the effectiveness of increasing such awareness in American
high school pupils. Initially she asks teachers to model the way to analyze what is required in a
classroom task. They encourage pupils to ask questions about the work, such as "What am I
supposed to do ?", "What do I already know ?", "In what ways can I do this ?", "What should I
do first; then what ?", and "What if I run into trouble ?". Similar sets of questions are used to
help the pupils to begin to handle for themselves the distractions and confusions which may
occur during learning.
Pupils are also encouraged to think positively about their ability and about their
accomplishments. Group discussion sessions are used to encourage collaborative learning in
which misunderstandings can be freely aired. These sessions have also been used to provide
opportunities for pupils to talk to each other about the "inner voice of learning" - their monitoring
7
processes. Another technique has involved asking pupils to take turns as acting the part of the
teacher. They ask questions and then evaluate and comment on the answers of their partner. In
this way the pupils see what is involved in teaching, and so begin to understand learning from the
teacher's point of view. Preliminary results show increased levels of motivation and improved
attitudes to classroom learning.

Approaches to Learning
Nisbet and Shucksmith (1986) highlight the importance of metacognitive awareness through an
analogy of soccer training. It is not sufficient to teach the skills of ball control, passing or
shooting. Pupils need to know when to pass, where to run, when to slow the game down. The
orchestration of skills into strategies is a necessary part of being an effective player. There is
more to it than that, though. There has to be an overall game plan so that the players have a
sense of what the strategies are intended to achieve. In relation to studying, the term approach to
learning has come to describe this broadest level which controls the strategies.
It was Ference Marton and his colleagues at Gothenburg who introduced the concept of
approach to learning with its two main categories of deep and surface (Marton & Saljo,1984).
The main defining feature of each of these categories is the contrasting intention shown by
students. Thus a deep approach involves an intention to reach a personal understanding of the
material presented, and this necessitates a lively interaction with the content, relating it to
previous knowledge and experience, as well as examining the evidence and evaluating the logical
steps by which the conclusions are reached. In contrast the surface approach involves an
intention merely to satisfy task or course requirements, which are seen as external impositions,
largely unconnected with personal interests. The surface approach can still be active, but it
relies on identifying the elements within the task most likely to be assessed, and then memorizing
those details. The main defining features of these two approaches will be found in Table 2.
( Table 2 about here)
Subsequently a third category of approach has been identified (Ramsden, 1981). In this
strategic approach there is also a distinctive intention - to obtain the highest possible grades.
This approach involves using both deep and surface approaches as appropriate to maximise
attainment. It also involves being alert to cues from lecturers as to what is likely to be examined
and what criteria are used in marking. Analyses of both interview transcripts and inventory
scores have suggested that the strategic approach also involves well-organised study methods
and careful time management . But above all there is an alertness to assessment rules and
pressures, the strength of which cannot be stressed too much. Their influence on learning can be
seen right through from primary school to higher education. For example one student
commented.
I play the examination game. The examiners play it, so we play it too...The technique involves knowing
what's going to be in the exam and how it's going to be marked. You can acquire these techniques from
sittingin a lecturer's class, getting ideas from his point of view, the form of his notes, and the books he has
written - and this is separate to picking up the actual work content (Miller & Parlett, 1974).
While such a conscious recognition of two separate foci of attention in learning is not common,
the phenomenon is implicit in many students' comments and can be seen also in the distinction
8
between deep and surface approaches (Entwistle, 1987). How is motivation related to these
different approaches to learning? In experiments, perceived interest and relevance have been
shown to be related to the deep approach, while feelings of anxiety apparently push students
towards a surface approach (Fransson, 1977). In interviews, science students saw 'prior
knowledge' as an important influence on their approaches to learning, while arts students
emphasized 'interest' (Entwistle & Ramsden, 1983). From inventories, clear patterns of
relationships have been established. The deep approach is closely related to intrinsic motivation,
but also to need for achievement. The surface approach is linked with fear of failure, supported
by extrinsic or vocational motivation. The strategic approach is associated mainly with the need
for achievement, but also with vocational motivation (Entwistle, in press).
With this series of studies, there is still the danger of ascribing the outcomes of learning
entirely to the effort and strategies of the individual pupil. But research on study strategies
reminds us that they can be taught. Similarly, the balance between extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation, or between external and internal attributions, can be changed through the
professional skill of the teacher.

Encouraging a deep approach to classroom learning

There has been a continuing tendency in recent years to point up the responsibility of the teacher
for making classroom activities interesting and motivating, and a bewildering variety of such
techniques have been recommended. From a review of research and development projects, the
American researcher, Jere Brophy (1987), has collected and systematised some of these
suggestions to produce the list shown below in Table 3.
[Table 3 about here]
He suggests that teachers should aim to use the first three general strategies in all lessons,
and to include also one or more of the other strategies when introducing the topic, managing
classroom activities, and assigning follow-up work. Brophy emphasizes, above all, the need for
teachers to spend more time and care in explaining the relevance and potential interest of each
topic or task before setting pupils to work. Otherwise, he believes that pupils engage in little
more than 'busy work', limiting their intentions to completing the task to the satisfaction of the
teacher, and using a variety of ploys to avoid real interaction with the tasks.
Of course, good teaching itself can be seen as one of the most effective motivators.
Certainly among university students the effects of good teaching were repeatedly mentioned as
contributing towards intrinsic motivation and a deep approach to learning (Entwistle &
Ramsden,1983). And students saw good teaching as involving, above all, enthusiasm and
striking explanations. It seemed that this combination could 'convert' even reluctant students to
at least a tentative foray into deep approaches. They experienced, through excellent teaching, a
'vicarious experience of relevance' which could have an important and continuing effect on their
attitudes and motivation (Hodgson,1984).
Brophy includes as Item 13 on his list 'the encouragement of metacognitive awareness'. As
we have seen, other researchers put this high on their general list. Motivating techniques on their
own can rapidly become routine and grow stale, unless the pupils have been led to take
responsibility for their own learning.
9
 It is clear that the quality of pupils' learning is also profoundly influenced by the teacher's
use of praise and criticism. And assessment procedures, as the formalised extensions of these
processes, are just as influential. Unless the teacher, in comments and marks, unambiguously
rewards what is required, pupils will follow the lines they perceive to be important. As an
illustration, consider a primary teacher who was observed teaching creative writing to primary
pupils. After providing the pupils with words and ideas, she
finished by asking the children to "Write me an exciting story about the fruit we eat"... In fact the children
wrote very little. They took great pains to copy the date from the board...They formed their letters with great
care and used rubbers copiously to correct any slips in presentation. Whilst this went on the teacher moved
around the class commending 'neat work' and 'tidy work' and chiding 'dirty fingers' and 'messy work'. No
further mention was made of 'exciting' content or of 'stories' (Desforges et al.,1985).
Charles Desforges, who made this observation, comments that unless the reward structure
reinforces the required behaviour, pupils will continue to spend time on inappropriate activities.
Extrinsic rewards should reinforce desired behaviours, certainly, but over-reliance on extrinsic
motivation carries its own danger. It may also encourage the wrong sort of learning strategies.
As we have seen, instrumental motivation leads to surface approaches to learning - a reliance on
rote learning. If the work pupils are required to do, or the examinations they sit, demand little
more than the repetition of facts or operations, then the effort evoked by these rewards is likely to
be directed towards surface learning.
A recent research study compared pupils' motivations and approaches to learning in Britain
and Hungary (Entwistle & Kozeki, 1985). British pupils had higher instrumental motivation and
were more likely to use surface approaches. Hungarian pupils had higher intrinsic motivation
paralleled by more use of the deep approach, although they seemed not to have such a good grasp
of details. It was suggested that these differences could be attributed, in part, to the effect of
factually orientated external examinations at age 16 in Britain, and their absence at that stage in
the Hungarian education system.
What can be done to help pupils break out of this instrumental view of learning ? At
secondary level, changes in the examination procedures need to go beyond the use of criterion
referencing, to ensure a higher proportion of questions which demand understanding rather than
unthinking recall of facts. At primary level, Charles Desforges suggests that teachers should
spend more time talking to pupils on an individual basis, not just about the correctness or
otherwise of their answers, but about the ways they have gone about learning, making sure that
pupils are brought to recognize
that schooling rewards the development of personal understanding and not simply the reproduction of
'correct answers' (Desforges et al.,1985).
It is also crucial to ensure that all pupils have opportunities to receive favourable comments on
their work, and so break the vicious circle of failure and despair which Covington has mentioned.
One technique which seems to be effective is to work individually with pupils to set realistic
targets which become explicit contracts for the pupil to fulfil. Such contracts can also be used
within school reports to involve parents in these declared goals. Success is then attainable at
levels appropriate to the individual pupil. This method seems to allow self-confidence to develop
and learning to move forward again (Rogers,1969). But all this emphasis on the individual is not
10
intended to devalue the importance of the teacher's role in helping to develop intrinsic motivation
in the whole class. Of course, it is not just the individual teacher who can influence motivation.
It seems likely that the general level of motivation in a school is affected by its overall climate or
the school ethos. Although some notable research has been carried out in Britain on the effects
of schooling (Rutter et al.,1979; Cuttance,1987; McPherson & Willms, in press), the literature
has little to say about the broader concept of school ethos. It is, of course, a nebulous concept,
but it is commonly referred to by teachers as part of their everyday experience and represents a
challenge that researchers should try to meet. A pilot study is under way to try to measure school
ethos and to relate it to pupils' motivation and approaches to learning (Kozeki & Entwistle,1987).

External influences on motivation

Although teachers clearly have important contributions to make in increasing pupils' motivation,
definite limits are imposed by the current state of society outside the school. Access to new
certificates will not increase motivation, unless those qualifications improve job prospects in a
real way. Without a substantial change in the employment situation, teachers may well be
fighting a losing battle to maintain interest and morale among their pupils. Lack of effort is an
understandable reaction to what may be seen by some pupils as the prospect of inevitable
unemployment.
Limits on the effects of teachers' efforts come also from the pupils and their parents. Levels
of motivation remain to some degree a characteristic of the individual pupil and these will
continue to show wide variations, no matter how teachers seek to motivate the class. And, as we
have seen from Kozeki's research, pupils' attitudes and motives are learned, to a large extent, in
the home. If we are approaching an era in which parents' rights are being extended into the
running of schools, should we not also be asking questions about parents' responsibilities ? It
will be of little use parents being satisfied that they have appointed the best available teachers, if
they themselves are not prepared to play their part in helping those teachers. We should perhaps
be asking parents pointedly what they have done at home to encourage their children to value
education, to show respect for teachers, to be prompt and regular in attending school, and to treat
homework as important. It is those attitudes which provide the spring-board from which teachers
can develop effective motivation to learn, and worthwhile learning outcomes.

Synthesizing Research on Motivation and Learning Strategies

One of the great difficulties in coming to grips with the research on motivation and learning
strategies is the variety of concepts and categories being used in the literature. Kozeki's research
is broader in its scope than most of the other studies and so has to remain separate, but it is
possible to map the concepts which focus primarily on the cognitive aspects. Figure 2 presents
one such map. [ Figure 2 about here]
The positioning of the concepts has been chosen to emphasize the central importance of
influences on the effort students put into learning. In the classroom context, these are seen as
subject content, marks or grades, teaching methods, and teachers' comments. Praise is seen as
leading to confidence and an increased need for achievement. Praise combined with intrinsic
motivation is likely to lead to deeper approaches to learning and improved understanding of the
11
subject matter. In contrast criticism, unless carefully used, leads to increased anxiety or fear of
failure. Combined with extrinsic motivation, this will lead to surface approaches to learning and
only superficial understanding.
Three relatively unexplored concepts are given salience within the model to stress their
likely importance within any attept to understand the overall dynamics of school learning. These
are the perceived job prospects, parental support, and school ethos. It seems essential to discover
the salience of these influences on student learning in relation to what we already know about
motivation and learning strategies.

References
Atkinson, J.W. & Feather, N.T. (1966). A Theory of Achievement Motivation .
New York: Wiley.
Birney, R.C., Burdick, H. & Teevan, R.C. (1969). Fear of Failure .
New York: Van Nostrand- Reinhold.
Brophy, J. (1987). Socializing student motivation to learn. In M.L. Maehr and D.A. Kleiber
(Eds.) Advances in Motivation and Achievement (Volume 5) Greenwich, CT: JAI Press (in press).
Corno, L. (1986). Self-regulated learning and classroom teaching. Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational
Research Association in San Francisco, April, 1986.
Covington, M. (1983). Motivated cognitions. In S.G. Paris, G.M. Olson, and
H.W. Stevenson (Eds.), Learning and Motivation in the Classroom.
Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 139-64.
Cuttance, P. (1987). The effectiveness of schooling: variation in attainment
among schools and among educational sectors. Unpublished Ph.D Thesis,
Edinburgh University.
Desforges, C., Bennett, S.N., Cockburn, A. & Wilkinson, B. (1985).
Understanding the quality of pupil learning experiences. In N.J. Entwistle (Ed.)
New Directions in Educational Psychology. I - Learning and Teaching
Lewes: Falmer Press,pp. 161-72.
Entwistle,N.J. (1987a). Understanding Classroom Learning . London: Hodder and
Stoughton.
Entwistle, N.J. (in press). Motivational factors in students' approaches to
learning. In R.R. Schmeck (Ed.) Learning Styles and Strategies,
New York: Plenum Press .
Entwistle, N.J. & Duckworth, D. (1977). Choice of science course in secondary
school: trends and explanations. Studies in Science Education, 4, 68-82.
Entwistle, N.J. & Kozeki, B (1985). Relationships between school motivation,
approaches to studying, and attainment among British and Hungarian
adolescents. British Journal of Educational Psycholology, 55,124-37.
Entwistle, N.J., Kozeki, B. & Pollitt, A.B. (1987). Measuring styles of
learning and motivation. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 2, 183-
203.
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Entwistle, N.J. & Ramsden, P. (1983) Understanding Student Learning,
London: Croom Helm.
Entwistle, N.J., Thompson, J.B. & Wilson, J.D. (1974). Motivation and study habits.
Higher Education, 3, 379-96.
Fransson, A. (1977). On qualitative differences in learning. IV - Effects of
motivation and test anxiety on process and outcome. British Journal of
Educational Psychology , 47, 244-257.
Gow, L. & McPherson, A. (1980). Tell Them from Me. Aberdeen: Aberdeen
University Press.
Hodgson, V. (1984). Learning from lectures. In F. Marton, D.J. Hounsell and
N.J. Entwistle (Eds.), The Experience of Learning . Edinburgh: Scottish
Academic Press, pp. 90-102.
Kozeki, B. (1975). Motivalas es Motivacio (Motivating and motivation).
Budapest: Tankonykiado.
Kozeki, B. (1985). Motives and motivational styles. In N.J. Entwistle (Ed.) New
directions in educational psychology. I - Learning and teaching.
Lewes: Falmer Press, pp.189-200.
Kozeki, B. and Entwistle, N.J. (1983). Describing and utilizing motivational styles
in education. British Journal of Educational Studies, 31,184-197.
Kozeki, B. & Entwistle, N.J. (1984). Identifying dimensions of school
motivation in Britain and Hungary. British Journal of Educational
Psychology, 54, 306-319.
Kozeki, B. & Entwistle, N.J. (1987). Interactions between Pupil
Characteristics and School Ethos: A Review of Earlier Collaborative Work and a
Proposal for a Further Study of Hungarian and British Schools.
(Research Report) Edinburgh University: Department of Education.`
Marton, F. & Saljo, R. (1984). Approaches to learning. In F. Marton, D.J.
Hounsell and N.J. Entwistle (Eds.): The Experience of Learning
Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, pp. 36-55.
McPherson, A. & Willms, D. (1987). Beyond an atomistic model of school
effects: Scottish findings.International Review of Sociology, forthcoming
Miller, C.M.L. & Parlett, M.R. (1974). Up to the Mark: a Study of the
Examination Game. London: Society for Research into Higher Education.
Nisbet, J.D. & Shucksmith, J. (1986). Learning Strategies . London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Ramsden, P. (1981). A Study of the Relationship between Student Learning and its
Academic Context. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Lancaster University.
Roger, A. & MacDonald, (1987). Teaching Writing for Learning . Edinburgh:
Scottish Council for Research in Education.
Rogers, C.R. (1969). Freedom to Learn . Columbus, Ohio: Merrill.
Rosen, B.C. & d'Andrade, R. (1959). The psychosocial origins of achievement
motivation. Sociometry, 22,185-218.
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Rollett, B. (1987). Effort avoidance and learning. In E. De Corte, H. Lodewijks, R.
Parmentier & P. Span. (Eds). Learning and Instruction : European
Research in an International Context. Oxford: Pergamon, pp.147-158.
Rutter, M., Maughan, B., Mortimore, P. & Ouston, J. (1979). Fifteen Thousand
Hours. London: Open Books.
Selmes, I.P. (1987). Improving Study Skills . London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Sharp, A. & Thomson, G.O.B. (1984). Performance in external examinations and pupils'
orientations to studying. Educational Review, 36,37-51.
Weiner, B. (1984). Principles for a theory of student motivation and their
application within an attributional framework. In R.E. Ames and
C. Ames (Eds.) Motivation in Education . Volume I - Student Motivation
New York: Academic Press, pp.15-36.

14
____________________________________________________________
Table 1 Pupils' learning strategies
(Adapted from Nisbet & Shucksmith,1986)
____________________________________________________________

Asking questions - defining hypotheses, establishing aims, and parameters of

task, discovering audience, relating to previous work.

Planning - deciding on tactics and timetables, reduction of task

into components, deciding what skills are necessary.

Monitoring - continuous attempt to match effort to initial questions

or purposes.

Checking - preliminary assessment of performance and results.

Revising - re-drafting or re-calculation or setting revised goals.

Self-testing - final self-assessment both of results and of performance

____________________________________________________________

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____________________________________________________________
Table 2 Defining Features of Approaches to Learning
(From Entwistle,1987a)
____________________________________________________________

Deep Approach
Intention to understand
Vigorous interaction with content
Relate new ideas to previous knowledge
Relate concepts to everyday experience
Relate evidence to conclusions
Examine the logic of the argument

Surface Approach
Intention to complete task requirements
Memorise information needed for assessments
Treat task as an external imposition
Unreflectiveness about purpose or strategies
Focus on discrete elements without integration
Failure to distinguish principles from examples

Strategic Approach
Intention to obtain highest possible grades
Gear work to perceived preferences of teacher
Awareness of marking schemes and criteria
Systematic use of previous exam papers in revision

Organize time and effort to greatest effect

Ensure right conditions and materials for study
____________________________________________________________

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____________________________________________________________
Table 3 Teachers' strategies for motivating
(Adapted from Brophy, in press)
_____________________________________________________________________

General strategies
1. Stress value and relevance of school work to everyday life
2. Show that you expect pupils to enjoy learning
3. Treat tests as ways of checking personal progress

Specific strategies
4. Explain why you find a topic or idea interesting
5. Introduce topics or tasks in ways which arouse interest
6. Create suspense or stimulate curiosity
7. Make abstract content more personal, concrete or familiar
8. Present paradoxes or incongruities for discussion
9. Encourage pupils to relate topics to their own interests
10. Explain course aims and help pupils set their own goals and targets
11. Provide full and informative feedback on performance
12. Teach problem-solving by personal example
13. Encourage metacognitive awareness of learning processes
____________________________________________________________

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Figure 1
A model relating sources of motives to motivational styles
(From Kozeki,1985)
____________________________________________________________

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Figure 2
A map of concepts describing motivation and learning strategies
_____________________________________________________

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