One of the most complex tasks that challenge educators, coaches, parents, pastors, and politicians is motivation. These leaders all want to motivate a group of people to do and perhaps enjoy a particular behavior. The key to a successful sports team or organization is that its members are motivated and passionate about the team’s goal or vision. Leaders go to great lengths to correct unwanted behaviors in the educational system as well as the local community. Motivational speakers, various forms of punishment, and the posting of motivational posters in the offices are all tools that are being used to encourage students to desire education and value ethical behavior.
Something is motivating you, the reader, to read this paper. Whether you are reading this to learn something new or perhaps you are curious as to my opinion on the subject matter. Something has motivated you to start reading and something is motivating you either continue reading or put it down. I would like to encourage you to keep reading, and hope that you find something worth while.
Because motivation is such a broad topic we will attempt to focus on the intrinsic aspect of motivation in an educational environment. Intrinsic motivation is what encourages a student to attend class, to explore, and desire knowledge without any external incentives or what can also be identified as bribery. The type of motivation we are going to examine is the type of motivation that is found in the heart. Heart is the passion, it is the drive, and it is the pursuit of something bigger than oneself. It is not self seeking; it is concerned only with the success of the project and the people that are on board with the vision.
Fritz Heider and Albert Bandura are two important figures in the field of intrinsic motivation. Heider developed the attribution theory, a theory that, “explores how individuals “attribute” causes to events and how this cognitive perception affects their usefulness in an organization.” Bandura contributed to work in self-efficacy, believing that one is capable of executing and accomplishing certain goals. Some students are taught or told that not all students are good at math or not all students are good at language arts. These statements can hinder a student’s motivation in a certain subject or completely deflate a student’s drive entirely from the educational system. Bandura also contributed to work with the locus of control, believing that one can control ones own life and direction, that no matter what the environment presented students are fully capable of success.
Goal orientation is the directing of goals toward a desirable outcome or away from an undesirable outcome. Bandura contributed to the study of this theory where if an individual sets goals towards success and can look toward the future they may be able to see a clearer picture and set themselves on the right path and deviate from the path that leads to an undesirable outcome. The old adage: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.“
Literature Review:
Most psychologists have found that intrinsic motivation is developed through extrinsic motivating factors. For example an extrinsic factor may be money, food, or some type of monetary reward. Researchers at the University of Alberta used the reward of money ranging from one dollar to six dollars and found, “… when rewards are given for achievement on the puzzle solving activity either during learning or after testing, individuals spent more time on the activity and reported greater task interest than the participants that were not rewarded during a free-choice period. That is, achievement-based rewards increased intrinsic motivation for the target activity.” J. Cameron et al.
Choice is an important value in American culture. A grocery store may carry a hundred different types of cheese and a hundred different frozen dinners. Students make thousands of decisions a week and our challenge as educators is to motivate students to make the choice of valuing education and to choose ethical/moral behavior. Often teachers try to motivate kids to make wise decisions amongst an isle full of poor choices. Erika Patall and Harris Cooper from Duke University researched the effects of students having the “feeling” that they were making the choice and making observations. “The presumption that feelings of having choices can be a powerful motivator is pervasive in motivation theory and research… people would be more likely to engage in an activity if they had chosen it… DeCharms argued, ‘when man perceives his behavior as stemming from his own choice he will cherish that behavior and its results.'” The researchers at Duke also found that the need for choice can be so powerful that it can lead students to perceive the choice of, “unpleasant activities, such as eating grasshoppers or administering electric shocks to themselves, as less unpleasant when they felt they had chosen to emerge in those behaviors.” Erika Patall et al.
Another challenge that presents itself is gender. Internal feelings and beliefs often set the tone for students to pursue certain courses and particular goals. Though social standards and gender specific parenting are extrinsic, the beliefs and values that direct males to pursue degrees in particular areas and women pursue degrees in others is evidence of an intrinsic motivating factor. Researchers from Berlin, Humboldt University, and University of Michigan found, “… specific patterns of self-concepts and values are developed early in a students’ school careers, leading to gendered high school course selection… in turn, often determines students’ field of study at college and, consequently, their future occupations.” G. Nagy et al. Currently female students are encouraged to pursue course work in nursing or massage therapy while male students are encouraged to pursue course work in mechanics or business administration.
Implementation:
One constant factor in all the experiments is that there is a set standard and a specific goal. In the classroom this is called classroom management. When the students are able to visualize and understand what is expected and what the ‘win’ is in the course students are enabled to reach achievement. In high school I took a calculus course and I had a difficult time understanding the concepts. My solution was that I obviously was not a math person, so I dropped the course. The reason that I thought that I wasn’t a math person was because I remembered my mom telling me that she wasn’t a math person. I naturally thought that I inherited the handicap from my mom. The next day the calculus teacher tracked me down in the hall way and told me that I wasn’t allowed to drop the class and that he thought that I could be successful and that he did not want me to work at “BurgerDog” for the rest of my life. I struggled through that class but I passed and I know that calculus is difficult but it’s not too difficult.
Educators and leaders need to be initiators of inspiration in the lives of students. Leaders and educators should instruct students that while they do not enjoy certain subject areas themselves, all subject matter is important and every student can be successful in all areas. As role models the continued education of educators and leaders in courses outside their field of study can motivate students to be successful in all courses and most importantly develop life long learning habits.
I noticed through the researchers that the tests and motivators were self-seeking. The goal at the beginning of the experiment or study was to get students to think about themselves and use the ego to motivate. I think researchers should study sport teams or clubs, where the individuals have to consider the success of the community or the team. This may help students achieve a better sense of autonomy that is directly related to intrinsic motivation.
Conclusion:
“Motives are reasons people hold for initiating and performing voluntary behavior. They indicate the meaning of human behavior, and they may reveal a person’s values.” Reiss, Steven. Reiss’ description of motives as reasons is a unique perspective. Reiss describes how reasons determine motivation, a student has to have a reason to behave in a productive way or choose a desirable path.
The heart is directly related to ones attitude, motivation, and acts. Educators need to cultivate the hearts of our students, and direct our students to examine their hearts and evaluate their life. If we can do this we may be able to motivate our students toward achievement and success in life.
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Reference Page
Cameron, Judy. et al. Achievement-Based Rewards and Intrinsic Motivation: A Test of Cognitive Mediators.” American Psychological Association, 1 (2005): 641-655
Nagy, Gabriel. et al. “Gender and Course Selection in Upper Secondary Education: Effects of academic self-concept and intrinsic value.” Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2 (2006): 323-345
Patall, Erika A. et al. “The Effects of Choice on Intrinsic Motivation and Related Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis of Research Findings.” American Psychological Association,1,2 (2008): 270-300.
Pierce, David W. et al. “Positive Effects of Rewards and Performance Standards on Intrinsic Motivation.” The Psychological Record, 1,2,3 (2003): 561-579.
Reiss, Steven. Multifaceted Nature of Intrinsic Motivation: The Theory of 16 basic Degrees.” Educational Publishing Foundation, 1 (2004): 179-193.
