THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

WHAT IS MOTIVATION?

            The focus here will be on one aspect of emotion, namely; MOTIVATION. Some have said that Motivation is emotion in motion. Motivation is a core construct in human behaviour. Sufficiently motivated, an individual will experience physiological changes. Apparently, everything we do, from getting out of bed in the morning to answering a phone call, is motivated by something. We may be motivated by hunger, fear, or the desire for self-fulfillment. As educators we would love to have students who are intrinsically motivated, that is, who provide their own motivation for learning. We wish that students were driven by curiosity and the natural desire to know and understand the world around them. However, we know that this often is not the case. 

According to Groccia, (1992), motivation is that which influences the arousal, selection, direction and maintenance of all human behaviour. Students require some form of stimulus to activate, provide direction for, and encourage persistence in their study and learning efforts. Motivation is this energy to study, to learn and achieve and to maintain those positive behaviours over time. Motivation is what stimulates students to acquire, transform and use knowledge. 

We begin by examining ‘valuing the task’. How do we enhance the value of the task to the students? Show students that their work is important to them. Importance arises from the value placed on the process, on the product, on what the product begins, or what other people value. For example, a student completes her history essay because it is important to her or she sees the value of doing so. Completing her essay will win praise from her history teacher. Valuing the task involves four types of motivation, namely; extrinsic motivation, social motivation, achievement motivation and intrinsic motivation.

a) EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION

            A child does not misbehave because her father promised to buy her a toy. When a person is motivated extrinsically, he or she does something because of the value or importance attached to what it brings, such as getting rewarded or avoiding discomfort for not doing it. The focus is not on the process or on the product itself, but on what is associated with the product. In other words, the task is incidental.

            Extrinsic motivation is based on the operant conditioning by B.F. Skinner. Simply put, if you want people to do something, you make sure it is worth their while; a principle well known to parents and teachers. If you want them to stop doing it, you stop making it worth their while or you make it worth their while to do something else. Sometimes, we are not consistent and we end up rewarding people for doing the very things we do not want them do.

           Positive reinforcement involves following a desirable behaviour with a reward. Also important is the timing of the rewards and if delayed too long will result in the behaviour weakening. Negative reinforcement is where the consequences of the desired behaviour removes distress and are consequently rewarded, not punishing as it is  often thought. The reward is relief at not being punished. Punishment is widely used to stop undesirable behaviour. Punishment is unreliable, because sometimes it works and other times it actually increases the unwanted behaviour.

b) SOCIAL MOTIVATION

            Students learn in order to please people whose opinions are important to them. In other words, the opinions of these people are valuable to the learner. Some examples would be parents, members of the family, classmates and teachers. Motivation here is not focused on material rewards but the approval of others. For example, praise from someone admired by the student helps the student internalise, to take ownership of the task. “Gee, I must be good at this if Ms. Wong says so!”

            An important mechanism of social motivation is modelling which refers to the tendency of people to imitate each other in the absence of direct reinforcement. Modelling occurs throughout life with the model changing at various points in a person’s life. In the 60s teenagers imitated Elvis Presley and in the 90s teenagers imitated Michael Jackson. In the classroom, students might be motivated to learn because of the behaviour of certain teachers. So teachers have a psychological as well as moral responsibility to practice what they preach.

c) ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION                                                                                

            Students learn to show that they can perform better than other people. The motivation here is based upon the ego boost that comes about through social competition. It is the struggle to get to the top, beating others in open competition; it is not so important to gain material rewards as such (although it helps). Neither is it important what the task is; it can be selling cars, getting lucrative contracts, winning votes and so on. This is called achievement motivation and was first described by McClelland, Atkinson, Clark and Lowell in 1953.      Two major motives are involved in achievement motivation:

• the motive to achieve success; in particular, the ego enhancement that success brings;
• the motive to avoid failure, which involves the fear of losing face.

 

People in whom achieving success is a stronger motive than is avoiding failure are called high need-achievers (their actual ability is a separate question). For them the greatest glory in winning comes when the chances are about 50-50. If the chances are 80% of winning, they will consider it a waste of time as they are sure of winning. It is like Manchester United playing against the MPPJ football team! People in whom the motive to avoid failure is stronger than the motive to achieve success are called low-need achievers. These are people who will compete against someone who they are certain to beat or defeat. They will take on a stronger opponent so that they can “fail gloriously by competing when the odds are hopeless”. 

            High need-achievers thrive on competition; low need-achievers adopt any tactic to avoid it. High need-achievers are bored with tasks with high success rate, such as mastery learning or programmed instruction. Low need-achievers like these methods because of the higher success rate which is what they need to produce better feelings of self-efficacy.

d) INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Intrinsic motivation is the natural tendency to seek out and conquer challenges as we pursue personal interests and exercise capabilities. When we are intrinsically motivated, we do not need incentives or punishments, because the activity itself is rewarding. For example, Maznah studies chemistry outside school simply because she loves the activity; no one makes her do it. To enhance intrinsic motivation, the tasks need to be potentially meaningful, the tasks need to be at an optimum level of difficulty (see Table 9.1) and the tasks need to be presented in a way that enables multiple levels of processing.

Demand	Motivational	Consequence
Too little	Familiar with all the content	Boring, been there, done that.
Just right	Mixture of familiar & unfamiliar	A challenge, motivating
Too much	Unfamiliar with all the content	Cannot cope

                                   Table 9.1 Degree of Intrinsic Motivation

The degree of intrinsic motivation experienced by a student depends on the match between current ability and learning new material. When the material to be learned is familiar and can be handled without too much effort, there is no challenge and the task is seen as boring. Intrinsic motivation increases when students are placed in a ‘slightly difficult’ situation involving conflict between what they know and what they are going to learn. When the material is unfamiliar and the student cannot cope, intrinsic motivation decreases.

REFERENCES

http://www.aeu.edu.my/programmes/master/master-education-med

http://www.innovativelearning.com/educational_psychology/motivation/index.htm