Read the great article below by guest blogger, Thames Academy faculty, Melissa Shafner!
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What Factors Affect Your Student’s
Motivation to Learn?
Motivation
refers to the personal investment that an individual has in reaching a desired
outcome or goal. College students
typically have multiple goals they are working toward achieving at once – to
acquire knowledge and skills, to demonstrate their intelligence to others, to
make new friends, to gain a sense of independence, and to have fun, are common
ones. As we all know, their goals are
not always exactly the same as their parents’ or teachers’ goals for them. Additionally, not all goals need be grand;
the completion of a simple task is likewise, a goal (ex: reading a chapter of a
book, having dinner with a friend, or attending a club meeting). While research has shown that students who
hold multiple goals are more successful than those with only one goal, problems
can arise when these multiple goals conflict with one another. Which will he or she (hereafter “he” for
simplicity’s sake) prioritize?
In
order to determine that, we need to look at two factors: the student’s perceived value of the goal and
the student’s perception of his likelihood to be successful in achieving that
goal. These two factors together affect
the level of motivation a student has in pursuing a goal.
Let’s focus on
subjective value first. What helps to
determine this are the satisfaction he will gain from accomplishing a task
(ex: achieving the level of Black Belt),
the joy he experiences from simply doing the task regardless of outcome
(ex: the enjoyment of participating in
karate), and the degree to which the task will help him accomplish other
important goals (ex: opening his own
karate studio one day). One can have
all, some, or none of these at play regarding a specific task or goal. Think about how many tasks students typically
work toward each day – planning, organizing, reading, writing, studying,
socializing, being in a relationship, participating in clubs and activities are
only some. They are constantly assessing
the value of each of these.
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Now
let’s look at a student’s expectations for his likelihood of success. We are motivated to pursue goals we believe
we can successfully achieve. If a
student’s belief in his likelihood of success is low, he won’t be motivated to
engage in behaviors necessary to achieve that goal. That is true even if he sees value in the
goal and desires to attain that goal.
The primary influence in whether or not a student believes he personally
can achieve a goal is his prior experience in similar situations. For example, if a student has a history of
receiving low grades on English assignments, he may likely believe that he will
never be successful on current or future English assignments. Furthermore, the reasons that students give themselves for their past successes or
failures play a large role in affecting their expectation for success – was it
something internal that I can control, such as my effort, or something external
that I have no control over (for example, believing that the only reason I did
well was due to luck)? Despite past
failures, causes that are seen as controllable can still result in high
motivation as long as the student believes he is capable of changing his
behaviors to a more positive outcome.
Something else must be done for students who see past failures as
outside of their control, and we discuss that below.
Perceived
value and ability to be successful are critical, however there is actually a
third variable at play here, which is the student’s perception of the
supportiveness of the environment. Even
if a student believes that a task is of high value and believes that he has the
ability to be successful at that task, his perception of an unsupportive
environment does not result in the type of motivation parents and teachers hope
for in students; it instead can lead to defiant behavior as “pay back” for the
lack of support. The student may judge
the supportiveness of his school environment and the supportiveness he
perceives from his parents as well. A
caution: supportiveness is not defined
by a level of direct help in accomplishing a task – by no means should teachers
or parents create an enabling environment that would only reinforce a student’s
existing concerns about his ability.
Rather, a supportive environment is one with a positive tone, positive
interpersonal dynamics, positive forms of communication, one where the
teacher/parent is seen as approachable, and one where the student is surrounded
by peers whom he sees as helpful.
You
may be wondering how we at Thames Academy use this information about motivation
in our program in order to help our students.
In addition to creating this ideal supportive environment and setting so
necessary for success, here are some of the ways that the faculty and advisors
work with your student:
1)
A key foundational piece of the Thames
experience is in our Seeing My Time
executive functioning program, which spends considerable time focusing on
goal-setting, as oftentimes students arrive at Thames unsure of what goals they
really have for themselves. They also learn
the value and importance of having both short-term and long-term goals.
2)
We work with students to appreciate the value of
learning goals – valuing a deeper
understanding of a subject – and not just the performance goal of wanting a good grade. Having learning goals has been shown to lead
to better success in school. At the same
time, we work with students to discourage having work-avoidant goals, that is, wanting to finish a task as quickly
and with as little effort as possible.
3)
Remember above where I stated that we need to do
something significant for students with a low perception of their ability to be
successful? We understand that we have
many students at Thames who are what is called “wounded” or “fragile”
learners. They are students who do see
the value in their educational goals, and do see us and their families as
supportive, however have a low level of belief in their own ability to be
successful due to their past experiences.
At Thames, we work early on and throughout the year to change that
mindset in students. It is a recurring
theme in all of our classes and advising appointments, and they are guided in
the process as we help them see that their ability is not fixed and
unchangeable, but rather something that they have control over, and that with
time and effort, they can grow, learn, and be successful.
4)
We incorporate classroom strategies that
research has proven establish and increase perceived value and expectation for
success.
• One of the
strategies we utilize in order to help students see the value in a particular
goal includes showing students the connection between what they are learning
and the real world or their personal lives.
For example, we might explain how the ability to write clearly and
effectively is not simply a skill that they need in school, but point out that
many of their prospective majors and career choices require those skills. A police officer is not someone who solely
sees a lot of action and is always on the go, but must also be able to write a
clear and detailed report, for instance.
• Another
strategy we incorporate in order to establish a sense of value is being clear
in what we value in student work and
what our expectations are. For example, in humanities class we might
demonstrate to students in detail what is appropriate to include in an
objective summary of an article versus what is their opinion of what they just
read. Another example might be
explaining to students that we value taking a creative risk on a particular
assignment and are not looking for the “easy route.”
• A way that we
work to increase students’ expectation for their success is that we give
students many opportunities to practice skills and receive feedback. In order to learn a skill, it must be
practiced many, many times. So, if we
are working on reading comprehension skills or summarizing skills, those skills
are not touched upon once and then we’re on to the next topic. Those skills are incorporated into
assignments repeatedly, with specific feedback at each instance, in order for
the students to have the time and practice necessary for true learning to
occur.
• A second way in
which we strive to create positive expectancies in our students is that we
determine what level students are performing at so that we can begin work with
them at that level and work toward advancement.
We do this by giving both formal and informal pre-assessments to
determine the level of prior knowledge or skill ability for each student, and
then design and adapt assignments to provide an appropriate level of
challenge. Then, goals can be attainable
with proper effort.
• A significant
hallmark of the Thames program is incorporating study and time management
strategies into our classes. Continuing
from the foundation they receive in the Seeing
My Time course, we also spend time in class visually demonstrating for
students how to pace and plan out the specific steps necessary for completing
an assignment.
• Finally, and
not least of all, we provide students an opportunity to reflect on their learning. Students are asked what elements of a
particular assignment they believe that they performed well and what makes
those elements strong, and likewise are asked what they did not do well and
what makes those elements weak. It is
through developing this metacognitive skill of reflecting on his own thinking
that positive expectancies can develop and true learning can occur.
If you would like
even more detailed information about this topic, click here to view the
PowerPoint presentation from last Friday’s session.
