understanding student motivation
TRANSCRIPT
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Understanding Student Motivation
11/10/2021
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A little about me
• I’m a teacher turned educational psychologist
• I got my Ph.D. from Ohio State
• I LOVE to learn
• I’m extremely enthusiastic about making education the best it can be (“extra” is a word that may have been applied to me)
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What is Motivation?
= an inner state that energizes, directs, and sustains behavior (Ormrod, Anderman, and Anderman, 2020)
True or False?
Some students just aren’t motivated.
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What is Motivation?
= an inner state that energizes, directs, and sustains behavior (Ormrod, Anderman, and Anderman, 2020)
True or False?
Some students just aren’t motivated.
• They may not be academically motivated.
• They may not be motivated to achieve at high levels.
• However, everyone who engages in goal-oriented behavior is motivated.
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So how do I get my students
motivated for MY class?
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Expectancy Value TheoryMotivation is driven by two subconscious assessments:
Expectancy for Success
“Can I do it?”
Value for the Task
“Do I want to do it?”
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Competence in College
• Self-efficacy: a person’s judgement about their own ability to execute a particular course of action (Shunk, Meece, & Pintrich, 2014)
✓ Highly context specific
✓ Goal-related
By building students’ self-efficacy, we can increase expectancy for success, and thereby motivation
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Self-efficacy is influenced by:
Prior related success & failure
Emotional state
Messages from others
Others’ success & failure
Group-related success or failure
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Improving Self-Efficacy (and therefore expectancy)
Ensure one score won’t doom students’ course grades
Provide concrete, specific feedback for improvement
Enable students to improve upon poor performance
Build on success experiences
Show many examples of success
Show students you believe in them
Work to build positive relationships in the classroom
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Attributions
• Why I succeed or fail?
How are attributions related to expectancy for success?
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Why did I fail?
• Test was unfair
• My professor grades too hard
• I didn’t have time to study
• I studied the wrong key details
• Time management
• Poor planning
• Lack of background knowledge
• Lack of effective study strategies
• I suck at <math>
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Reflect on it!
• How can you build students’ expectancy for success in your classes?
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ValueValue has three major forms
✓ Utility (is it useful?)
✓ Interest (is it enjoyable?)
✓ Importance (does it matter for me?)
Value must offset the cost of the task
o Emotional energy
o Time
o Opportunity cost
o Effort
Utility Interest Importance Cost Value
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Improving Value
Show students why content is valuable/applicable
Help students see their own progress
Express enthusiasm for the content and learning
Design activities that are engaging and relevant
Use varied instructional methods
Include student ideas and opinions in class activities
Reduce cost of engagement
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Reflect on it!
• How can you build students’ value for your classes?
• How can you reduce cost?
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Achievement Goal Theory
Performance
Related to demonstrating competence
Can be approach oriented (looking good) or avoidance oriented (not looking bad)
Mastery
Related to building competence
Focused on learning and improvement
People have two major types of achievement motivation:
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High Performance
High Mastery
High Performance
Low Mastery
Low Performance
High Mastery
Low Performance
Low Mastery
PerformanceM
ast
ery
LowHigh
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Performance Mastery
People with performance goals are more likely
to:
• Believe intelligence is fixed
• Give up in the face of difficulty
• Self-handicap
• View effort as evidence of low ability
• Choose easy tasks over challenging ones
• Prefer work that allows them to not make
mistakes
• Use surface-level processing
People with mastery goals are more likely to:
• Hold a growth mindset
• Persevere in the face of challenges (and
enjoy it)
• Adaptively use strategies for learning
• View effort as necessary for learning
• Choose challenging tasks
• Prefer work that enables them to grow
and learn
• Use deep processing
(Ormrod, Anderman, and Anderman, 2020)
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Reflect on it!
• How can we promote mastery orientation in college classes?
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Increasing Mastery Orientation
Show students why content is valuable/applicable
Help students see their own progress
Give students opportunities to improve
Give explicit feedback for improvement
Talk about learning and class objectives
Tell students what they will learn/gain from assessments
Avoid emphasizing grades/scores
Give students time to practice, process, and discuss content
Work with students as much as possible
Help students build community and responsibility for each others’ learning
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What does this look like in your class?
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Apply
Given what you’ve now learned about motivation, take some time to plan changes to your syllabus or assignments for next semester.
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Schunk, D. H., Pintrich, P. R., Meece, J. L., & Pintrich, P. R. (2014).Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall.
Ormrod, J. E., Anderman, E. M., & Anderman, L. H. (2020).Educational psychology: Developing learners (10th ed.). Pearson.
References
Questions?
Contact
Elizabeth Kraatz
308-432-6458