Sarouh Samir/ Ilham El Yazid.

Group 2

Chapter 5 summary:

Motivation:

Motivation refers to the psychological processes that lead us to do certain things.

Common-sense views of motivation tend to see it as a single factor that we can have more or
less of, and which can energise what people do

Why is motivation important for education?

The decontextualising of learning is partly the product of a prescriptive curriculum and class
sizes which limit the ability of teachers to respond to individual interests and needs.
However, it can also be argued that education must inevitably involve the development of
abstract learning, since it is impossible to experience personally the basis of every new item
of knowledge that will be useful to us.

Academic motivation may thus be important in determining educational progress, but

difficult for teachers to monitor directly. There are a number of explanations as to why pupils
do or do not become involved with academic tasks in school, and most of these have direct
implications for what teachers might be able to do about it.

Roles, conformity and obedience:

A great deal of children’s behaviour in school can be seen as conforming to their role as
pupils, and obedience to the authority of teachers. Activities such as going to classes,
following the instructions of the teachers and being involved with and completing work
assignments are examples.

Instincts, drives and needs:

motivation comes The existence of various instincts, drives or needs is inferred from the
behaviors that we see, and the behaviours are then explained by referring to those underlying
motives. Such explanations therefore tend to be mainly descriptive and do not necessarily get
us much further in trying to improve children’s involvement with appropriate activities in
school. However, these theories are still used a great deal in education and it is worth briefly
reviewing them

motivation comes from the interplay of three mental structures known as the id, the ego and
the superego.

Maslow’s (1954,1971) belief that certain basic needs must be met before higher needs can be
satisfied . According to Maslows’ hierarchy of needs, individuals needs must be satisfied in
this sequence

● Physiological .Hunger ,thirst, sleep

● Safety .Ensuring survival ,such as protection from war and crime
● Love and belongingness. Security, affection, and attention from others.
● Esteem. Feeling good about oneself

The concept of underlying needs has also been developed by Maslow (1954) as part of a
more general humanistic perspective, with lower levels being a necessary foundation for
the higher levels of self-fulfilment. The lowest levels are similar to the basic drives of
Hull and are concerned with the physical maintenance and well-being of the individual
Self-actualization, Realization of one’s potential.

Stress:

Prolonged and high levels of arousal can have disorganizing, negative effects, particularly
when an individual is also affected by anxiety. School-based stresses for children can come
from academic pressures, particularly those resulting from the various forms of examinations
or other assessments, which are now present at all phases of education.

The Behavioral approach:

The behavioral Perspective emphasizes external rewards and punishments as keys in

deterring a student’s motivation.

Extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation:

 ● Most behavioral approaches perceive the reinforcer or or punisher to be usually
separate from the activity which brings about intrinsic motivation.
● Other critics view intrinsic motivation (rewarding) as a form of bribery that hinders
pupils from developing natural interest and involvement.
● Lepper and Green believe that the majority of the activities we do come from an
intrinsic incentive. This latter renders learning more effective and natural.
● Children who expect a reward perform better than the ones who expect naught.
● It’s not the reward itself that affects motivation but rather the expectations of it.
● Reward or praise must be contingent on pupils' performance. This latter should be
emphasized on primarily.
● It is highly recommended for children to develop interest in activities for their own
sake.
The self:
● Pupils who view themself incompetent or not successful are less likely to be involved
in a task or put much effort into it. The thing that makes verbal feedback vital.
● Pupils with high self-esteem are generally more successful. Coopersmith found that
they’re the product of a parenting style that is firm and clear but also encourages
self-independence and freedom within these limits.
● Our perception of our ability to perform academic tasks is a form of esteem known as
self-efficacy.
● Experiences of failure reduce self-esteem and thus decrease motivation.
● Children with good self-esteem tend to send realistic, achievable goals and work
towards achieving them and vice versa.
Should teachers try to boost self-esteem?
● It was found that self-esteem is affected by both pupils’ achievements and their
teacher’s continuous feedback.
● Self-concept is generally affected by the context of the class. Pupils tend to compare
their achievements with their classmates.
● The most effective way to boost students' self-efficacy is to improve their real
progress and to ensure they value their achievements.
Attributional process:
● Attribution process is the process by which we infer the causes of behaviors or events.
It allows us to think about and plan how to interact with various features of our
 environment, which makes it have an important impact on our future involvement and
motivation.
● People who have a sense of control that stems from themselves -eternal locus- are
more likely to score achievements than people who believe that sense of control
comes from external locus.
● Weirner believes that there are three causes of success and failure:
➢ Stability: whether the cause changes or not.
➢ Internal or external: within the cause lies within the individual or comes from
the outside.
➢ Controllability: whether the result can or cannot be affected by the individual’s
expending greater effort.
● Students who attribute their success and achievement to internal causes are more
positive about their involvement and will be highly motivated
Attribution retraining:
● One way to retrain attribution is for the teacher to emphasise that the lack of success
was due merely to lack of effort, or an inappropriate strategy, explaining where they
went wrong, then encouraging them to try again.
● Students will thereby start to attribute their success and failure to their own actions
and will work on improving themselves.
Problems with self-worth:
● Students tend to believe tasks of any value so they protect their self-worth, which
affect their involvement and motivation.
● Students who are told a task to be difficult and, therefore, they’re not expected to do
very well tend to do more effort because the self-worth aspect is removed.
Implications for teacher control and management:
● motivation and achievements are decreased by teachers who emphasise their
evaluative over their informative role, and who monitor students’ behaviour and
performance in an intrusive way.
● High level of teacher control may increase the short term involvement and
attainments of students but does not appear to produce long term benefits.
Task involvement and cognitive development:
● mental activity goes on all the time, and from this perspective, motivation can be seen
as involvement directed or redirected towards meaningful activities.
Applying Piagetian theories:
● According to Piaget we are in complete equilibrium with our environment in
complete equilibrium with our environment when new information or experiences fit
in directly with existing schemas. In this case, there will be little novelty, challenge or
interest in such tasks, and the activation of schemas, as shown by task involvement,
will be low.
● When facing new information or experiences that do not fit completely with existing
schemata we become in a state of disequilibrium, which, ideally produces
involvement with the environment or task as the schema becomes modified. This is
called “accomodation”.
● When disequilibrium is at high level, schema will be unable to cope which leads to
little involvement in the task.
● Cognitive involvement that is closely matched to an individual’s abilities and interests
is intrinsically motivating.
Play and learning:
● ‘Play’ is essentially a spontaneous, self-directed activity that involves high levels of
success, involvement and progressive development.
● It also plays an important factor in the development and mastery of skills.
● Although formal schooling tends to restrict the focus on play to early years education
mainly to focus on other skills such as reading, it is still possible to incorporate formal
goals into less structured activities.
Implications of cognitive development for teaching:
● Hunt believes motivation to be primarily the product of the match between the task
and the individual. It is the process of cognitive development (learning) that produces
the motivational state.
● The teacher should focus mainly on subject matter and individual’s specific progress
with ideas and concepts, rather than on gross evaluations, targets and rankings.
● Spaulding recommends teachers to focus their teaching on skills that pupils can use to
guide their own learning. Also, he should help them to generate their own subgoals.
Teacher expectations:

The motivation and the achievements of individual pupils appear to be affected by what
teachers believe they are capable of, irrespective of whether this belief is true or not. This is a
striking finding and implies that teachers may have a significant effect on their pupils’
progress, even though the teachers may not necessarily be aware of what they are doing.

How expectations work:

● Good and Brophy identified that teachers actively construct expectations of students
from their earliest contact with them.
● Teachers can sometimes build expectations before even seeing pupils. Baker and Crist
found that teacher expectations for a student could be positively or negatively affected
by knowing how well an older sibling had done.
● Teachers modify their classroom behavior in accordance with how they expect pupils
to achieve. With pupils they have high expectations, teachers:
➢ generally pay more attention;
➢ criticise less often and praise more;
➢ seat students closer to them;
➢ demand more in terms of academic performance;
➢ give students the benefit of the doubt when marking; and engage in more
positive non-verbal interaction;

Empowerment:

Empowerment means that teachers should provide students with the skills and
knowledge they need to do important things they could not do otherwise, and to
develop their independent cognitive abilities and intellectual processes.