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Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:
Define what is motivation
Explain how motivation is related to learning
Discuss the Expectancy-Value Theory of Motivation
Compare the different types of motivation related to valuing the task
Explain Expecting Success
Describe self-efficacy and how it is related to motivation
Explain how attribution is related to motivation
Suggest ways of motivating

9.1 SOME THOUGHTS ON EMOTION AND LEARNING

We have spent a lot of examining the cognitive aspects of learning. Perhaps,
the only exception was in Module 7:8 Understanding Individual Differences where
we did dwell on the role of personality in learning, focussing on anxiety, locus of
control and extroversionintroversion. What about other emotions such as motivation
and self-efficacy?
Some people tend to ignore emotions and its influence on
learning. Already there are so many factors that affect learning and to add emotions to
it would make the task of teaching even more complex.

LEARNING

According to Jensen (1988), "emotions drive the threesome of attention,

meaning, and memory." This basically sums up the whole process of learning which
involves attending to information, constructing meaning, and storing it in memory.
There is evidence to suggest that emotions play a role in ensuring how humans
organise information in the brain and how information is retrieved. For example,
stress, frustration, anger and fear can overwhelm the brain with hormones and thought
patterns that totally shut down one's ability to learn. Similarly, emotions assist in both

evaluating and integrating information and experiences. However, as we know,

emotional instability can literally hinder us from thinking straight.
Let us look at the classroom and examine instances where emotions might
play an important role in influencing learning. Take the case of a student whose past
experiences has been filled with poor grades, failure and low self-esteem which will
inevitably have a major impact on his or her current ability to learn. Emotions related
to competence, self-assurance, fear, frustration and so forth each play a role in how a
student approaches learning. Educators have to recognise that students come to class
with varying emotions and predispositions about being a student.
Besides, emotions related to their learning abilities, the way students interact
with others is highly emotive. Positive interactions greatly enhance opportunities for
learning while negative responses can virtually shut down learning for affected
students. Since much learning is social, positive experiences with others (such as
teachers and fellow students), greatly enhances the push towards learning. In this
context, how students perceive the teacher's emotion has an impact on them. For
example, if learners perceive that teachers perceive them as lazy, dumb, uninterested
and incapable, there is strong likelihood they will act accordingly. The moment
students begin to feel alienated or threatened, you can bet your last ringgit that they
will stop learning, become difficult, cease participating, or perhaps drop out.

EMOTION IN THE CLASSROOM

Take care how you respond to you learners. Check your own emotions.
When you find yourself irritated at a stupid question, disappointed in
learner's lack of understanding, or furious with off-topic remarks in the
classroom. STOP. Wait and react after some time to decrease the
likelihood of negatively impacting the learning process.
Show your enthusiasm for the content and for learning. It is contagious.
Give learners reasons to care about the topic by showing that you do.
Encourage their understanding by helping them personally create
meaning from class material. Point out successes and give them goals to
achieve in their learning. Such actions provide emotional and social
support for their learning.
Personalise your communications. Use the learner's name. Use personal
examples. Ask learners to relate their learning to real life or past
experience. These techniques make the interpersonal aspects of the
content more emotionally accessible and enhance learning.
Do not hesitate to express your own emotions. You might say, "I was
really impressed," "I am confused," "I was surprised" or "I am
happy"

9.2 WHAT IS MOTIVATION?

In this chapter, focus 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.
Psychologists studying motivation have focused on five basic questions (Graham
& Weiner, 1996; Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993):
1. What choices do people make about their behaviour?
Why do some students, for example, focus on their homework and others
watch television?
2. How long does it take to get started?
Why do some students start their work right away, while others
procrastinate?
3. What is the intensity or level of involvement in the chosen activity?
When the book is opened, is the student absorbed and focused or just
going through the motions?
4. What causes a person to persist or to give up?
Will the student read the entire story or just a few pages?
5. What is the individual thinking and feeling while engaged in an activity?
Is the student enjoying listening to the poem, feeling competent, or
worrying about an upcoming test.

ACTIVITY

b)
c)

a) Give three reason why you are pursuing this graduate

degree.
b) What do you expect to do after graduation?
c) How are your interests related to your graduate studies?
d) How are your abilities related to your graduate studies?

9.3 EXPECTANCYVALUE THEORY

Motivation is thus the starting point for learning. How a student is motivated
determines whether of not that student will attempt to learn and how the task is
approached. So why do students learn? Or students refuse to learn? Simple, because
(1) they VALUE either the outcome or the process of learning, and,
(2) they EXPECT that they will be successful.
Without both these elements; the activity being valued and the outcome being
probable people will not perform. Why should they? That is what the ExpectancyValue Theory suggests (see Figure 8.1). This means that motivation is seen as the
product of two main forces; the individuals expectation of reaching a goal and the
value of that goal to him or her. If I try hard, can I succeed? and If I succeed, will
the outcome be valuable or rewarding to me? Motivation is a product of these two
forces, because if either factor is zero, there is no motivation. For example, if I believe
I have a good chance of making the football team (high expectation), and if making
the team is very important to me (high value), then my motivation should be strong.
But if either factor is zero (Expectation = I believe I do not have a chance of making
the team, or Value = I couldnt care less about playing basketball), then my
motivation will be zero, too (Tollefson, 2000).

Value of Activity
of Product

Expectation
of Success

Task
Involvement

Figure 9.1 Expectancy-Value Theory

In addition, Jacqueline Eccles and Allan Wigfield (1992) add the element of cost to
the expectancy x value equation. Values have to be considered in relation to the cost
of pursuing them. How much energy will be required? What could I be doing instead?
What are the risks if I fail? Will I look stupid? So the teachers task becomes twofold:
(1) to help students see the value of what they are doing
(2) to give them a reasonable expectation of success in achieving it

9.4 VALUING THE TASK

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
[Refer to Chapter 2: Behavioural Learning Theories]. 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.
To repeat what we had studied in Chapter 2, 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 [Refer
to Chapter 3: Early Cognitive Theories regarding the works of Albert Bandura].
Modelling occurs throughout life with the model changing at various points in a
persons 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.

The other day, we saw a

teacher scold a student for
smoking. But, isnt the teacher
a chain smoker?

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.
Refer to Chapter 8: Understanding Individual Differences where we discussed
achievement motivation as a personality trait that accounted for individual differences
in learning].
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
Too little
Just right
Too much

Motivational
Familiar with all the content
Mixture of familiar & unfamiliar
Unfamiliar with all the content

Consequence
Boring, been there, done that.
A challenge, motivating
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.
ACTIVITY

a) Explain the differences between extrinsic, social,

achievement and intrinsic motivation.
b) Give specific examples for each of the types of motivation.

9.5 EXPECTING SUCCESS

The second factor affecting academic motivation according to the ExpectancyValue Theory relates to students expectations of success. What they believe about
themselves the competence and the reasons for their previous performances are
especially vital. Teachers play an important role in forming and maintaining these
beliefs. The two major issues when discussing expecting success are students
beliefs in their own efficacy and to what they attribute their success and failure to.
a) SELF-EFFICACY
How students see their chances of success
depends to a large extent on how they see themselves.
Self-concept is how individuals see themselves. It
includes how they see themselves physically, socially,
academically and so forth. Academic self-concept is
how students view their own abilities and skills in
handling academic tasks. Oftentimes we hear
academically weak students admit openly and are
resigned to the fact that they are stupid since they
have been in the worst class during their whole life in
secondary school!
Bandura (1977) proposed a very specific form
of self-concept theory called self-efficacy. Sadly,
some students believe that ability is something that a person is born with and is seen
as a permanent fixed trait. Other students believe that ability is expandable and that
people can be successful through hard work. When people approach a task, they form
expectations about how well they think they will be able to carry out that particular
task. Such expectations derive from a variety of sources, but the critical ones are
based on:

how well they have done that task in the past,

what they attribute their past performance to
how their teachers and even other students think they will perform
how difficult they see this particular task

Note that self-efficacy is unlike general qualities such as self-esteem because

self-efficacy can differ greatly from one task or domain to another. A person may
have very high self-efficacy about learning to play the piano and very low selfefficacy concerning learning calculus. It is also important to note that self-efficacy
judgments are not necessarily related to an individuals actual ability to perform a
task; rather, they are based on the persons beliefs about that ability. Self-efficacy
refers to the confidence in one's ability to behave in such a way as to produce a
desirable outcome (Bandura, 1977). Self-efficacy makes a difference in how people
feel, think, and act.
In terms of feeling, a low sense of self-efficacy for a particular situation is
positively related to depression and anxiety. High self-efficacy for a specific
situation allows one to deal better with uncertainty, distress, and conflict.
In terms of thinking, the strong sense of competence resulting from high selfefficacy facilitates enhanced cognitive processes and academic performance.

In terms of action, self-related cognitions are a major ingredient of the

motivation process. Self-efficacy levels can enhance or impede motivation.
People with high self-efficacy in a particular domain of human functioning
choose to perform more challenging tasks. They set higher goals and stick to
them. Actions are pre-shaped in thought, and people anticipate either
optimistic or pessimistic expected outcomes of a specific task in line with their
level of self-efficacy. Once an action has been taken, high self-efficacious
persons invest more effort and persist longer than those low in self-efficacy to
accomplish a specific task. When setbacks occur, those with high self-efficacy
recover more quickly and maintain commitment to their goal

Bandura postulates that these expectations determine whether or not a certain

behaviour or performance will be attempted, the amount of effort the individual will
contribute to the behaviour, and how long the behaviour will be sustained when
obstacles are encountered. In the classroom, for example, poor grades and other
negative assessments of ability can lower self-efficacy beliefs. Whether such
experiences reinforce or promote low levels of self-efficacy depends upon the
individual's perceptions and whether or not the barriers are overcome.
Self-efficacy has been measured by psychologists and educators using selfreport tests. There are numerous such tests and Table 9.2 is an example of one such
test called The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE). The 10 item scale was developed
by M. Jerusalem and R. Schwarzer in 1981 and has been translated into 26 language.
The scale was created to assess a general sense of perceived self-efficacy with the aim
to predict the ability to cope with daily life as well as adapting to stressful life events.
The scale was reported to have Cronbachs alphas ranging form 0.76 to 0.90 with the
majority in the high 0.80s which is relatively high.

I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough

If someone opposes me, I can find the means and ways to get what I want

It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals.

I am confident that I could deal efficiently with unexpected events.

Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to handle unforeseen situations.

I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort

I can remain calm when facing difficulties because I can rely on my coping
abilities.

When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find several solutions.

I can usually handle whatever comes my way.

10

If I am in trouble, I can usually think of a solution.

1 = Not at all true

2 = Hardly true

3 = Moderately true

4 = Exactly true

Table 9.2 The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE)

[source: Ralf Schwarzer and Matthisa Jerusalem (1993). Berlin, Germany
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~health/engscal.htm]
a) ATTRIBUTION
A different kind of belief about the self refers to the causes individuals
attribute to their previous successes of failure. How they attribute their success or
failures will have an encouraging or discouraging effect. It will also determine
whether the individual will want to be further involved or just give up. For example,
certain graduate students in education will not attempt to pursue a course in statistics
because of their poor performance in mathematics some 15 years ago.
Attribution Theory by Weiner (1975) offers another way of looking at
motivation. According to the theory our beliefs about the causes of our successes and
failures influence our future motivation. We tend to attribute success and failure to
factors that vary along three dimensions: internal-external, stable-unstable, and
controllable-uncontrollable. Internal factors are those within the individual, while
external factors come from others or the environment (see Table 8.3).
So, if I did very well on an economics test, I might attribute my performance
internally to the fact that I studied for eleven hours, or externally to the thought that it
was a very easy test. Using the same example, I might attribute my good performance
to a stable factor, such as my high aptitude for economics, or to an unstable factorI
just got lucky. Similarly, I might attribute it to a controllable factorthe amount of
effort I put in, or to an uncontrollable factorthe teacher made a mistake in grading
my test.
Internal
External
Stable

Unstable

Stable

Unstable

Controllable
Uncontrollable
Table 9.3 Dimensions of Attributions
As you might expect, these attributions can have considerable influence on the
motivation to perform.
When one attributes performance largely to internal factors and
controllable factors, motivation tends to be higher.

10

When one attributes performance largely to external, uncontrollable

factors, motivation tends to be lower, since it appears that the outcomes are
beyond the individuals control.

The results for the stable-unstable dimension are less clear. For example, if I
believe that my ability to learn in some domain is generally high, then stability is a
positive factor; but if I believe my ability is low, then stability is a negative. How
students perceive their competency and how they judge the amount of control they
have over the learning process influences how they perform in school.
With regards to academic performance, the following attributions are
significant: effort, interest, study strategy and ability. There is still some debate about
effort and ability. For example, students have better feelings about failure when they
are told it may be attributed to lack of study strategies. High achievers tend to
attribute their success to ability and effort while low achievers attribute their failure to
lack of ability and their success to luck or the test was easy.
A particular bad form of attribution reduces the student to a state known as
learned helplessness (Seligman, 1972). This happens when students believe that they
have no control over unpleasant things that happen to them. Learned helplessness
leads to reduced motivation to control events, impaired ability to learn how to control
the situation and strong fear which lead to deep depression (Miller and Norman,
1979). The worst kind of learned helplessness is attributed to internal, stable,
uncontrollable and general causes. In other words, the student is helpless in all
circumstances. In the school, underachiever may show all the symptoms of learned
helplessness such as: persistent failure, lack of motivation to avoid future failure,
inability to learn remedial material and apathy bordering on depression. Fortunately,
this helplessness being specific to school does not prevent students from blossoming
once the get into the workforce.

ACTIVITY

a) Do you see yourself as having a lot of control over what

happens in your life? "Believe in yourself" is common
advice.
Why do you think one person succeeds while another with
the same skills and training fails?
1% of Americans and 30% of people from developing
countries said it is fate or Gods will.
What is your answer?

9.6 MOTIVATING STUDENTS TO LEARN

As educators, we lament at the fact that students are not interested in studying
and the problem is more serious among low achievers. Sometimes low achieving
students are also difficult individuals who pose discipline problems. Unfortunately,

11

there is no single magical formula for motivating students. Many factors affect a
particular students motivation to work and to learn such as interest in the subject
matter, perception of its usefulness, general desire to achieve, self-confidence, selfesteem as well as patience and persistence (Bligh, 1971). Researchers are constantly
finding ways of enhancing students motivation in the classroom setting and the
following are some suggestions:
a) Kellers ARCS model
Kellers ARCS model (1983) attempts to identify the necessary components of
motivation in instructional settings. These are said to be
Attention
Relevance
Confidence
Satisfaction.
Gaining ATTENTION is perhaps the easiest of the requirements to satisfyat least
for most learners. Suggestions include framing new information in such a way that it
arouses curiosity, proposes a mystery to be resolved, or presents a challenging
problem to be solved. In addition, varying the presentation style helps to maintain
attention.
Establishing RELEVANCE includes relating new material to the learners own needs
and interests, or showing them how they will be able to use the new skills. Relevance
may also entail relating new learning to things that are already familiar to learners. In
this way it parallels findings from cognitive research that show that new information
is most comprehensible when it can be related to what the learner already knows.
Building CONFIDENCE, according to Keller, can be accomplished by strategies
such as clarifying instructional goals or letting learners set their own goals, helping
students succeed at challenging tasks, and providing them with some control over
their own learning.
Generating SATISFACTION can best be accomplished by giving learners a chance
to use new skills in some meaningful activity. For example, workers who are trained
to use a new software package will likely feel satisfaction if they are immediately
given an opportunity to apply their new skills to a real work project. In the absence of
such natural positive consequences Keller suggests rewards such as verbal praise.
Also, he notes the importance of establishing a sense of fairness by maintaining
consistent standards and matching outcomes to expectations.
Keller urges instructors to analyze the audience or student population to
determine the level of intrinsic motivation to learn the new information or skills.
Obviously, elaborate planning for extrinsic motivation is not needed when intrinsic
motivation is high.
[source: Keller, J. M., (1983). Development and Use of the ARCS Model of
Motivational Design (Report No. IR 014 039). Enschede, Netherlands: Twente Univ.
of Technology. ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 313 001]

12

9.4 ACTIVITY

a) How do you think attention, relevance, confidence

and satisfaction would be able to motivate learners?
b) Discuss how you would apply Kellers ARCS model
in motivating subjects to be interested in learning the
subject or course you teach?

b) Six Cs of Motivation
According to Turner & Paris (1996) proposed six strategies to increase motivation
called the Six Cs:
1. Choice
Provide explicit choices among alternatives can enhance intrinsic motivation; For
example when giving assignments the teacher can allow the students to focus on
their area of interests. Students will choose assignments close to their personal
interest.
2. Challenge
Provide tasks that are not too easy or too difficult but just beyond the skill level of
the student. If the task is too easy boredom may creep in; if it is too difficult the
students may feel helpless and give up or will not try.
3. Control
Students should be involved in the process of decision making, choosing team
members and organizing content; Students must be self regulated, independent and
responsible.
4. Collaboration
Students show deeper engagement and persistence if they work together. They
inspire each other and they improve performance by heeding peer comments.
5. Constructive Meaning
Value related valences are associated with the construction of meaning; if the
students perceive the value of knowledge their motivation to learn increase.
6. Consequences
Students enjoy having their work and learning environment appreciated and
recognized by others. Students work can be displayed by hanging posters on the
wall, publishing the work on web sites and taking part in competition.
[source: J. Turner and S. Paris (1995). How literacy tasks influence childrens
motivation for literacy. The Reading Teacher. 48(8). 662-763]

13

ACTIVITY

Do you think you are able to apply the SIX Cs of

motivation by Turner and Paris to motivate students in
the subject or course you teach.
ers ARCS

c) Seven Ideas for Motivating Students

Robert Harris (1991) suggests the following:
1) Explain.
Some recent research shows that many students do poorly on assignments or in
participation because they do not understand what to do or why they should do it.
Teachers should spend more time explaining why we teach what we do, and why the
topic or approach or activity is important and interesting and worthwhile. In the
process, some of the teacher's enthusiasm will be transmitted to the students, who will
be more likely to become interested. Similarly, teachers should spend more time
explaining exactly what is expected on assignments or activities. Students who are
uncertain about what to do will seldom perform well.
2) Reward.
Students who do not yet have powerful intrinsic motivation to learn can be helped by
extrinsic motivators in the form of rewards. Rather than criticising unwanted
behaviour or answers, reward correct behaviour and answers. Remember that adults
and children alike continue or repeat behaviour that is rewarded. The rewards can
(and should) be small and configured to the level of the students. Small children can
be given a balloon, a piece of gum, or a set of crayons. Even at the college level,
many professors at various colleges have given books, lunches, certificates,
exemptions from final exams, verbal praise, and so on for good performance. Even
something as apparently "childish" as a "Good Job!" stamp or sticker can encourage
students to perform at higher levels. And the important point is that extrinsic
motivators can, over a brief period of time, produce intrinsic motivation. Everyone
likes the feeling of accomplishment and recognition; rewards for good work produce
those good feelings.
3) Care.
Students respond with interest and motivation to teachers who appear to be human
and caring. Teachers can help produce these feelings by sharing parts of themselves
with students, especially little stories of problems and mistakes they made, either as
children or even recently. Such personalising of the student/teacher relationship helps
students see teachers as approachable human beings and not as aloof authority figures.
Young people are also quite insecure, and they secretly welcome the admission by
adults that insecurity and error are common to everyone. Students will attend to an
adult who appears to be a "real person," who had problems as a youth (or more
recently) and survived them. It is also a good idea to be approachable personally.

14

Show that you care about your students by asking about their concerns and goals.
What do they plan to do in the future? What things do they like? Such a teacher will
be trusted and respected more than one who is all business.
4) Have students participate.
One of the major keys to motivation is the active involvement of students in
their own learning. Standing in front of them and lecturing to them (at them?) is thus a
relatively poor method of teaching. It is better to get students involved in activities,
group problem solving exercises, helping to decide what to do and the best way to do
it, helping the teacher, working with each other, or in some other way getting
physically involved in the lesson. A lesson about nature, for example, would be more
effective walking outdoors than looking at pictures.
Students love to be needed (just like adults!). By choosing several students to
help the teacher (take roll, grade objective exams, research bibliographies or
biographies of important persons, chair discussion groups, rearrange chairs, change
the overhead transparencies, hold up pictures, pass out papers or exams) students' self
esteem is boosted and consequently their motivation is increased. Older students will
also see themselves as necessary, integral, and contributing parts of the learning
process through participation like this. Use every opportunity to have students help
you. Assign them homework that involves helping you ("I need some magazine
illustrations and internet resources on the Malaysian mangrove swamps for next
week; would someone like to find one for me?").
5) Teach Inductively.
It has been said that presenting conclusions first and then providing examples
robs students of the joy of discovery. Why not present some examples first and ask
students to make sense of them, to generalize about them, to draw the conclusions
themselves? By beginning with the examples, evidence, stories, and so forth and
arriving at conclusions later, you can maintain interest and increase motivation, as
well as teach the skills of analysis and synthesis.
6) Satisfy students' needs.
Attending to need satisfaction is a primary method of keeping students
interested and happy. Students' basic needs have been identified as survival, love,
power, fun, and freedom. Attending to the need for power could be as simple as
allowing students to choose from among two or three things to do two or three paper
topics, two or three activities, choosing between writing an extra paper and taking the
final exam, etc. Many students have a need to have fun in active ways in other
words, they need to be noisy and excited. Rather than always avoiding or suppressing
these needs, design an educational activity that fulfils them.
Students will be much more committed to a learning activity that has value for
them, that they can see as meeting their needs, either long term or short term. They
will, in fact, put up with substantial immediate unpleasantness and do an amazing
amount of hard work if they are convinced that what they are learning ultimately
meets their needs.
7) Make learning visual.
Even before young people were reared in a video environment, it was
recognized that memory is often connected to visual images. In the middle ages
people who memorized the Bible or Homer would sometimes walk around inside a

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cathedral and mentally attach certain passages to objects inside, so that remembering
the image of a column or statue would provide the needed stimulus to remember the
next hundred lines of text. Similarly, we can provide better learning by attaching
images to the ideas we want to convey. Use drawings, diagrams, pictures, charts,
graphs, bulleted lists, even three-dimensional objects you can bring to class to help
students anchor the idea to an image.
It is very helpful to begin a class session or a series of classes with a
conceptual diagram of the relationship of all the components in the class so that at a
glance students can apprehend a context for all the learning they will be doing. This
will enable them to develop a mental framework or filing system that will help them
to learn better and remember more.
h) Use positive emotions to enhance learning and motivation.
Strong and lasting memory is connected with the emotional state and
experience of the learner. That is, people remember better when the learning is
accompanied by strong emotions. If you can make something fun, exciting, happy,
loving, or perhaps even a bit frightening, students will learn more readily and the
learning will last much longer. Emotions can be created by classroom attitudes, by
doing something unexpected or outrageous, by praise, and by many other means.
[source: Robert Harris March 2, 1991. Some Ideas for Motivating Students.
VirtualSalt. http://www.virtualsalt.com/motivate.htm]
ACTIVITY

b) D

Refer to the three lists of suggestions on motivating students:

a) What are the common ideas among these suggestions?
b) Give some of your own suggestion to motivate students.

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Bandura, A. (1991b). Self-regulation of motivation through anticipatory and

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Bandura, A. (1962). Social Learning through Imitation. University of

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Harris, R. (1991). Some Ideas for Motivating Students. VirtualSalt.

http://www.virtualsalt.com/motivate.htm

Keller, J. M., (1983). Development and Use of the ARCS Model of

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Berlin,

Germany

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