Running head: MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER

Motivation Project Paper

Group Number: 5 Members: Nadine Dare Rebecca Diener Daniel Jackson Haley Dillon

EPS 390 sec3, 11:00am

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER

Our research on motivation began by designing a group of interview questions to ask two chosen high school students. The focus for the interviews was the idea of the arts classes, such as music and art, affecting a students motivation during the school day. Because we were planning to interview a junior male from a public school and a sophomore female from a private school, we also wanted to look at the difference between the genders, as well as the schooling style and size. We chose this as our focus because the four of us have a passion for the arts within the schools. We hope to use this as valuable research when we are teachers to combat the decline in arts classes in schools. As a group, we considered many questions that could help us learn more about our focus. We consolidated a few of our questions, then put them in an order that would seem logical to our interviewees. At the beginning of the interview, we focused on questions that do not force student responses to be about the arts. According to an article about interviewing, forced questioning can make the interviewees nervous, and therefore answer falsely (Gilstrap, 2004). Consequently, we asked questions that would give us basic background information about the students school day. For example, we wanted to know about their class size and the start/end of the school day. We also asked questions about general hobbies and how the student is motivated during and after school. We asked the students how they are motivated to do homework, if teachers help with motivation, and how motivated they compared to other students in their classes. To see if they felt motivated in an arts class, we asked the students what class they look forward to each day and how concentrated they were in that particular class. To dig even further into our focus, we specifically asked questions about music or art classes. These questions asked the students if they were in an arts class, if they would like to be in an arts class if they do not already, when they have their arts class, and whether they have opportunities for the arts outside

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER of school. If they had an art class, we inquired about how motivated they were because of the class and how an arts class affected their overall attitude towards learning. We also asked them

about whether the arts class used cross-curricula and if other content teachers used the arts in the classroom and how it affected the students motivation. At the end of the interview we closed with questions about how much the students enjoyed the arts and how they would feel if schools dropped all art programs. These questions combined well to form solid interviews packed full of information about motivation and the arts. Our group asked a variety of different questions pertaining to motivation in general, and motivation within the fine arts. The goal was to link fine arts and motivation in a positive way. The questions started very general, with information about the school and class sizes and information about the interviewee. Later we moved onto questions dealing with general motivation. Finally, we moved onto questions dealing with fine arts and motivation. Questions about whether or not they are in fine arts, if they enjoyed them, and if they feel more motivated to attend school with the option to do the fine arts. Because of the order and subject matter of the questions, we got a good idea of what the student is interested in and what motivates them first, and then we asked them about the fine arts (Cherryman et al., 2011). Due to the order of the questions we saw that the students respond with more motivation when there is some integration of fine arts in other subject areas. There were drastic differences in some aspects of the students answers. The quality of the answers differed greatly. Marias answers were detailed and well thought out. Her answers led us to believe that the arts are an important part of her motivation, as well as other intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Rexs answers were very concise. It was easy to see his personality in the kind of answers he was giving. He used many one or two word sentence answers, and we had to

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ask more narrow questions to get the kind of detail that Maria freely gave. From the answers Rex gave, we get a picture of someone whose main motivation is extrinsic. Inclusion of the arts is nice, but not essential in his eyes. Maria and Rex are understandably very different in what motivates them. Rex is interested primarily in sports: soccer and basketball. Maria has a broader range of interests: biology, English, choir, and soccer. This means Maria is more apt to be motivated in art related subjects because of her very right-brained activities. In his answers, Rex displays that behaviorism has greatly impacted his schooling. His motivation for school is derived from the reward he receives and he finds little other reason to participate in any of his classes. Behaviorisms theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior (Watson, 1994). As a result of this behavioristic reaction to school, Rex maintains motivated in completing his school work. In contrast, Maria most closely embodies the Social Cognitive model of In the social cognitive model, two implicit theories of ability... the two implicit theories are entity theory and incremental theory: Entity theory characterizes ability as stable and immutable, whereas incremental theory characterizes ability as amenable to change (Cury, 2006). In response to Marias heightened motivation and her positive reports of teacher interaction, she has been heavily influenced by teachers who instruct in a humanistic manner. This is evident in that her humanistic teachers were, focusing upon the growth and development of the person himself (Buhler, 1996). Maria is a living example of the resultant high intrinsic motivation to do her best as a student. While Rex maintains a predominantly humanistic view of his education he also gives evidence that his extrinsic motivation to do his homework is the result of a social construct. He made this clear when he was joking about doing his homework only to keep his parents from

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beating him. The social interaction with his parents inspired Rex to perform a certain behavior as, a sociocultural approach must account for the emergence of motivation from social and cultural practices (Walker 2004). Maria admits that her parents and peers strongly influence her motivation through constructive criticism. Others support is important because, Sociocultural views of motivation focus on participation in a learning community... this suggests that a learning environment can provide a form of motivational scaffolding that results in learners engaging in activities that they would not do on their own (Eggen, 2010). In Marias learning community her parents and peers continue to share not only what they find excellent about her work, but they also gently inform her of what she needs to improve. Rexs personal factors seem to relate mostly to extrinsic causes. He is quoted as saying he feels satisfaction when he gets good grades. Contextually, he jokingly says that he wants goods grades because he likes not getting beaten by my parents. Clearly, hes not serious but we can guess that he is also contextually motivated by his parents approval. From the artistic aspect, hes hardly motivated by them at all, but he states that he was contextually motivated towards history because he had a teacher that brought in his guitar to teach them about the labor conflicts Maria took her interview much more seriously. Personally, she says that her grades motivate her, but she also cites that she actually is interested in English. Her personal motivation for the arts is also much higher; she cites a heavy interest in choir both in and out of school. Contextually, she says that her parents expect her to do well. Other than that, she says her friends also motivate her by giving her good criticism. Personal and contextual motivation differ because of their sources. For contextual motivation, it has been proposed that individuals interact with the environment in order to feel competent and to achieve unique accomplishments. (Deci, 1975) For instance, some students

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER may learn the subject matter being presented in class, while others may be more interested in obtaining good grades, outperforming classmates, pleasing their instructors and parents, or simply completing assignments as quickly and painlessly as possible (Ormrod, 2008). Personal factors have more to do with interests and an intrinsic predilection towards the subjects we are asking about. Personal factors are based in intrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated individuals are more likely to pursue an academic task on their own initiative, without having to be coerced or forced to. (Lei, 2010) Simply put, personal factors are the motivators that come from within the student.

As teachers, we are interested in both, but can only influence one. Our responsibilities lie with the contextual. We must take careful note of Rexs history teacher that influenced his focus and motivation by crossing curriculum and using music. He also mentions that his Spanish teacher does it as well. Maria cites that she feels her best teachers have a variety of different activities to get them moving. This desire for diversity is also shown when she states that she would like various art classes to develop a variety of skills.

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER References Buhler, C. (1996). Humanistic psychology as an educational program. American Psychologist, 24(8), 736-742. Cherryman, J., Griffiths A., & Milne B. (2011). A Question of Control? The Formulation of Supect and Witness Interview Question Strategies by Advanced Interviewers. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 13(3), 255-267. Cury, F., Elliot, A.J., Da Fonseca, D., & Moller, A. C. (2006). The social-cognitive model of achievement motivation and the 2 x 2 achievement goal framework. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 90(4), 666-679. Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New York: Plenum. Eggen, P. D., & Kauchak, D. P. (2009-2010). Educational psychology: windows on classrooms (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall. Gilstrap, Livia L. (2004). The Missing Link in Suggestibility Research. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 10 (1), 13-24. Lei, S. A. (2010). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: Evaluating Benefits and Drawbacks from College Instructors' Perspectives. Journal Of Instructional Psychology, 37(2), 153-160.

Ormrod, J.E. (2008). Human learning (6th ed.).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Walker, R.A., Pressick-Kilborn, K., Arnold, L.S., & Sainsbury, E.J. (2004). Investigating Motivation in Context: Developing Sociocultural Perspectives. European Psychologist, 9(4), 245-256. Watson, J.B. (1994). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 101(2), 248-253.