Leveraging Student Motivation

Motivation Overview

Motivation is a foundational principle for teaching and learning. If we cannot communicate the value of our courses and the steps to success, students struggle to perform the work required to learn. It is that simple - if someone believes that they will never be successful, no matter how hard they try, they won't put in effort. Humans have long evolved toward efficiency, and a worthless, impossible goal is not worth our time. 

Understanding motivation is key to designing your class and your delivery in a way that leverages what we know about human motivation. 

The authors of How Learning Works - Susan A. Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman -  provide a great visual of human motivation. Motivation, made up of expectancy and value, leads to goal-directed behavior, which leads to learning and performance outcomes. Keep in mind that students are responsible for the goal-directed behavior - they are the ones who have to study, practice, and learn. And, while many students will be able to find both value and expectancy/efficacy in our courses, some need more help than others. 

If students are responsible for the work of learning, I would argue that we are responsible for articulating value and efficacy. Many of our students have had successful academic experiences in the past and make easy connections between our classes and their futures. But, some don't. As experts (both in our disciplines and in higher ed), we often have expert blind spots. We know and understand how our courses work and how to be successful in them, so we assume that others have the same knowledge. It is worthwhile to begin every course with new students with a novice lens - what do people brand new to college, to the culture of higher ed, to our disciplines - need to know about how this system works. Articulating the value of our disciplines and classes, as well as sharing strategies for success, is a faculty responsibility. 

Here is a visual from the book, How Learning Works.

 

  

We always hope for both learning and performance, but they are separate outcomes. Learning is authentic, internalized, transferable knowledge and skills, and performance is doing well on assessments of learning (tests, presentations, papers, quizzes). I really do hope that my students both learn and perform well, but I can think of memorable examples of students who only did one or the other.

 

Elements of Motivation

The key elements that faculty should pay attention to are value and expectancy. 

VALUE: variety of forms - from attainment (all about getting to the next level of proficiency), intrinsic (all about personal enjoyment), and instrumental (a means to another valuable end)

EXPECTANCY: two key elements - "the belief that specific actions will bring about a desired outcome" and "the belief that one is capable for identify, organizing, initiating, and executing a course of action that will bring about a desired outcome"

In other words, students need to find value in our courses (sometimes because they are interested, sometimes because our courses will help them achieve something else they want), and they need to both know how to be successful (what are effective study strategies for your discipline, where are the resources if they struggle) and believe they are capable of following the steps to be successful (different from the "I am just not good at Math, so it doesn't matter how hard I study" thinking). 

This is where faculty come in. It is key that we communicate the value of our courses. Sometimes, we do this unconsciously as we demonstrate enthusiasm for our disciplines and how they help students build transferrable skills for other college classes, in future careers, and as citizens. Sometimes, we need to explicitly address this more to reach students. And, expectancy is also partly faculty responsibility. If we assume that the students who walk into our classrooms already have effective study strategies for our disciplines, we are likely wrong. Model and explicitly teach how to get the most of textbook reading, how to study for exams, where to reach out for help if students struggle. We can make a large impact on learning by understanding and supporting student motivation. We also make a large impact on student self efficacy (part of expectancy). If they are unsure of their skills, positive feedback when students are on track, supportive help when they are off-track, expressed confidence in everyone's ability to success when using the best process all support positive outcome expectancies. 

For more information, please watch this short video on these two key topics.

 

 

What Affects Motivation?

Although the elements provide a great schema for the process of engaging student motivation for success, recognizing the complexity of individual motivation is key. Just valuing something is not enough to make it happen. Just working hard does not guarantee success. Anytime humans are involved, it is complicated. 

Please review the follow short video for additional information on the factors that affect both value and expectancy. 

 

 

Classroom Strategies

At the end of their chapter on motivation, Ambrose and colleagues share strategies that establish Value, help students build positive Expectancies, and address Value and Expectancies.

Here's a link to those pages Links to an external site. from the book. 

 

Additional Resource

How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching, Susan A. Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman. 2010.

Copies of the book are available for checkout from the TLC.