Motivation

This is Unit Seven, part two, on motivation: the sources of self-efficacy, expectancy and value, self-determination, goals and teacher expectations, and designing lessons for motivation. Part one closed on how teachers build self-efficacy. Part two follows motivation into beliefs, needs and goals. Carry one idea through this part: motivation lasts when it rests on students' own beliefs, needs and goals rather than on rewards alone. At the final entry, the part shows when rewards backfire and what to do instead. By the end you will be able to name the four sources of self-efficacy in order of strength. To explain why expectancy and value multiply. To place a motive on the continuum of regulation. To classify a goal on the two-by-two framework. And to explain when rewards backfire, and what to do instead.

Three entries on helplessness and self-efficacy: when effort seems pointless, where confidence comes from, and what it cannot explain.

When effort seems pointless.

EDP 0628 Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness is the belief that effort makes no difference, arising after repeated uncontrollable failure; Seligman and Maier's original studies in nineteen sixty-seven exposed animals to inescapable shock. Helpless explanations are internal, global and lasting; optimistic ones are external, specific and temporary. Helplessness doubts effort itself, not ability at one task.

Four sources of self-efficacy.

EDP 0629 Four Sources of Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy draws on four sources, in order of strength. Mastery experiences, genuine successes on tasks that were not trivial, are strongest; young children weigh only their recent history. Vicarious experience comes from watching comparable, respected models succeed. Social persuasion, encouragement from others, is strongest from several people and backed by achievable tasks. Emotional states come last: a student may read a racing heart as a sign of failure. A student nervous about a speech watches a classmate like herself present well, succeeds at a short practice talk, and hears classmates say she can do it. Persuasion without success is hollow.

What self-efficacy cannot explain.

EDP 0630 Process, Not Content

Self-efficacy explains the process of motivation, how belief sustains effort, but not its content: what a person wants to do. A student can feel fully capable at algebra and still have no wish to study more of it. That gap is why self-determination theory reintroduces needs, asking what students want and why.

Three entries on expectancy-value theory: why expectation and value multiply, four kinds of value, and how teachers raise both.

Expectancy times value.

EDP 0631 Expectancy-Value Theory

Expectancy-value theory holds that motivation equals expectancy of success multiplied by the value of the task, so a zero on either side means no motivation: a student sure she can pass a course she sees as pointless has little motivation. This is Wigfield and Eccles's model, not Vroom's workplace expectancy theory.

Four kinds of task value.

EDP 0632 Four Kinds of Task Value

Task value has four parts: intrinsic value, the enjoyment of the task; attainment value, its importance to one's identity; utility value, its usefulness for future goals; and cost, what must be given up to do it, which counts against the other three. A future nurse values biology for its utility even while finding it dull.

Raising expectancy and value.

EDP 0633 Raising Expectancy and Value

Teachers raise expectancy with tasks at the right level, help with planning and help when needed; they raise value by linking tasks to students' interests, prior knowledge, usefulness and the valuing of respected others, as a teacher shows how percentages decide the price of a student's favorite sneakers. Both predict achievement behavior and course choices.

Three entries on self-determination theory: three needs, a continuum of motivation, and how teachers support the needs.

Three psychological needs.

EDP 0634 Self-Determination Theory

Self-determination theory, from Deci and Ryan, holds that people have three psychological needs: competence, relatedness and autonomy. When they are met, actions feel self-determined; when not, people feel coerced. A student who helped set the class rules follows them willingly, because self-determination is a perception of freedom, possible within rules.

A continuum, not two boxes.

EDP 0635 The Continuum of Regulation

Self-determination theory places motivation on a continuum, not in two boxes. At one end is amotivation, no intention to act. Then come four kinds of extrinsic regulation, each more internal than the last: external, to get a reward or avoid punishment; introjected, to avoid guilt or win approval; identified, because the person values the outcome; and integrated, because that value has become part of the self. At the far end is intrinsic motivation. For a student practicing piano, my parents make me is external, I'd feel guilty if I skipped is introjected, practice will get me into the band is identified, music is part of who I am is integrated, and I love playing is intrinsic. Ask why the student acts, not what the student does.

Supporting the three needs.

EDP 0636 Supporting the Three Needs

Teachers support autonomy with choices for all students, competence with challenging but achievable tasks and prompt feedback, and relatedness with mutually supportive group work, such as the jigsaw classroom; a teacher who says we supports relatedness. Too many choices frustrate, and whether choice improves learning or only satisfaction is unsettled.

Six entries on goals and expectations: kinds of achievement goal, self-handicapping, four orientations, and teacher expectations.

Mastery and performance goals.

EDP 0637 Mastery and Performance Goals

A mastery goal aims to improve and understand, judged against one's own past; a performance goal aims to outperform others, judged against them: I want to finally get fractions is mastery, and I want the top score is performance. The same distinction appears as learning versus performance and task- versus ego-involved goals.

Approach and avoidance.

EDP 0638 Approach and Avoidance Goals

Crossing mastery and performance goals with approach and avoidance produces the two-by-two achievement goal framework. Mastery-approach goals seek to master the task; mastery-avoidance goals seek to avoid misunderstanding; performance-approach goals seek to outperform others; performance-avoidance goals seek to avoid looking worse. Mastery-approach goals bring effort, interest and deep strategies; performance-avoidance goals bring poor persistence, anxiety and low achievement; performance-approach goals are mixed. Before a history test, one student wants to understand the war's causes, another to beat a rival, and a third only hopes not to look stupid. Ask whether the standard is the task or others, and whether the student moves toward success or away from failure.

Self-handicapping and social goals.

EDP 0639 Self-Handicapping and Social Goals

Failure-avoidant students may self-handicap, procrastinating, giving minimal effort or setting unrealistic goals so failure can be blamed on something other than ability, as a student who parties before an exam has a ready excuse. Students also pursue social goals, such as pleasing the teacher. Choice, relevance and feedback on improvement encourage mastery goals.

Four orientations toward achievement.

EDP 0640 Covington's Four Orientations

Covington's model crosses approaching success with avoiding failure: success-oriented students seek mastery; overstrivers are high on both, picking easy tasks, rehearsing answers and even cheating; failure-avoiding students self-handicap; failure-accepting students show learned helplessness and are hardest to motivate. For failure-avoiders, trying and failing exposes low ability.

The Pygmalion study.

EDP 0641 The Pygmalion Study

Teacher expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies. In Rosenthal and Jacobson's nineteen sixty-eight Pygmalion study, teachers were told that randomly chosen students would bloom intellectually, and those students later gained more on an IQ test: a label from a test, not the child, set the expectation. The study is famous and debated.

How large expectancy effects are.

EDP 0642 How Large Are Expectancy Effects?

Expectancy effects in classrooms do occur, but they are typically small, do not accumulate greatly over time, and may be more likely to dissipate than accumulate; larger effects may occur for some groups of students. A teacher's expectation nudges scores; it rarely rewrites a student's future. Small is not zero, so teachers still guard against low expectations.

Two entries on designing for motivation, ending with the payoff: when rewards backfire, and what to do instead.

Designing a lesson with ARCS.

EDP 0643 Designing with ARCS

Keller's ARCS model organizes motivational design into four parts. Attention covers perceptual arousal, inquiry arousal and variability. Relevance connects the task to students' goals, values, authentic tasks and prior knowledge. Confidence draws on self-efficacy and expectancy, with control through choices and controllable attributions. Satisfaction depends on outcomes that feel earned, since hollow rewards do not satisfy. A lesson on budgeting opens with a puzzle about where a paycheck goes, uses students' own spending goals, starts with a problem every student can solve, and ends with each student's finished budget. ARCS draws on this unit's theories rather than replacing them.

The payoff: when rewards backfire.

EDP 0644 When Rewards Backfire

Here the part's idea is decided. Rewards are among the most familiar motivational tools, and the overjustification effect warns that they can backfire: when a person already enjoys an activity, an expected extrinsic reward can reduce intrinsic motivation, as in Deci's study, where paid students later worked on the puzzles less. The effect has limits. Tangible rewards harm more than intangible ones, expected more than unexpected, and the harm is smaller with flat-rate pay and well-defined tasks; how large the harm is remains contested. Self-determination theory points the same way, advising fewer external rewards and comparisons, and real choices. Take a reading program that gives a prize for every book: students who already loved reading now read for the prize, and some read less when it ends. A second classroom offers choice, unexpected praise and small-group sharing, and nothing is taken away when the year ends. Rewards still have a place, used selectively; the aim is to keep the reward from replacing the reason for learning.

Look at what you can now do. You can name the four sources of self-efficacy in order of strength: mastery, vicarious experience, persuasion and emotional states. You can explain why expectancy and value multiply, so a zero on either side leaves no motivation. You can place a motive on the continuum of regulation by asking why the student acts. You can classify a goal on the two-by-two framework: mastery or performance, approach or avoidance. And you can explain when rewards backfire: expected, tangible rewards for activities students already enjoy, where choice, competence and belonging serve better. Unit Eight turns to intelligence and exceptional learners.