Studies have identified that lack of motivation is a primary reason for under-achievement and dropouts, writes Sonia P Thomas.
Motivation is considered to be one of the most vital foundations of students’ academic achievements. Early developmental stage of infants and toddlers shows that they are naturally motivated to learn the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the world around them.
But, they become less interested and motivated in the school environment that at times even successful students get low grades or fails. This throws the parents and teachers into panics. How can we best foster students’ academic motivation? What are the hallmarks of successful academic motivation?
Research has consistently found that academically motivated students tend to perceive school and learning as precious. They like to learn and enjoy activities related to learning. Studies have also identified lack of motivation as a primary reason for underachievement and dropouts.
Often, teachers and school counsellors are enthusiastic to assist students in academic motivation. But they find it difficult to understand the motivational underpinnings of students' behaviours or are unable to determine how best to embark upon motivational problems and provide proper guidance to students.
Components of motivation
n Self-efficacy: It signifies the personal belief of a student in his or her ability to study. Students who have high self-efficacy win over challenging tasks and persevere through difficult learning times. But students who are low in self-efficacy often avoid challenging assignments and quit when met with difficult undertakings.
Setbacks and failures affect students with low levels of self-efficacy more strongly, even in cases of mild failure. Students with the same level of skills on a specific task might perform differently depending on their belief in their own ability.
n Autonomy: It denotes personal belief of a student in his or her control over their own learning and choice making. When a student experiences autonomy, learning becomes self-endorsed and determined. Controlled teaching environments are very often associated with low achievement and fear and create dependency need. On the other hand autonomy based classroom teaching styles promote deeper understanding, competence and positive attitude towards learning.
n Attribution beliefs: Attribution beliefs refer to personal assumptions regarding why things happen in students’ lives and how they give meaning to other students’ success or failure. When students attribute their academic success or failure to internal causes, they will remain positively motivated. If a student considers success or failure to the external situations, they spend less energy in learning.
n Goals: Goals afford a structure within which a student responds to events and results in a unique pattern of thinking and behaviour. Students need to be educated to form their own goals for academic achievement. Self-pursued goals are mostly achieved and they remain robust but self-imposed goals cause pressure, guilt and lack of confidence in students. Self-pursued goals are oriented to learning and help students express their academic competence. On the other hand, students with self-imposed goals reveal their competence in comparison to others.
n Values: When students add value to learning activities they are likely to apply effort to learn. The amount of time and hard work spent on learning depends on how much the student values learning. Students who value learning, enjoy homework and learning related activities. They pursue through challenges and difficult times of their school life. In contrast, students who lack value for knowledge may easily give up homework and demands of school life.
Intrinsic vs extrinsic
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are very important in learning to understand academic motivation of students. Students with intrinsic motivation engage in learning, even without external enticement. They prefer assignments that are challenging and tough. On the other hand, students with extrinsic motivation enjoy activities that obtain some reinforcements and rewards.
Students who are intrinsically motivated, engage in a task because it is interesting and satisfying with no apparent reward except for the satisfaction they receive from performing the task. In contrast, students who are extrinsically motivated, engage in a task because of an expectation of the external outcome.
Comprehending the underpinnings of these motivational components school counsellors and teachers are to recognise which parts of academic motivation each student needs to improve. With the goal of helping students enhance academic motivation, educators should equip themselves with knowledge regarding motivation and its relationship with academic development.
Realising how much effort the student needs to expend or what ability level is required to achieve a certain outcome is a continuous process. When students are sufficiently motivated, they tend to persist in difficult situations and take pleasure in their achievement.
Strategies of influence
Teachers and school counsellors can influence motivation negatively or positively depending upon the understanding of students’ self-efficacy, attribution belief, goals, values, besides exercising external controls, supervision and using rewards or punishments in their learning environment.
n Enhance self-efficacy: Permit students to experience success on different types of tasks and help them obtain mastery over their learning materials. When students study smarter and attain success, they will experience satisfaction and prove their self-efficacy. Teachers and school counselors need to provide informative and challenging feedback to students on their self-efficacy.
Spending time personally with students to find out their area of interest, strength and weakness will help them develop and improve self-efficacy. Building up student academic motivation is important, because constructive personal beliefs about themselves allow them to change their thoughts, emotions and behaviours in academic environment and these in turn promote their self-efficacy.
n Build up attribution beliefs: Students need to be assisted to attribute their success to their own capacity rather than external factors. Thus, they can develop positive attribution beliefs. Giving positive evaluations and reinforcements following success could help students foster awareness of their ability. Teachers and classroom environment need to help the student understand that abilities and proficiency are developed, not unchanging.
n Increase autonomy: Classroom atmosphere and learning materials that are challenging give students choices and promote autonomy and self-determination. This in turn can positively affect motivation. Teachers can create autonomy atmosphere in the classroom by allowing students to find solutions to problems, choose their area of interest and engage them in peer evaluations. Students should be clearly explained that they have choices and options in learning.
Teachers and school counsellors can help them identify their preferred way of learning. This is one way of motivating students. Decreasing evaluative pressure and avoiding rewards are essential because these procedures tend to control students’ behaviour rather than promoting autonomy. Traditional teaching may no more be interesting to students and may not promote academic motivation, thus each teacher should find unique and creative ways to motivate students in school settings.
n Self-concept: Students form their self-concept from the evaluations and feedback received from teachers, parents and peers. When students receive positive responses from the significant others, they enjoy learning and are motivated in academic achievement. Therefore, self-concept formation is an important factor to enhance academic motivation.
Helping students in need of academic motivation may seem an overwhelming task, but when considered as an important component of academic development, working with students on their academic motivation can be a transformative experience for school teachers and school counselors.