A Discussion About Student Achievement Motivation: Theoretical Views and Instructional Considerations Rayne A. Sperling, PhD Educational Psychology

Agenda Brief introductions Rayne introduction Discussion of flexible plan for session – What is academic achievement motivation? – Does motivation really matter? Competence and motivation Motivation drives engagement and leads to competence – Is there such a thing as ‘bad’ motivation? – Participants’ observations, concerns, and issues (What brought you here today?)

Agenda – Focus of discussion not only on “motivation” Student behavior (actual and ideal) Instructional actions – Resources and directions TARGETT model and others – Overall take-home messages

Approach To share theoretical approaches to achievement motivation relevant to Engineering instructional contexts – Explain and discuss theories – Explore faculty perceptions/student perceptions – Identify representative and target faculty and student behaviors – Identify and discuss grounded instructional strategies to enhance student motivation

Bad Motivation? Activity – Self-reported measures of achievement motivation – Actual and ideal Theoretically-ideal versus practically-ideal

Academic Achievement Motivation Some students are not engaged or are engaged in the ‘wrong’ things or for the ‘wrong’ reasons Observing students’ behaviors may not indicate why they are engaged Numerous theories and constructs explain students’ motivation for academic tasks – Some recent empirical studies of engineering and STEM students’ motivation

Theories What motivation is NOT: Related constructs and considerations – Interest – Beliefs – Epistemology – Self-regulation – Engagement

Theories There are many perspectives, for example: – Humanistic views – Attribution theory—the ‘Why’ – Self-determination theory – Self-efficacy – Expectancy x value – Goal orientation – Goal theories – Self-worth perspectives

Overall Considerations Locus of control – Belief about whether the outcomes are result of one’s behaviors (internal) or the result of events outside one’s personal control (external) Locus of causality – Belief about whether the reason for the activity is inside or outside the person Views of ability – Entity: Ability is stable and uncontrollable – Incremental: Ability is unstable and controllable

Example Attributions High grade – Ability: I am good in math – Effort: I studied hard for the exam – Ability & Effort: I am good in math and I studied hard for the exam – Task Ease: It was an easy test – Luck: I was lucky; I studied the right material

Example Attributions Low grade: – Ability: I am no good in math – Effort: I didn’t study hard enough – Ability and Effort: I’m no good in math and I didn’t study hard enough – Task difficulty: The test was impossible, nobody could have done well – Luck: I was unlucky; I studied the wrong material for the exam

Attributions

Controllable attributions The fate of ability attributions Attributional retraining When NOT to make effort attributions Teacher attributions for student learning Modeling accurate attributions Action items/Reflections

Self-Determination Theory Some think of this as the dichotomy of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. – Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation for which the activities are their own reward, inherent interest, enjoyment – Extrinsic motivation refers to motivation for doing something for a separable outcome

Some Additional SDT Interaction of determination across types of motivation Autonomy (Choice, involvement, relevance, feedback, lesson-framing statements) Relatedness (Accepting and supportive environment) Competence (Ability to function effectively in environment: praise, criticism, attributional modeling, emotional reactions, offers of help)

Some Additional SDT Present a challenge Give learner control--Choice Evoke curiosity (the role of interest) Use rewards for tasks that are not already intrinsic Base rewards and feedback on quality of work Use rewards to communicate increasing competence or determination or engagement

Drawing on Interest Personal and situational interest Mitchell – Catch (activities) and Hold (meaningfulness and involvement)

Other Views: Social Cognitive Self-Efficacy – A learner’s beliefs about his or her capability of succeeding on specific tasks Expectancy x value – Learners are motivated to engage in tasks when they expect to succeed and when they value achievement on the task

Self-Efficacy Those who are efficacious: – Willing to try on difficult tasks – Believe they will succeed and can monitor and control affect Contributing factors – Past performance – Modeling – Verbal persuasion (depends on the source) – Psychological state (i.e., distraction, anxiety)

Increasing Efficacy One instructional strategy for increasing efficacy is the use of worked examples – Product versus Process worked examples – Scaffolded presentation of worked examples Success on related tasks Collaborative tasks Peer-guided tutoring groups

Expectancy x Value Expectancy for success – Perception of task difficulty – Self-schema Task value – Intrinsic interest – Importance – Utility value – Cost The equation…

Addressing Value Lesson-framing statements Meaningfulness Nature of problems Utility Payoff for depth of engagement and understanding

Students in Context One motivation for a person’s behavior is to protect self-worth. Major source of self-worth information is performance on public tasks. In competitive academic settings, only a few students will succeed. To try hard and fail is a threat to self-worth.

Defensive Strategies Don’t participate False effort: make yourself appear as though you are working on the task when you’re not Self-handicapping: doing something to put yourself at a disadvantage

Defensive Strategies Set goals too high: failure provides no information about your own ability Set goals too low: same as above only now success provides no information Procrastinate: (publicly) put off working on the project, look like you don’t care…hey, you did well given that you only worked on it for a day… Underachieving: Setting (public) standards low

Goals Learning (Mastery) goals: Goals to learn, to improve. This produces task-involved learners – Example behaviors: Work hard for understanding Perseverance Performance goals: Goals that focus on perception of others. This produces ego-involved learners Are performance goals always ‘bad’?

Performance Goals Likely to cheat Sloppy work Attention seeking for good performance Work for the grade Compare grades Choose tasks that will likely result in positive evaluations Need clear evaluation criteria Instructor behaviors that promote performance orientation

Goal Orientations Learning/Mastery FocusedPerformance focused SuccessImprovement; mastery; Progress High grades; Comparison EffortTo get better/to learn something new To beat others/to demonstrate ability SatisfactionProgress/challenge/masteryDoing better than others/ success with minimum effort EvaluationEvidence of progressSocial comparison Interpretation of errors Part of learning processFailure of ability AbilityIncremental/improves with effort Fixed/entity

Goals Approach and Avoidance Other goal considerations and theories – Social goals – Pleasing others Parents, teachers, peers – Future goals – Work-avoidance goals

The TARGETT model Task Autonomy/responsibility Recognition Grouping Evaluation Time Teacher expectations Ames (1992), Maehr & Anderson (1993), Todorovich & Model (2005), Woolfolk(2001)

Goal Structures Cooperative: Students believe their goal is attainable only if other students will also reach the goal Competitive: Students believe that their goal is attainable only if others don’t reach the goal Individualistic: Students believe that their own attempt to reach a goal is not related to other students’ attempts to reach the goal.

Teacher Expectations Beliefs and predictions about student abilities – Objectives: make clear you expect growth, appropriate but high expectations

Teacher Expectations More capable students are given: – More opportunity for public performance on meaningful tasks – More opportunity to think – Higher level assignments (taxonomy) – More autonomy (less interruption, more choice) – More opportunity for self-evaluation – More honest feedback and contingent feedback – More respect for the individual learner – Meaningful time

Avoiding the Expectation Trap... Use information from tests and prior experiences carefully Context may change behavior and cognition Be careful in discussion with low ability students – Body language, wait time, ample and appropriate praise, call on frequently, prompts and cues too Variety of instructional materials Diversity-background experiences Gender and ethnicity and race cautions

Conclusion Things you currently do ‘right’ Things you knew Things that surprised you Action items Resource requests