Educational Psychology 390 by Dawn Riggen

• Defined as an internal state that arouses, directs, and maintains behavior

• Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
• Intrinsic – natural human tendency to seek out and conquer challenges as we pursue personal interests and exercise our capabilities
• Do not need incentive or punishments because the activity itself is satisfying and rewarding (Satisfied Spencer)
• Extrinsic – do something in order to earn a grade, avoid punishment, please the teacher, or for some other reason that has very little to do with the task itself
• Not interested in the activity for its own sake, only care about what it will gain us (Safe Sumey)
• Extrinsic motivation has been associated with negative emotions, poor academic achievement, and maladaptive learning strategies
• Locus of Causality – reason for acting internal/external

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• Needs
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Four lower level needs – deficiency needs: the closer we get to the goal, the less motivation
• Survival
• Safety
• Belonging
• Self-esteem
• Three higher level needs – being needs: the closer we get to the goal, the more motivation
• Intellectual achievement
• Aesthetic appreciation
• Self-actualization

• Needs Applications for Teachers
• People need to be competent, connected and in control.
• Students are more likely to participate in activities that help them grow more competent and less likely to engage in activities that hold the possibility of failure.
• Students also benefit from watching their competence grow, perhaps through selfmonitoring or portfolios.

• Mastery goal – personal intention to improve abilities and learn, no matter how performance suffers
• Performance goal – intention to seem competent or perform well in the eyes of others

• Goals Applications for Teachers
• Students are more likely to work toward goals that are clear, specific, reasonable, moderately challenging, and attainable within a relatively short period of time. (ZPD!!!)
• Setting performance goals in a classroom (high grades/ competition) may undermine the students ability to learn
• Students, like adults, are unlikely to stick with tasks or respond well to teachers who make them feel insecure or incompetent

• Beliefs about Knowing: Epistemological
Beliefs
• Beliefs about knowledge and learning
• Will influence student’s motivation and the kinds of strategies they will use
• Structure of Knowledge
• Stability/Certainty of Knowledge
• Ability to Learn
• Speed of Learning
• Nature or Learning

• Beliefs about Ability
• Entity view of ability
• Belief that ability is a fixed characteristic that cannot be changed
• Incremental view of ability
• Belief that ability is a set of skills that can be changed

• Beliefs about self-worth
• Most theorists agree that a sense of efficacy, control, or self-determination is critical if people are to feel intrinsically motivated
• Learned helplessness – when people come to believe that the events and outcomes in their lives are mostly uncontrollable
• Unsolvable puzzle experiment
• Causes three types of deficits
• Motivational
• Cognitive
• Affective

• Self-worth
• Mastery-oriented students – focus on learning goals because they value achievement and see ability as improvable
• Failure-avoiding students – lack a strong sense of their own competence and self-worth separate from their performance
• “Only feel as smart as their last test grade”
• Failure-avoiding strategies typically lead to the very failure that students were trying to avoid
• Failure-accepting students
• Students give up and believe that they are incompetent

• Beliefs and Attributions Applications for
Teachers
• Students who believe they lack the ability to understand the material, will probably act on that belief, even if their actual abilities are well above average
• Students who believe that failing means they are stupid, are likely to adopt many self-handicapping, selfdefeating strategies
• Teachers who stress performance, grades, and competition can encourage self-handicapping without realizing they are doing so
• Students need authentic mastery experiences

• Interests
• Personal – long-lasting aspects of the person
• Situational – short-lived aspects of the activity, text, or materials that catch and keep the student’s attention

• Curiosity
• Information gaps cause a sense of deprivation
• Similar to disequilibrium (Piaget)
• Curiosity increases as we learn more
• Intellectual Achievement (Maslow)

• Emotions
• Neuroscience and Emotion
• Humans are more likely to pay attention to, learn about, and remember events, images, and readings that provoke emotional responses
• Achievement Emotions
• Mastery goal – students are focused on the activity
• Performance-approach – students want to look good and to be the best
• Performance-avoidance- focused on fear of failing or looking stupid
• Anxiety
• Interfere with Achievement
• Focusing attention
• Pre-occupied with how nervous or worried they are feeling
• Learning
• Trouble learning material that requires them to rely on their memory
• Testing
• “freeze and forget”

• Applications for Teachers
• If students are going to sleep, energize them by introducing variety, piquing their curiosity, surprising them, or giving them a brief chance to be physically active
• Incorporate student interests into lessons and assignments

• Classroom must be relatively organized and free from constant interruptions
• Teacher must be a patient, supportive person who never embarrasses the students
• The work must be challenging but reasonable
• Learning tasks must be authentic