Understanding Motivation
What is Motivation?
Student Motivation in the College
Classroom
What factors influence it?
Sociocultural Context
Classroom Environmental Factors
Internal Factors (Beliefs/Perceptions)
Motivated Behavior
Understanding Your Own
Motivation
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Evaluate your behaviors in three areas:
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Choice of behavior
Level of activity and involvement
Persistence and management of effort
Sociocultural Context
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Cultural Factors can influence your motivation
Attitudes, beliefs, and experiences you bring to
college based on your sociocultural experiences that
influence motivation and behaviors.
Internal Factors
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Goals you set:
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Serve to Motivate Behavior
Affect Mastery and Performance
Ask yourself, what are my goals?
Are they defined goals in Long and Short Terms?
Are they clear and well defined?
Are they set goals different life areas?
5 Major Ways Goals Enhance Your
Performance
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Effort
Duration and Persistence
Direction of Attention
Strategic Planning
Reference Point
Effects on Effort
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Goals setting influences what you do and how
hard you maximize your performance
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The more difficult the goal—the harder you
work towards attaining it.
Effects on Duration or Persistence
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Without goals, it easy to be
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Distracted
Attention drifts
More easily interrupted
Stop work without task completion
With goals, you have defined point of
performance
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Know when to quit the task
Effects on Attention
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Goals direct your attention toward the task
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Goals direct you attention away from
distractions
Strategic Planning
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To accomplish a goal, you need
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An action plan or strategic planning
Goal setting encourages strategic planning and
helps determine how you proceed
Reference Point
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Identifies where you are headed
Allows you to receive feedback from that point
Determines any further actions that need taken
Two Types of Goals
Mastery Goals
Oriented toward learning
as much as possible
Performance Goals
Focuses on comparison
and competition
Mastery
Performance
Success
defined as…
Improvement,
High grades, high
progress, creativity performance
compared to others
Value placed
on…
Effort, academic
ventures
Demonstrates high
performance relative
to effort
Basis for
satisfaction…
Progress,
challenge,mastery
Doing better that
others
Error viewed
as…
Part of the learning Failure, evidence of
process,
lack of ability
informational
Ability viewed
as…
Developing through Fixed
effort
How do you value different
academic courses and tasks?
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Values and Interest
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Play an important role on academic behaviors
Affect student activities
Affect level of persistence
Affect student choices
Can You Do Well on Different
Academic Tasks?
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Self-Efficacy plays an important role
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How you evaluate your own abilities or skills to
successfully complete a task
Rating your self-efficacy
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A rating too high or too low can be detrimental
Causes of Successes and Failures
Discuss
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How can a “C” grade on two individual term
papers be interpreted as both a success and a
failure?
Why the two different responses?
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Goals
 Attribution
Explains why people respond differently to
outcomes.
Perception about the cause of success and failure
differ
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How students perceive prior successes and
failures is an important determiner of how they
approach their next tasks.
Rate the Responses as Positive or
Negative
I did well because I’m
smart.
I studied hard for the test,
but it wasn’t enough.
The test was easy.
I was lucky.
The professor was fair.
I did poorly because I’m
stupid.
I studied hard for the test
but still did not get it.
The test was hard.
I was unlucky.
The professor was unfair.
I was tired.
Respond to these questions
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When I perform poorly, do I attribute my
performance to uncontrollable factors?
Are there alternative explanations for the
causes of my academic performances?
What are some factors that can
negatively affect your
performance?
Boredom
Anxiety
Worry
Self-Doubt
Negative Impacts on Performance
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Boredom
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It is not a reason—it is an excuse!!!
Often implies that the learner does not understand
the material
Negative Impacts on Performance
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Anxiety
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Can negatively impact performance 4 ways:
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Disruption in mental activity
Psychological distress
Misdirected attention
Inappropriate behaviors
Negative Impacts on Performance
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Worrying can be a major factor
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Has a strong negative impact academic
performance
Negative beliefs
Troubling thoughts
Poor decisions
Negative Impacts on Performance
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Psychological distress
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Emotionality
This seems to diminish after a test begins; whereas,
worry continues
Inappropriate Behaviors
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Procrastination
Test anxiety
Lack of persistence until task completion
Covington’s Theory of Self-Worth
Strategies that protect against inferences on an
individual’s lack of ability
Procrastination
Unattainable Goals
Underachievers
Anxiety
In Class Exercise
Attribution
I lack ability.
I didn’t feel well.
I wasn’t in the mood.
I’m not interested in the task
I don’t do well on tests.
The material was boring.
The test was unfair.
Suggested Responses
Assignment
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Select two (2) different courses you are
currently taking—one difficult and one less
challenging or one that you like and one that
you don’t like. Analyze your motivation in the
two classes by discussing IN DETAIL each
of the following factors that determine your
motivated behaviors.
Use a graph like the example that follows:
Motivation and Goal Exercise
Class 1
Goals
Interest and
Values
Self-Efficacy
beliefs
Test Anxiety
Mastery vs.
performance goal
Class 2