Motivation (1)
EDU 330: Educational Psychology
Daniel Moos
Overview
Today:
• The Behavioral View of Motivation
• The Social Cognitive View of Motivation
• Other Cognitive Views of Motivation
Next Class
• Expectancy X Value Theory
• The Humanistic View of Motivation
• The Role of Self-Perceptions in Motivation
The Behavioral View of Motivation
• Students are motivated to complete a task by the
desire to obtain an externally provided reinforcer
(extrinsic reinforcement)
• Limitations of the Behavioral View
 Temporary changes (in absence of reward)
 Materialistic View
 Undermining Effect with Intrinsic motivation
The Social Cognitive View of Motivation
• Two factors that influence motivation:
 The models to which people are exposed
 The strength of one’s self-efficacy for a
particular task
• The Power of Persuasive Models
 Students who observe an admired model receive
reinforcement may be motivated to exhibit the same
behavior because they expect to receive the same
reinforcement (vicarious reinforcement)
Other Cognitive Views of Motivation
Self-determination theory: Process of deciding how to act on one’s environment
(Ryan & Deci, 2000)
Need
Definition
Classroom
Application/Example
Competence
Ability to function effectively in the
environment
Feedback (“Your
problem-solving skills
are improving. Good
work!”)
Autonomy
Independence and ability to alter
the environment
Teacher asks for student
input on rules,
encourages students to
set & monitor goals
Relatedness
The feeling of being connected to
others in one’s environment
Teacher spends time
with her students before
& after school, helping
them w/ homework, etc
Other Cognitive Views of Motivation
• Beliefs about the Nature of Cognitive Ability
 Entity Theorists
– Believe that intelligence is like a thing, or entity,
that has fixed characteristics
 Incremental Theorists
– Believe that intelligence can be
gradually improved by adding to and
refining thinking skills
 Developmental trajectory
Other Cognitive Views of Motivation
• Attributions: Explanations that people tend
to make to explain success or failure
Controllable Uncontrollable
Internal
Effort
Luck
External
Choice of Study
Environments
Difficulty of
Test
Attribution Theory: Introduction (II)
• How do individuals typically attribute their
success and/or failure?
– Interpret successes and failures in a manner that
is most likely to maintain positive self-image
Internal
External
Success/Failure
Success
Failure
Controllable
Uncontrollable
Effort
Luck
Choice of Study
Environments
Difficulty of
Test
Attribution Theory: Introduction (III)
Attribution
Inherited ability
Locus
internal
Stability
stable
Personality
internal
stable
uncontrollable
Effort
internal
unstable
controllable
external
stable
uncontrollable
external
unstable
uncontrollable
Task Difficulty
Luck
Controllability
uncontrollable
Attribution Theory: Case Study
Attribution Theory: Strategies
(1) “I am competent” AND “I worked hard”
•
NOT beneficial to completely attribute to ability
(2) Students most likely to persist after failing if they
attribute failure to a lack of appropriate effort
(3) Scaffold student’s understanding of effort
(a) Students often confuse spending time doing ineffective
activities with effort
(b) Students often have incorrect conceptions of their
understanding (metacognition)
(4) Should assessment include evaluations of effort?