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Motivation - Ensuring Motivation in the Learning Process

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The most important types of motivation for educational psychology is achievement motivation, peoples tendencies to strive for success and choose activities that are goal oriented. They main difference in achievement is the difference in how someone is motivated. Some people are motivated to learn, while others are motivated to perform well and get a good grade.

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While reading the article, How to Motivate Students to Work Harder, I could relate to every point that was being made.  The main goal in public schools is to close the gap of achievement and while that is the focus the standards fail to address the most important factor to learning: the psychological barriers that students face.  When students doubt their academic abilities and if they belong they are more likely to fail regardless of their intelligence or quality of teaching they receive. In an additional article from The Journal of Experimental Psychology they completed a study with students who had to write a paragraph about a personal hero. They had teachers write their usual notes while grading the papers and then included post it notes on some of the other papers. The post it notes had positive remarks and told the students how much better he or she could do. Then the teachers gave the students an opportunity to revise their essay and turn it back in. 87% of the students who had received the encouraging messages turned it back in.

I enjoyed this article the most out of all the others I found and read. I can relate to the points first hand. I keep thinking of myself as a student and how I reacted more positively to teachers that I respected and knew genuinely cared about me.  This study goes on to describe the importance of positive interactions with students. This was my favorite quote from this article “When students feel "dumb," the solution is not to tell them they're "smart" but to make them feel as though being "smart" or "dumb" is irrelevant to success.”

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In an era of rising academic standards, more kids than ever will struggle and fail. But research suggests new ways to help them thrive in the face of adversity.

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In an era of rising academic standards, more kids than ever will struggle and fail. But research suggests new ways to help them thrive in the face of adversity.

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The article titled, To Reward or not to Reward: Motivating Students to Learn, was eye opening to me and gave me a viewpoint that I hadn’t thought of before. I read this to get an idea of how rewards should be used and if they should be used at all to increase student motivation.  When we think of rewards in the classroom, we think of the traditional prize boxes and candy. In this article it debates if rewarding can be used to increase student motivation.

In this article, many points were made in support of using rewards in the classroom. It was stated that teachers could use rewards in the classroom to help children learn. To really use rewards effectively, one must not use rewards if they are not earned. People would reward or praise others to build up self-esteem and it is stated that this is not a correct way to use rewards in the classroom. The most important note that I read in this article was that rewards could be in the form of encouragement and feedback to make learning a rewarding experience.  I really want to do this in my classroom.
Overall, the point was made that rewards can be a positive when used in the correct way. It can prepare students to work hard and can make meeting goals easier later in life.  It conditions them to know that they can work hard and achieve their goals. The article states “Educators who use rewards to help learners persist in the face of challenging tasks to gain automaticity also help them reduce the amount of effort needed later to attain their ever more challenging goals.” Rewards being used appropriately help students work hard and achieve automaticity.

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Learning is fun and exciting, at least when the curriculum is well matched to students' interests and abilities and the teacher emphasizes hands-on activities. When you teach the right things the right way, motivation takes care of itself. If students aren't enjoying learning, something is wrong with your curriculum and instruction -- you have somehow turned an inherently enjoyable activity into drudgery.

School is inherently boring and frustrating. We require students to come, then try to teach them stuff that they don't see a need for and don't find meaningful. There is little support for academic achievement in the peer culture, and frequently in the home as well. A few students may be enthusiastic about learning, but most of them require the grading system and the carrots and sticks that we connect to it to pressure them to do at least enough to get by. (1)

Brophy observed that "neither [view] is valid, but each contains elements of truth." They illustrate the two extreme ends of a continuum of views among psychologists of student motivation. At one extreme is a teaching philosophy based on what Brophy called "overly romantic views of human nature," while at the other is a philosophy based on "overly cynical or hedonistic views of human nature." Between these extremes lies a realistic and research-supported theory of student motivation.

The well-designed reward systems we describe do not include the unearned praise and uncritical recognition associated with the self-esteem fad that swept the U.S. in recent years. Some writers observe that Millennials (persons born from the early 1980s to the 2000s, also called Generation Y) grew up believing that simply participating in a sport or "trying hard" at some other activity entitled them to rewards, regardless of their level of performance. As a result, they enter the workforce with unrealistic expectations of recognition, promotions, and pay increases [2]. Greater use of well-designed reward systems would have better prepared this generation for the challenges and responsibilities of adult life.

According to Aristotle, we become what we do [3]. Education contributes to that process by building skills and habits of mind that are learned in a variety of ways. Psychologists have identified incremental methods for helping individuals learn. Rewards constitute part of this learning enterprise when they help individuals attend to the short- and long-term goals that drive their learning [4].

When students learn something well, they reduce their costs of doing it; that is, they can use their well-absorbed knowledge or well-practiced skills nearly automatically, with little effort. The more automatic a requisite skill is, the faster a person reaches his or her goals. Skills such as recognizing letters exemplify the learning needed to reach the goal of reading. Students who struggle to distinguish a "b" from a "d" are unlikely to readily comprehend what they read. Once they achieve "automaticity" with such recognition skills, however, they can move on to word recognition and sentence comprehension. Mastering the prerequisite stages makes the later stages less costly in time and effort - even enjoyable. Just as practice in sports makes a physical skill more automatic, practice in reading makes a mental skill more automatic.

Students typically must exert effort over some period of time to acquire sufficient levels of automaticity to achieve rigorous goals. Ideally, schooling offers efficient means of allowing learners to improve their knowledge and skills and acquire increasingly advanced forms of both. Educators who use rewards to help learners persist in the face of challenging tasks to gain automaticity also help them reduce the amount of effort needed later to attain their ever more challenging goals. Appropriate rewards improve learners' ability to perceive cues by guiding their attention to constructive action, reinforcing specific forms of learning, and rewarding high levels of achievement [5].

During learning, repetition can help individuals experience the pleasure of increasingly easy accomplishment. Repeated cycles of presentation, action, and reinforcement can foster high levels of mastery. Complex forms of personal achievement are possible only when individuals set progressively challenging personal goals requiring sustained drive or grit to attain. When the personal goals of these individuals align with those valued in the communities in which they live, they acquire social and material rewards [6].

Some credibility should be given to theories and evidence that employees may be more effective when they are involved in setting goals to which they commit themselves [7]. Students may similarly benefit.

Knowledge of the positive effects of rewards on motivation is well established in behavioral psychology despite the controversy in recent years over whether experimental evidence confirms or rejects the effectiveness of specific reward and punishment systems. Critics of the use of all or most rewards in learning are on the extreme end of a continuum of opinion on the subject. The results of rigorous research studies do not support their point of view, and they overlook or misrepresent research that contradicts their views.

Most experts recognize that reward systems are especially valuable at the earliest ages to help students attain the habit of deferring gratification. Failure to develop this habit can handicap learners for the rest of their lives. Students need rewards to engage in the difficult or tedious work of achieving automaticity, another key step in learning progress. Without rewards, fewer students develop the drive or grit needed to achieve high levels of skill.

Herbert J. Walberg and Joseph L. Bast are chairman and president, respectively, of The Heartland Institute and authors of Rewards: How to use rewards to help children learn -- and why teachers don't use them well (October 1, 2014; ISBN 978-1-934791-38-7). This article is excerpted from Chapter 1, "The Psychology of Motivation."

[5] Jere Brophy, supra note 1; Dennis G. Wiseman and Gilbert H. Hunt, Best Practice in Motivation and Management in the Classroom (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, Ltd., second ed., 2008).

Learning is fun and exciting, at least when the curriculum is well matched to students' interests and abilities and the teacher emphasizes hands-on activities. When you teach the right things the right way, motivation takes care of itself. If students aren't enjoying learning, something is wrong with your curriculum and instruction -- you have somehow turned an inherently enjoyable activity into drudgery.

School is inherently boring and frustrating. We require students to come, then try to teach them stuff that they don't see a need for and don't find meaningful. There is little support for academic achievement in the peer culture, and frequently in the home as well. A few students may be enthusiastic about learning, but most of them require the grading system and the carrots and sticks that we connect to it to pressure them to do at least enough to get by. (1)

Brophy observed that "neither [view] is valid, but each contains elements of truth." They illustrate the two extreme ends of a continuum of views among psychologists of student motivation. At one extreme is a teaching philosophy based on what Brophy called "overly romantic views of human nature," while at the other is a philosophy based on "overly cynical or hedonistic views of human nature." Between these extremes lies a realistic and research-supported theory of student motivation.

The well-designed reward systems we describe do not include the unearned praise and uncritical recognition associated with the self-esteem fad that swept the U.S. in recent years. Some writers observe that Millennials (persons born from the early 1980s to the 2000s, also called Generation Y) grew up believing that simply participating in a sport or "trying hard" at some other activity entitled them to rewards, regardless of their level of performance. As a result, they enter the workforce with unrealistic expectations of recognition, promotions, and pay increases [2]. Greater use of well-designed reward systems would have better prepared this generation for the challenges and responsibilities of adult life.

According to Aristotle, we become what we do [3]. Education contributes to that process by building skills and habits of mind that are learned in a variety of ways. Psychologists have identified incremental methods for helping individuals learn. Rewards constitute part of this learning enterprise when they help individuals attend to the short- and long-term goals that drive their learning [4].

When students learn something well, they reduce their costs of doing it; that is, they can use their well-absorbed knowledge or well-practiced skills nearly automatically, with little effort. The more automatic a requisite skill is, the faster a person reaches his or her goals. Skills such as recognizing letters exemplify the learning needed to reach the goal of reading. Students who struggle to distinguish a "b" from a "d" are unlikely to readily comprehend what they read. Once they achieve "automaticity" with such recognition skills, however, they can move on to word recognition and sentence comprehension. Mastering the prerequisite stages makes the later stages less costly in time and effort - even enjoyable. Just as practice in sports makes a physical skill more automatic, practice in reading makes a mental skill more automatic.

Students typically must exert effort over some period of time to acquire sufficient levels of automaticity to achieve rigorous goals. Ideally, schooling offers efficient means of allowing learners to improve their knowledge and skills and acquire increasingly advanced forms of both. Educators who use rewards to help learners persist in the face of challenging tasks to gain automaticity also help them reduce the amount of effort needed later to attain their ever more challenging goals. Appropriate rewards improve learners' ability to perceive cues by guiding their attention to constructive action, reinforcing specific forms of learning, and rewarding high levels of achievement [5].

During learning, repetition can help individuals experience the pleasure of increasingly easy accomplishment. Repeated cycles of presentation, action, and reinforcement can foster high levels of mastery. Complex forms of personal achievement are possible only when individuals set progressively challenging personal goals requiring sustained drive or grit to attain. When the personal goals of these individuals align with those valued in the communities in which they live, they acquire social and material rewards [6].

Some credibility should be given to theories and evidence that employees may be more effective when they are involved in setting goals to which they commit themselves [7]. Students may similarly benefit.

Knowledge of the positive effects of rewards on motivation is well established in behavioral psychology despite the controversy in recent years over whether experimental evidence confirms or rejects the effectiveness of specific reward and punishment systems. Critics of the use of all or most rewards in learning are on the extreme end of a continuum of opinion on the subject. The results of rigorous research studies do not support their point of view, and they overlook or misrepresent research that contradicts their views.

Most experts recognize that reward systems are especially valuable at the earliest ages to help students attain the habit of deferring gratification. Failure to develop this habit can handicap learners for the rest of their lives. Students need rewards to engage in the difficult or tedious work of achieving automaticity, another key step in learning progress. Without rewards, fewer students develop the drive or grit needed to achieve high levels of skill.

Herbert J. Walberg and Joseph L. Bast are chairman and president, respectively, of The Heartland Institute and authors of Rewards: How to use rewards to help children learn -- and why teachers don't use them well (October 1, 2014; ISBN 978-1-934791-38-7). This article is excerpted from Chapter 1, "The Psychology of Motivation."

[5] Jere Brophy, supra note 1; Dennis G. Wiseman and Gilbert H. Hunt, Best Practice in Motivation and Management in the Classroom (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, Ltd., second ed., 2008).

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To Reward or Not to Reward: Motivating Students to Learn

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Learning is fun and exciting, at least when the curriculum is well matched to students' interests and abilities and the teacher emphasizes hands-on activities. When you teach the right things the right way, motivation takes care of itself. If students aren't enjoying learning, something is wrong with your curriculum and instruction -- you have somehow turned an inherently enjoyable activity into drudgery.

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While reading How Motivation Affects Learning and Behavior, I learned that all students are motivated in some way. It may not always be the way we want, but they are motivated in one way or another. I never realized this before and it has definitely made me look at motivation differently. This article talks about how some students may be motivated socially in school wanting to interact with friends, some are motivated in academics, and others athletics. Additionally, some may be motivated to avoid all of those aspects of school in general.

Throughout the article it talks about several ways that motivation affects learning and behavior. Firstly, the motivation a student has directly determines the specific goals that the learner strives toward. It really impacts the choices that students make. The example that was given in the text was whether a student enrolls in physics or art is directly related to their interest and motivation toward it.

Here are the others effects that were listed:

· Motivation increases the amount of effort and energy that learners expend

· Motivation increases initiation of and persistence in activities.

· Motivation affects cognitive processes. Motivation affects what learners pay attention to and how effectively they process it

· Motivation determines which consequences are reinforcing and punishing.

· Motivation often enhances performance.

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In the article, Student Success Linked to Motivation an in depth analysis takes place connecting motivation and student success.  Throughout the article it is stated that the most successful students have a genuine interest in what they are studying or doing. What I found most interesting and also true was how people normally think that IQ is the sole indicator of how smart and successful someone can be.  In this research study, this is discussed and the research found that intrinsic motivation is more of a predictor of success rather than someone’s IQ. This definitely made me think about how important motivation is and how everyone does not realize it.

Another aspect of success that was discussed in this article was student expectations. Student expectations are imperative and linked to their success. Students from all socioeconomic backgrounds can be successful if they have expectations set.  Additionally, it is important for teachers and parents to set expectations for students that are difficult but obtainable and they will meet those expectations.

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In the article entitled, Student Motivation a study done by the University of Rochester asked the familiar question we have all heard in our life “ Why did you go to college?”  This research looked into the reasons why students go to college and the impact that had on their success. It also touched on socioeconomic status and how that impacts student success. It was very interesting to read how students from low economic status can be every bit of successful as students who come from wealthy backgrounds. It was stated that students had to be intrinsically motivated and have self-determination to succeed. This was called the self- determination theory, which lead into the discussion of the reasons students chose to go to college.

Later in the article it was stated that students who came from higher economic status appeared to be more likely to succeed just based off of their interests. Students from lower economic status could be just has successful, but with more guidance when choosing a career path. Most often students who come from lower economic status choose a path based on financial situations and do not take into consideration that they need to be interested in that subject area to be success long term. This is an area of motivation that I would like to include in my research because it surprised me and left me wondering more about student success.

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Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs

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New study links student motivations for going to college to their success

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New study suggests that the reasons students seek a higher education can have a big impact on their grades and likelihood of staying enrolled.

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Student Motivation: It's More Complicated Than We Think

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Student Motivation: It's More Complicated Than We Think

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In the article, Student Motivation: It’s More Complicated Than We Think, research on multifaceted theory of motivation by Steven Reiss is discussed. He believes that there is more to motivation than just intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. He talks about how human motives cannot be divided into just two areas. As humans, we have many things that motivate us.  Here are some of the 16 areas that was stated later in the article: eating, the desire for food; curiosity, the desire for understanding; independence, the desire for self-reliance; social contact, the desire for peer companionship; and vengeance, the desire to confront those who offend.

In addition to human motives, he talked about how everyone should continue to move forward when it comes to how they think about motivation. Once we all realize that motivation cannot be separated into two categories of intrinsic and extrinsic, we can start to really focus in on what really motivates our students.  Once we know that it is not as simple as a student doing or not doing something justbecause of one reason we can change our way of thinking to improve our teaching.

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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Motivation-there are two kinds: intrinsic, which involves doing something because we want to do it, and extrinsic, which is doing something because we have to do it. A negative relationship exists between the two. Extrinsic motivation undermines intrinsic motivation. Students won't be attending class because they want to if attending class is required. As a result of this negative relationship, students don't have much intrinsic motivation because it's been beaten out of them by most extrinsic educational experiences. And that's a nutshell version of how most teachers understand motivation.

Is that all there is to it? Steven Reiss doesn't think so, and he has done lots of research that supports his view. But first he goes after the intrinsic-extrinsic dualism, which he says fails on three counts: construct validity, measurement reliability, and experimental control. Starting with construct validity, Reiss writes, "The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is invalid ... because motives cannot be divided into just two categories. ... Human motives are too diverse to fall into just two categories." (p. 152) He then explains the measurement problems and experimental control issues. The research that demonstrates an undermining effect (that extrinsic motivation diminishes intrinsic motivation) is almost entirely based on single-trial studies conducted in lab settings. "Consequently, this literature says little about real-world, long-term rewards such as grades and pay." (p. 154) If the empirical arguments are of interest, they are more fully explained in the article.

Reiss proposes a multifaceted theory of motivation. In his research he identified 16 distinct universal reinforcements that he developed into an assessment tool called the Reiss Motivation Profile. "Everybody is motivated by the 16 universal reinforcements, but not in the same way. Individuals show reliable individual differences in how they prioritize these 16 reinforcements." (pp. 154-155) These 16 reinforcements are listed in the article and they include the following motivations (among others): eating, the desire for food; curiosity, the desire for understanding; independence, the desire for self-reliance; social contact, the desire for peer companionship; and vengeance, the desire to confront those who offend.

To show the inadequacy of the intrinsic-extrinsic dualism, Reiss suggests giving students a list of motives like those on the profile and then asking students to rank their importance. "Doing this tends to show the extraordinary individuality of how people prioritize motives." (p. 155) Some students rank money and status very high; others list the desire for social justice as much more motivating than money. Reiss asks whether "the information contained [on the various student lists] could possibly be captured by dualism, which only has two categories or kinds of motives. Dualism does not state what moves us; it does not show how we differ as individuals." (p. 155)

Reiss says that researchers have moved beyond the dualistic study of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. They see motivation as multifaceted, and he challenges teachers to move forward in their thinking as well. Students in our classrooms do and don't do things in response to a variety of motives. It's more complicated than we tend to think, but this new understanding of motivation better explains how it works and can be harnessed in the interest of learning.

Reference: Reiss, S. (2012). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Teaching of Psychology, 39 (2), 152-156.

Reprinted from Motivation: Intrinsic, Extrinsic, or MoreThe Teaching Professor, 26.5 (2012): 3-4.

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Student Motivation: It's More Complicated Than We Think

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Motivation-there are two kinds: intrinsic, which involves doing something because we want to do it, and extrinsic, which is doing something because we have to do it. A negative relationship exists between the two. Extrinsic motivation undermines intrinsic motivation. Students won't be attending class because they want to if attending class is required.

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5 Key Ingredients for Improving Student Motivation

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5 Key Ingredients for Improving Student Motivation

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When reading The Five Key Ingredients for Improving Student Motivation, I realized just how complex and important human motivation is. In this article there is an in depth look at the importance of motivation and 5 key ingredients impacting student motivation. The five key ingredients impacting student motivation are: student, teacher, content, method/process, and environment.

The student is the first key ingredient when it comes to motivation. It is stated that the students’ role in education is most important because ultimately we would not be having this conversation without them. Students are intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. However, students are not motivated by just a few things. It is a very complex subject area when discussing what motivates students, therefore, it cannot be narrowed down to a few areas. What really stood out when talking about the students were the basic needs. It stated that students could not learn unless they feel safe in their environment and they were not hungry or tired. I can relate to this area of the discussion because many times in my 4 years of teaching, I have had students who have not had breakfast or were asleep in the classroom. If we really think about it, how can students really focus on learning when their basic needs have not been met?  I’m surprised at how this has not crossed my mind before now. Additionally, students have to make connections with what it is that they’re learning. It has to be presented in a way that interests them. If they’re not interested why would they put their effort into learning and doing well? When it comes to motivation I know that some students already come with the intrinsic piece that was talked about earlier.  However, another point that was well made in this article was about efficient use of energy and focus. I know as a young child and even young adult most of everything had to be taught to me. Not everything comes naturally. So in this case it is imperative that students are trained to know how to be efficient and focus their energy.

The second ingredient that I am going to talk about was also the most interesting

to me. The teacher is the second ingredient to student motivation and when really thinking about it, it makes sense. It was emphasized throughout this article that students display more motivational benefits from teachers that they like over teachers they dislike.  Additionally, that teacher’s knowledge of their subject area also makes a difference in the classroom. In this article, college students are focused on but this also has bearing and connection to all students and teachers in the education field.  Giving tests was another an area that was talked about in this article. Teachers must know how to give tests that motivate students and really evaluate what students know on particular areas. If tests are harder than what was covered in class this has a negative impact on student motivation. The areas of this ingredient that stood out to me were making sure to get to know your students and focus on their strengths. I know that sometimes as teachers we lose sight of just how motivating we can be. Everything we do in the classroom is noticed by our students even when we don’t realize it.  By making sure to be motivational and positive in our actions we are promoting motivation in our classrooms. When students see that their teacher is excited and enthusiastic about topics they too become excited.

Content is the next ingredient. It must be relevant, accurate, and useful. Students

must feel that they are able to use this information in their life. It reminds me of the most frequent question asked “ When are we going to use this in the real world?”  When we think about motivation we know that we all must experience success in order to become and stay motivated. As we know we all experience failure but if we were to only experience that we would lose our motivation. Teachers must make sure that students experience success because it creates self-confidence.  Another way to ensure continued motivation growth is to make sure that students make decisions that allow them to take ownership of their learning. Which leads to the point of making sure students have the opportunity to make choices in the classroom. This also leads to increased motivation because it is self-directed. Including technology is almost always a motivator in my experience. In the world we live in students have everything at their fingertips. They’re constantly entertained and can listen to music, pull up video clips, and access social networks in a matter of a few minutes.  This is why it is imperative to incorporate technology to increase motivation in the classroom.

The next ingredient to success is method/process, which is the way the content is presented or taught to students. It was described in this section of the article that educators should use incentives and self-learning in the classroom. When I first read this I immediately thought of how expensive incentives can be. However, this article made a good point that incentives can be used differently. For example, time can be an incentive in the classroom by allowing students to spend their time on something that is important to them.  I have now realized it is important to think outside the box.  It goes on in more detail to talk about different learning styles, positive peer social interactions, and praise in the classroom.

The fifth and last ingredient to increase motivation is the environment. We are in the teaching environment everyday and some say it can even take on a spiritual presence. The environment must first be available and accessible to all students. When mentioned earlier, the environment must be safe and make students feel comfortable to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. Most importantly, there is not one way to motivate students.  No one theory seems to solve motivation in the classroom. One must keep an open mind and take in all information that is learned and continue to incorporate new strategies in the classroom.

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What are the factors relating to student motivation?

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In the article, Motivation in the Classroom: Reciprocal Effects of Teacher Behavior and Student Engagement Across the School Year there is a discussion of what motivation really is, how you can know if a child is engaged, and the connection between teacher behavior and student motivation.  In some situations teachers would compensate for students who lack the motivation or they could respond by decreasing involvement. The participants in this student were 144 students equally divided by sex and grade and 14 female teachers from a rural/ suburban school district in upstate New York.  The children’s ages ranged from 8-12 years old with 94% being Caucasian and the remaining percent African American. In this study student engagement was assessed with children’s reports of their behavior and emotion in the classroom. Teacher perception of student engagement was measured with teacher’s reports of students’ behavior and emotion in the classroom. Overall it was determined that there’s still much more research to do on this topic.

The results:

· Teacher behavior influences students’ perceptions of their interactions with teachers

· Teacher behavior influences student engagement

· Students who have low engagement will receive less teacher support

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In the article: Student Motivation: Age Old Problem Gets New Attention, it focuses on the many factors that impact student motivation. One area that this article touches on that others I have read did not is the problem that students do not know when to come to adults for help and when they should be doing things on their own. This article from Education Week suggests that this is one of the main conflicts in regards to student motivation. US schools are working toward a 90% graduation rate by 2020 and policy makers are looking at how to improve student motivation to keep this number growing. Even the White House has launches initiatives on ways to improve students’ academic mindset and boost student motivation.

Another focus of this article was making time to build character. With the focus of federal and state testing accountability there’s less time in the classroom to build students’ motivation and perseverance. A 2013 CEP analysis found four academic mindsets that contribute to a student’ motivation belief in the student's own competence; ownership of his or her learning; interest in the subject or at least understanding of the value of learning it; and a feeling of social relatedness to the school and community. In other words, it has been proven that academic mindsets do have an impact on student achievement.

A question that was looked at through out this article was “ Can motivation be taught?” it was stated that motivation skills could definitely be taught in the classroom. Although those skills can be taught, it would be better if students were motivated by teachers so much that it becomes second nature to continue with their motivation skills on their own. Teachers can cultivate this by having students take charge of their own learning and make decisions.

The dark side of the focus on motivation is a focal point in this article.  Research studies by Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Harvard University economist Roland G. Fryer Jr., and others, have found short-term efforts to motivate students to meet external goals,providing cash or prizes for behavior or improved test grades, could damage their motivation in the long term.  Additionally, making sure to inject realism for students can also keep students motivated.

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The search is on for ways to motivate students

It's rarely only one factor that drives a student to give up on school, but in recent years, educators have gained ground against a range of contributors, from early absenteeism and reading difficulties to teenage parenthood. Now, schools are working to make inroads against one of the most common and yet elusive reasons students cite for dropping out: They just aren't motivated to stay in school.

What drives one student to stick it out through four years of high school, while another-perhaps equally talented-fades out of school?

"That's something educators struggle with," said Kerry E. Muse, the chief learning officer and head coach of Venture Academy, a Minneapolis charter school that teaches students to become entrepreneurs and build their own inner drive to succeed. "We know that learning is stickier if students have to struggle a little with it, but how do we get them past the hand-holding? Ninety-nine percent of the conflict we have is the student not knowing when you should come to an adult for help and when you should be self-directed."

U.S. schools are on an upward trajectory to meet a national goal of a 90 percent high school graduation rate by 2020, according to the annual "Building a Grad Nation" report-if they can continue the gains of the past few years. Even so, a substantial share of American teenagers remain spectacularly unmotivated and unengaged in schooling.

In the push to keep up that momentum toward graduation, policymakers, researchers, and educators like Mr. Muse are looking for ways to help students ramp up their own drive to graduate.

In the past year, the White House has held a symposium on ways to improve students' academic mindsets, and nonprofits including the Raikes and the William and Flora Hewlett foundations have launched initiatives to identify ways to boost student motivation and academic mindset. (Both foundations have supported topical coverage at Education Week.)

And Maria Ferguson, the executive director of the Center on Education Policy at George Washington University in Washington, said the next iterations of major federal education laws are likewise being planned to take motivation and other critical noncognitive factors into account.

"Considering every piece of education legislation now is up for reauthorization-the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Higher Education Act, Workforce Investment Act, and Perkins [Career and Technical Education Act]-there is an opportunity to think about how federal policy can better support what we know about the needs of high school students as they make their way to college and whatever lies beyond," Ms. Ferguson said.

Making Time to Build Character

Despite the issue's new prominence, Mr. Muse said the intense focus on academic skills arising in response to federal and state testing-accountability requirements has often meant schools have less time to build students' motivation and perseverance, and for the most part, administrators are not sure whether the initiatives used to boost reading and math proficiency help or hurt students' academic drive. Yet in spite of tightening budgets and schedules, many schools are renewing a focus on noncognitive pieces of learning, like motivation.

Mr. Muse, who worked at other college-preparatory schools before founding Venture Academy, said he and other administrators have been disappointed when their efforts to academically prepare students for college fell apart when students had to study and keep organized on their own. "I'd sent enough kids to high school and college from 'no excuses' schools that I knew there was a gap there in social skills," Mr. Muse said.

"I had a lot of kids who foundered," he added. "When the really intense guidance and scaffolding [from high school] stopped, they really foundered."

At Venture, educators, including working business people, teach students how to use what they learn to invent new products and services and develop their own businesses. Educator and technology business owner Eric Nelson said this sort of educational "tinkering" can make students' learning more relevant and encourage them to learn more on their own.

A 2013 CEP analysis found four academic mindsets that contribute to a student's motivation: belief in the student's own competence; ownership of his or her learning; interest in the subject or at least understanding of the value of learning it; and a feeling of social relatedness to the school and community.

"It's been demonstrated again and again that academic mindsets are real things and they do have a significant effect on students' achievement," said Camille A. Farrington, the lead researcher for the Chicago Postsecondary Transition Project at the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Context for Learning

The more students feel capable and in control of their own learning, for example, "the harder they work, the better they do, and the higher grades they receive," she said. "It's a feedback loop. Students are constantly in the process of either getting confirmation of the mindsets they already hold or their mindsets are being changed for the better or for the worse based on their interactions with people in the school environment."

Schools across the country are also trying to motivate students by providing direct cash incentives to graduate, pitching ways they can help their families and communities through their own academic success, and leveraging groups of peers to push each other toward graduation.

"People often ask, 'Can motivation be taught? Is that subject to intervention?' I think certainly yes, in the context of a class where what the teacher is doing is building internal motivation. It may be short-lived or context-dependent, but at least some part of it spills over and becomes generalizable to things like graduation," said Thomas J. Kane, a professor of education and economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "A great school experience" is "when you've had enough exposure to teachers who are great at cultivating motivation, it becomes second nature in students."

Venture Academy, the Minneapolis charter school, is trying to create an environment that gets students planning their own high school and college careers. The school primarily serves those who previously performed below the district average in reading and mathematics and those considered at risk of dropping out in high school.

Mr. Muse and other staff members at the school admit it has been a matter of trial and error for teachers and administrators trying to help students become more active in their own learning while also catching up those who arrive several grade levels behind in reading, math, and other subjects.

"Motivation skills can be taught; The behaviors associated with motivation can be taught," said David Levin, a co-founder of the Knowledge Is Power Program, or KIPP, charter network, which is not connected to Venture. "[Educators] are building a research base about how you teach those."

KIPP's network has been experimenting with ways to build and measure so-called grit, or students' internal motivation and perseverance.

'Dark Side' of Motivation

At the same time, researchers and policymakers are starting to see unintended consequences from the rising prominence of measures of internal motivation, such as grit ratings.

"There is a risk that poorly informed educators or parents could misuse the idea and ... could overattribute students' poor performance to a lack of grittiness without considering that critical supports may be lacking in the environment," cautioned Nicole Schectman and other researchers from SRI International in a study for the U.S. Department

of Education's office of educational technology that discusses both the potential and the "dark side" of efforts to improve student motivation.

Separate studies by Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Harvard University economist Roland G. Fryer Jr., and others, have found short-term efforts to motivate students to meet external goals, such as providing cash or prizes for behavior or improved test grades, could damage their motivation in the long term.

As schools work to motivate students, teacher Joey Weinstein warned that they should be careful to help students distinguish simple enthusiasm from true academic drive.

Mr. Weinstein, an upper-grades English teacher at Da Vinci Science High School in Los Angeles, created a two-year curriculum in which students learned to research colleges, practice application essays and resumes, and eventually apply to multiple colleges. Last year, nearly all the class of 2013-about half of whom would be first-generation college-goers-were accepted to universities.

Injecting Realism

Yet in follow-up interviews, Mr. Weinstein found that many students still didn't continue to college, or opted for local community colleges over larger state and other schools where they had been accepted. He also found that students excitedly applied to out-of-state schools during class, but didn't consider the realities of leaving family, paying higher tuition, or even simply moving from Southern California's endless summer to the harsh winters of northern campuses.

Their responses persuaded Mr. Weinstein to overhaul the school's college-preparation courses to make students more realistic about their goals after high school and how they planned to achieve them.

This year, students are starting with much more extensive writing on their academic and career goals and are assigned to have early conversations with their families on what options are financially feasible. Instead of basic college research, students now do comprehensive spreadsheets that allow them to compare academic and testing requirements for entry, available majors, student-faculty ratios, costs of transportation and living on campus, and other factors. In a paired economics class, students also study the costs and benefits of college and different options to pay for it.

"Getting students to think about these things," Mr. Weinstein said, "is a big shift."

Published in Print: June 5, 2014, as An Age-Old Problem Gets New Attention

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Student Motivation: Age-Old Problem Gets New Attention

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It's rarely only one factor that drives a student to give up on school, but in recent years, educators have gained ground against a range of contributors, from early absenteeism and reading difficulties to teenage parenthood.

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How home life relates to motivation in school environment

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How home life relates to motivation in school environment

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Student motivation is decreasing in the classroom

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In the slide show Motivating Middle School Students offers insight into what motivates middle school students along with a look into why they can be unmotivated in school.

Some things middle school kids are interested in:

· Friends

· Sports

· Lunch

· How they look in front of their friends

· Socializing

· Extracurricular activities

Some things that motivate students:

· Getting good grades

· If the subject is interesting

· Fun activities

· Competitions

· Being with friends

· If the topic is relevant

Additionally, it is stated some possible reasons that can be impacted student motivation. It touches on the poverty rate, single parents raising children, homelessness, child abuse, and juvenile courts.  All of the topics I listed have rose to an all time high than in the past.  Additionally, the USA incarcerates more of its youth than any other country in the world. The nation’s poverty rate rose 15.1% in 2010 the highest since 1993.  In other words students are worrying about where they are going to live, how they are going to eat, and if a family member is going to jail rather than staying motivated and thinking about academics.

It all comes back to building relationships with students. In this article it states that students will do anything you ask of them if you have a positive relationship with them. However, successful relationships require two things RESPECT AND TRUST. There is a connection between self-esteem, motivation, and engagement.  It shows in this slide that as students grow older they lose their self-esteem.

Maslow’s Hierarchy

Safety

· Love and belongingness

· Esteem

Students’ basic needs were also covered:

· Need for Competence and Self-worth

· Need for Relatedness

· Need for Affiliation

· Need for Approval

· Need for Achievement

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Finding how to properly measure student motivation

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STUDENT MOTIVATION