Motivation

Key Aspects of Motivation in Education

The average students lose intrinsic motivation to learn each year as they progress from kindergarten to high school. Intrinsic motivation involves seeing the beauty and purpose in learning or otherwise finding learning enjoyable. By contrast, Mark Lepper and colleagues discovered that the average student maintains similar levels of extrinsic motivation throughout the primary grades. Extrinsic motivation involves a desire for grades, money, or tangible rewards related to academic performance or behavioral compliance with teacher requests.

As John Mark Froiland and Emily Oros found, both intrinsic motivation to learn and extrinsic motivation for grades predict the development of achievement across the United States. However, intrinsic motivation is positively associated with numerous indicators of psychological well-being, such as happiness, low levels of anxiety, and sense of vitality. Students’ intrinsic motivation can be effectively supported by autonomy supportive communication from parents and teachers, which includes the following: highlighting the interesting features of assignments, helping students see how skills gained in school can be applied to help others, and understanding and acknowledging students’ vantage point.

Another key motivational force is student expectations, which are often measured in terms of the extent to which students believe they will graduate from high school, college, graduate school, or professional school versus dropping out of high school. Froiland, Aubrey Peterson, and Mark Davison found that parent expectations in kindergarten predicted student expectations in eighth grade, which, in turn, predicted student achievement in math, science, and reading. Higher parent expectations also predicted that parents would become more involved in their children’s education (e.g., read more books with them and provide more children’s books).

Froiland and Davison also found that parent expectations are related to student achievement, good behavior, and positive parent–school relationships, characterized by trust and satisfying interactions with educators. Students with higher expectations also have higher intrinsic motivation to learn, suggesting that these two aspects of motivation can work in concert to promote greater levels of achievement and engagement at school. Both teacher and parent expectations have been linked to student expectations in numerous studies. Although there are currently not enough rigorously tested interventions to increase student [Page 1095]expectations, some intervention studies have suggested that promoting parent and student expectations leads to higher achievement, finishing high school, and college enrollment.

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