How Do I Motivate Students?

Listening to the voices of students is key to understanding what motivates them to learn. According to Barbara Combs, students have repetitivly stated what makes them want to learn. (a) rigor and joy in their school work, (b) a balance of complexity and clarity, (c) opportunities to discuss personal meanings and values, (d) learning activities that are relevant and fun, and (c) learning experiences that offer choice and require action. (Combs 1995).  Following these tenets is not always easy. Trying to make everything about our curriculum interesting and fun is not always possible.  Motivation in students can be achieved through positive feedback, praise and having clear directions and objectives.  Finding ways to connect to students is an art and it begins by knowing their interests, backgrounds, and abilities.

Attribution theory is a classical approach to motivation of pupils. Students seek to understand why they have been successful. Some reasons students might give are effort, innate ability, an easy or hard test, or luck. These causes either originate within the learner (effort, ability) or outside the learner (luck, task). It's either an internal locus of causality, or an outside locus of causality.  How the student thinks about or interprets success or failure and not the outcome itself impacts motivation.

Self-efficacy theory is another way theorists have tried to explain motivation. Students are more likely to begin, persist at, and master tasks that they think they are good at.  Motivation through self-efficacy can be increased by verbal persuasion through which the teacher expresses confidence and surety in a students ability. The most important factor influencing learners is their past experience with success or failure.

Goal Theory is another perspective on motivation. It focuses on putting an emphasis on why children would want to succeed. Theorist put people into two groups. The first is task-focused group who are focused on developing academic competence and improving their skill for purely intrinsic reasons. The second is the ability focused group, who are more interested in showing off abilities, show off their skills, and attain rewards such as praise and grades. Research shows that those who are intrinsically motivated have long lasting success.