Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation
Motivation: is what energizes, sustains and directs behaviour.
Extrinsic motivation: Motivation resulting from factors external to the individual and unrelated to the task being performed
- Perform a task as a means to an end, not as an end in itself.
Intrinsic Motivation: Motivation resulting from internal personal characteristics or inherent in the task being performed.
- Often learners are simultaneously motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors extrinsic motivation may gradually move inward
In early elementary, students are eager and excited to learn new things.
Between grades 3-9, intrinsic motivation to master subject matter declines.
Extrinsic motivation may keep students on task-short term - while intrinsic motivation focuses efforts and energy to pursue long term goal.
Often learners are simultaneously motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors.
Extrinsic motivation may gradually move inward.
How Schools Can Work With Parents:
-Send “red flags” that may indicate parental achievement pressure is out of control ›
-Encourage honest conversation about achievement
-Prompt parents to reflect on their own notions of achievement
How Schools Can Find a Balance:
- Give equal weight to social, emotional, and ethical development
- Limit extracurricular activities ›
- Elevate the value of a range of careers ›
- Encourage students to choose colleges that fit rather than on the basis of status ›
- Make high achievement only one of many ways of measuring how students value themselves
How To Enhance Student Competency and Self-Worth:
•Help students achieve success, especially on challenging tasks
•Give students concrete mechanisms through which they can track their progress over time
•Minimize competitions and other situations in which students might judge themselves unfavorably in comparison with peers
Self-determination: Basic need to believe that one has some autonomy and control regarding the course of one’s life.
- Humans need to have a sense of autonomy and self-direction in what they do and the courses their lives take
How to Enhance Student Self-Determination:
•Provide opportunities for independent work and decision making
•Have general routines and procedures in place to minimize constant explicit instructions
• Provide criteria for evaluation in advance to clearly communicate expectations
•Present rules and instructions in an informational rather than a controlling manner
•Evaluate students’ performance in a non-controlling way
•Be selective about when and how you use extrinsic reinforcers
Relatedness
Need for relatedness: Basic need to feel socially connected to others and to secure others love and respect
- People have need to feel connected and to secure the love and respect of others
Evolutionary Importance: People who live in a cohesive, cooperative social group more likely to survive and reproduce that people who go it alone.
•Children and adolescents place high priority on interacting with friends at times at the expense of school work.
•Children and adolescents may want to project favorable public image to satisfy need for relatedness and self-worth
•Children or peers may want to work for the betterment of others- helping peers wit work
•Children/adolescents content in solitary activities and others happier in company of others
•Need for affiliation: basic need to feel socially connected to others and to secure others love and respect
•Often students relationships with peers can enhance their classroom performance
•Occasionally strong need for affiliation interferes with optimal learning and achievement
Intrinsic motivation in the classroom should be the child's self-determination to want to get good grades and be successful. However, some students require that extra push to stay on-task and focused, which requires an extrinsic motivator. In the classroom, a point system for groups is set up.
Activity:
What Would Motivate You To...
Think of a school activity that will require extrinsic motivation to complete. Write it down on a piece of paper, and put it in a hat. ›One school activity will be assigned to each group. With your group, think of some ways you might be motivated to complete the assigned activity
Extrinsic motivation: Motivation resulting from factors external to the individual and unrelated to the task being performed
- Perform a task as a means to an end, not as an end in itself.
Intrinsic Motivation: Motivation resulting from internal personal characteristics or inherent in the task being performed.
- Often learners are simultaneously motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors extrinsic motivation may gradually move inward
In early elementary, students are eager and excited to learn new things.
Between grades 3-9, intrinsic motivation to master subject matter declines.
Extrinsic motivation may keep students on task-short term - while intrinsic motivation focuses efforts and energy to pursue long term goal.
Often learners are simultaneously motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors.
Extrinsic motivation may gradually move inward.
How Schools Can Work With Parents:
-Send “red flags” that may indicate parental achievement pressure is out of control ›
-Encourage honest conversation about achievement
-Prompt parents to reflect on their own notions of achievement
How Schools Can Find a Balance:
- Give equal weight to social, emotional, and ethical development
- Limit extracurricular activities ›
- Elevate the value of a range of careers ›
- Encourage students to choose colleges that fit rather than on the basis of status ›
- Make high achievement only one of many ways of measuring how students value themselves
How To Enhance Student Competency and Self-Worth:
•Help students achieve success, especially on challenging tasks
•Give students concrete mechanisms through which they can track their progress over time
•Minimize competitions and other situations in which students might judge themselves unfavorably in comparison with peers
Self-determination: Basic need to believe that one has some autonomy and control regarding the course of one’s life.
- Humans need to have a sense of autonomy and self-direction in what they do and the courses their lives take
How to Enhance Student Self-Determination:
•Provide opportunities for independent work and decision making
•Have general routines and procedures in place to minimize constant explicit instructions
• Provide criteria for evaluation in advance to clearly communicate expectations
•Present rules and instructions in an informational rather than a controlling manner
•Evaluate students’ performance in a non-controlling way
•Be selective about when and how you use extrinsic reinforcers
Relatedness
Need for relatedness: Basic need to feel socially connected to others and to secure others love and respect
- People have need to feel connected and to secure the love and respect of others
Evolutionary Importance: People who live in a cohesive, cooperative social group more likely to survive and reproduce that people who go it alone.
•Children and adolescents place high priority on interacting with friends at times at the expense of school work.
•Children and adolescents may want to project favorable public image to satisfy need for relatedness and self-worth
•Children or peers may want to work for the betterment of others- helping peers wit work
•Children/adolescents content in solitary activities and others happier in company of others
•Need for affiliation: basic need to feel socially connected to others and to secure others love and respect
•Often students relationships with peers can enhance their classroom performance
•Occasionally strong need for affiliation interferes with optimal learning and achievement
Intrinsic motivation in the classroom should be the child's self-determination to want to get good grades and be successful. However, some students require that extra push to stay on-task and focused, which requires an extrinsic motivator. In the classroom, a point system for groups is set up.
Activity:
What Would Motivate You To...
Think of a school activity that will require extrinsic motivation to complete. Write it down on a piece of paper, and put it in a hat. ›One school activity will be assigned to each group. With your group, think of some ways you might be motivated to complete the assigned activity