- One question I had for this chapter is when students are little some maybe unmotivated to do well in school, even I know some students in college are very unmotivated to do well. Are there outside factors that attribute to this// will they be unmovitaved forever, or will this change for most later in life?
-Intrinsic forms of motivation are more important than extrinsic forms when the situation can only be controlled by the person doing the activity. For instance in sports that are more independent most of the motivation has to be internal. Yes, coaches and teammates can offer extrinsic motivation, but the person doing the action needs to be movtivated by themselves to give themselves the movitation to do well. Or else they could just neglect the extrinsic motivatoin and do poorly, and would have no joy from the outcome. Intrinsic motivation can offer more personal achievements and can me more self rewarding than achievments that are achieved by extrinsic motivation.
-External factors like teachers can affect intrinsic motivation when a student is getting a good grade on a test. For instance if a student has to do well on his test, but doesn't have any intrinisc motivation, teachers can talk to the student and extrinsicly convince them why they have to study and do well. A teacher can't help a student take a test or force them to study, this is where the intrinsic motivation comes from. A student can recieve encouragement and praise by a teacher when they do well, which can intrinsically motivate a student. They may realize from their teacher that there are more positive outcomes for doing well on a test then doing poorly. Therefore, this will make the student feel motivated to study more and to do well for themselves so they can feel like they put a lot of work into somethina and am gettin positive results.
You seem to have two questions.... 1. Once a student appears unmotivated in schools, can this change? and 2. Are students generally unmotivated at younger or older ages? Well, first, as you can imagine, people are usually motivated/unmotivated relative to particular subjects. Someone may have no motivation for English but LOVE the logical nature of math.... I don't think that any age is particularly more or less motivated. Everyone is curious and interested about SOMETHING.
ReplyDeleteAs you describe, sometimes extrinsic motivation is the only thing motivating students to do well in school. This CAN be effective if a student cares about grades. So, one idea may be that once a student becomes extrinsically motivated by grades, it's difficult to do things purely for interest. It becomes a habit. However, in college, you have a lot of control over your classes, so I imagine that intrinsic motivation would go up. Also, there's a difference in motivation to read/participate/think about the material and the motivation to 'do well' (get high grades). I remember being very motivated to think about interesting material but not caring so much if I got a B or an A....
i agree with Jackie that age really has nothing to do with weather a child is going to be motivated or not. Every person is motivated to achieve some type of goal, little or small from little babies to adults.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the older someone gets, the more motivated they get because once someone is studying at a university, they are somewhat forced to be motivated in a specific field (their major) and will work hard to achieve that degree in order to pursue a career. For example, I knew what I wanted to do with my life since middle school, therefore I was motivated to do well in school in order to apply and be accepted into a good music school in order to accomplish my goal. Some students in college still don't know what they want to do, which it completely normal, but this may or may not affect their motivation level in school.
I have always thought of motivation as an interesting topic, because I feel that it can be very different for different people. I definitely agree that it depends on the subject, but even with that, motivation changes. For example, I know some people in the music school who love music and are so motivated and dedicated to their classes. I also know some people in the music school who love music but never practice, show up to class, or finish requirements. I don't really know why this happens, so I think you bring up a really good question. I do think it changes as you continue on in life, because I feel like I'm more motivated to work hard than I was when I was younger, and I think as we get older and realize that in the future we'll need to apply for jobs and the like, we get more motivated to work hard!
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