Бейсембаева Жанар Ахметовна

Жамбылский Казахско-Турецкий учетно-экономический колледж

Student Motivations and Attitudes

Teachers have a lot to do with their students' motivational level. A student may arrive in class with a certain degree of motivation. But the teacher's behavior and teaching style, the structure of the course, the nature of the assignments and informal interactions with students all have a large effect on student motivation. We may have heard the utterance, "my students are so unmotivated!" and the good news is that there's a lot that we can do to change that.

In the last forty years, researchers have studied student motivation and have learned a great deal about:

Ø What moves students to learn and the quantity and quality of the effort they invest;

Ø What choices students make;

Ø What makes them persist in the face of hardship;

Ø How student motivation is affected by teacher practices and peer behaviour;

Ø How motivation develops;

Ø How the school environment affects it.

Most of the motivation research focused on well-adjusted students who are successful in school. However, successful students differ from their less-successful peers in many ways. For example, they often have clear ideas of what they want and do not want to achieve in life. Moreover, they perceive many learning settings as supportive of their own wishes, goals and needs, and react positively to the teacher's motivational practices. Educational psychology has identified two basic classifications of motivation - intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation arises from a desire to learn a topic due to its inherent interests, for self-fulfillment, enjoyment and to achieve a mastery of the subject. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is motivation to perform and succeed for the sake of accomplishing a specific result or outcome. Students who are very grade-oriented are extrinsically motivated, whereas students who seem to truly embrace their work and take a genuine interest in it are intrinsically motivated.

Instructors who understand student motivation can greatly enhance the classroom experience and student performance. The articles and links in this section discuss research findings on student motivation and techniques for motivating students.

In the classroom the content covered and the social context vary continuously. Hence, children are frequently involved in unfamiliar learning situations. This may create ambiguity and uncertainty for some students and challenge for other students. Students try to make sense of novel learning situations by referring to their motivational beliefs. Motivational beliefs refer to the opinions, judgements and values that students hold about objects, events or subject-matter domains. Researchers have described the beliefs that students use to assign meaning to learning situations. A specific set of motivational beliefs pertains to the value students attach to a domain. For example, Stefano often says: 'I cannot see what I can possibly learn from reading poetry;' while Sandra states: 'Reading poems is the nicest activity we do at school.'

As teachers, you should have a good idea of the motivational beliefs that your students bring into the classroom. It is important that you are aware that your students may already have formed favorable or unfavorable beliefs about a topic before they come into class. Knowledge about your students' motivational beliefs will allow you to plan learning activities that make good use of their favorable motivational beliefs and prompt them to reconsider unfavorable beliefs. Students are very successful in hiding their thoughts and feelings, leading to misconceptions about their values, self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations.

The set of principles addressed in this booklet will hopefully provide more insight into students' motivational beliefs and into the way these beliefs affect their involvement, commitment and engagement in the life classroom. Knowledge of these principles will, I hope, act as guidelines for helping students to establish favourable motivational beliefs and unmask unfavorable beliefs.

Some Suggestions for Teaching in Your Classroom: Motivating Students to Learn

1. Use behavioral techniques to help students exert themselves and work toward remote goals.

2. Make sure that students know what they are to do, how to proceed, and how to determine when they have achieved goals.

3. Do everything possible to satisfy deficiency needs -- physiological, safety, belongingness, and esteem.

a. Accommodate the instructional program to the physiological needs of your students.

b. Make your room physically and psychologically safe.

c. Show your students that you take an interest in them and that they belong in your classroom.

d. Arrange learning experiences so that all students can gain at least a degree of esteem.

4. Enhance the attractions and minimize the dangers of growth choices.

5. Direct learning experiences toward feelings of success in an effort to encourage an orientation toward achievement, a positive self-concept, and a strong sense of self-efficacy.

a. Make use of objectives that are challenging but attainable and, when appropriate, that involve student input.

b. Provide knowledge of results by emphasizing the positive.

6. Try to encourage the development of need achievement, self-confidence, and self-direction in students who need these qualities.

a. Use achievement-motivation training techniques.

b. Use cooperative-learning methods.

7. Try to make learning interesting by emphasizing activity, investigation, adventure, social interaction, and usefulness.

Everyone struggles to be motivated at some point. When you see your students in that place, try some of these fun ways to engage and enliven your class. If all else fails, it may be time for some consequences.

References:

1. Bruning & Horn, 2000;

2. Guthrie & Solomon,1997;

3. Ryan & Deci, 2000; Stipek, 1988;

4. Turner & Meyer, 1998;

5. Wlodkowski & Jaynes, 1990. Pintrich, 2001;