Pedagogical sciences

Kohan O., Vlasenko L.

National University of Food Technologies (Kiev, Ukraine)

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE STUDENTS’ LEARNING MOTIVATION

The essence of effective teaching lies in the ability of the teacher to set up a learning experience that brings about the desired educational outcomes. For this, each pupil must be engaged in the activity of learning. The nature of the psychological state of being engaged in the activity of learning has been the focus of much debate and research. A number of important psychological concepts, principles and processes involved in both the activity of learning itself and in facilitating such activity have been identified.

The article considers the aspects of how pupils learn that have the most practical relevance for effective teaching. Broadly, these fall into four sections. First, a consideration of the psychological nature of learning as it relates to effective teaching. What psychological state needs to be set up by the teacher for learning to take place?

Many writers have considered the nature of pupil learning explicitly within the context of effective teaching and have explored four major questions concerning the nature of pupil learning:

_ What mental processes are involved when a pupil is engaged in learning?

_ What changes occur in the pupil’s cognitive structure, which themselves constitute the pupil learning?

_ Which psychological factors facilitate pupil learning?

_ What are the main types of pupil learning?

Although different theorists have elaborated their answers to some questions in different ways, there are a number of points of convergence in their separate approaches.

Pupil learning can be defined as changes in a pupil’s behaviour that take place as a result of being engaged in an educational experience. Gagnй et al. (2005) identifi ed five main types of pupil learning:

_ Verbal information: e.g. facts, names, principles and generalisations.

_ Intellectual skills: ‘knowing how and why’ rather than ‘knowing that’. These can be arranged in an increasing order of complexity, with more complex intellectual skills being built upon the simpler ones.

_ Cognitive strategies: ways in which the pupil is able to control and manage the mental processes involved in learning, including strategies for attending, thinking, memorising and dealing with novel problems.

_ Attitudes: an attitude may be defined as a pupil’s feelings towards some particular object or idea.

_ Motor skills: e.g. playing a musical instrument or operating a word-processor.

Motivation and reinforcement. Having considered the basic information processing framework for the nature of pupil learning, two major concepts need to be related to the operation of this model: motivation and reinforcement.

What motivates pupil learning? In attempting to answer this question it is important at bear in mind a clear distinction between learning that must take place by an individual as a natural part of interacting with the environment, and the specifi c learning that in intended by the teacher. Within Piaget’s approach, learning is the inevitable consequence of the individual’s interaction with the environment. Such learning stems from the individual’s biological drive towards adapting to the environment. In that sense, any educational experience that requires pupils to interact in some way with the learning task in hand will result in some learning. However, when we ask ‘What motivates pupil learning?’, we are really asking a question about the ways in which a pupil will make a positive mental effort towards the learning task. If pupils are asked when the felt most motivated towards school learning, their answers will fall into one of two main categories: ‘When I was really interested in the work’ or ‘When I had to!’ These two categories represent one of the most important distinctions made in considering pupil learning, that between ‘intrinsic motivation’ and ‘extrinsic motivation’.

Such motivation involves an interest in the learning task itself and also satisfaction being gained from the task. Human beings are born with a strong desire to explore their environment and to seek out stimulation. Almost any situation that is puzzling will gain a person’s attention and interest. Indeed, a useful way of starting a lesson ot present a topic in the form of a question or problem that needs to be addressed ot elicit pupils’ interest. Whilst most analysis of intrinsic motivation has focused on the intellectual curiosity aspect, there is another strand to the concept that often receives less attention, but which is also important. Intrinsic motivation also includes satisfaction from undertaking the task because one finds engaging in the task is satisfying in some way. The essence of intrinsic motivation is that the person fi nds the task pleasurable and satisfying in itself.

In contrast, extrinsic motivation refers to those learning situations where the impetus for the motivation stems from the fact that successful completion of the task is a means towards some other end. Here, the person’s satisfaction is derived from the fact that completing the task leads to an end that they value and is not derived from the task itself. If the same end could be reached by engaging in some other task more easily, the person would happily switch tasks since it is the end that matters not the task itself.

Clearly, success in school learning can satisfy a whole range of needs that can form the basis for extrinsic motivation. One prime motive for school learning is the desire to earn status, esteem, approval and acceptance in the eyes of others. These may be earned in the short term by means of obtaining good marks and teacher praise, and in the long term by entrance to degree courses and professional occupations. Another prime motive for school learning, at least of short-term value, is the avoidance of teacher reprimands and punishments. In both cases, such motivation is extrinsic because it is the end state that drives the motivation and not interest in particular learning tasks or activities.

Although intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are contrasted with each other, it is important to note that most tasks involve a mix of the two. Moreover, pupils may be high in their levels of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The notions of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation play a key part in the self-determination theory developed by Deci and Ryan, which concerns how pupils’ thoughts about motivation and learning regulate their behaviour.

Within this approach, Deci and Ryan attempt to identify different components (of types) of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in order to further refine how pupil motivation impacts on their academic behaviour.

The view of seeing motivation as deriving from an attempt to satisfy one’s needs in very helpful in thinking about pupil learning. A particularly interesting development of this viewpoint is the work of Maslow (1987), who has argued that an individual’s basic needs can be arranged in a hierarchy, with those lower in the hierarchy being ‘pre-potent’ (that is, needing to be satisfi ed as a matter of greater priority) in relation to needs higher in the hierarchy. Maslow’s hierarchy, starting from the lowest level, in as follows:

_ Physiological needs: e.g. need for food and oxygen.

_ Safety needs: e.g. need for security, and freedom from anxiety.

_ Belongingness and love needs: the need to feel one belongs, and the need to give and receive love.

_ Esteem needs: the need for achievement, competence, mastery, and the need for status and prestige.

_ Need for self-actualisation: the need to realise one’s potentiality.

As well as basic needs, Maslow also identifies cognitive needs, based on the impulse to satisfy curiosity, to know, to explain and to understand. Maslow sees such cognitive needs as being inter-related with, rather than separate from, the basic needs. Indeed, the cognitive needs involve cognitive capacities (perceptual, intellectual and learning), which are used in part to satisfy the basic needs.

Maslow’s hierarchy provides a useful framework for thinking about pupil motivation and needs. In particular, it draws attention to the importance of making sure that those needs lower in the hierarchy are being met when educational experiences that draw upon the higher needs of esteem and self-actualisation are set up. Maslow has also discussed a related notion of ‘peak experiences’. These refer to moments of intense delight and ecstasy involved in being ‘at one’ with an experience at the level of self-actualisation. Maslow has argued that a worthy and important goal for education is to generate such peak experiences as a result of ego-enhancing involvement and achievement in school learning.

The notion of ‘need for achievement’ has also received a great deal of attention in relation to the motivation of pupils towards school learning.

A number of studies have explored the nature and development of both the need for achievement in general and how it is expressed in the context of academic success. The need for achievement appears to involve both intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation. Research on pupils’ level of need for achievement has highlighted how the expectations of others can influence their aspirations and how they interpret success and failure ot themselves.

Control over pupil learning by a teacher is seen to depend upon the teacher arranging the appropriate reinforcement to be contingent upon the desired pupil behaviour.

Skinner’s work on operant conditioning of animals relied heavily on the process of ‘shaping’. This involved reinforcing those behaviours that gradually approximated the desired behaviour. Thus, if the desired behaviour was to jump up and touch an object, initial rewards would follow any jumping, then only jumping near the object, and finally only jumps that made contact with the object. The great advantage of working with human beings, is that one can indicate to pupils in the classroom what the desired behaviours are, and then reinforce their occurrence.

The behavioural approach to learning has a number of important educational implications.

First, it draws attention to the relationship between pupils’ behaviour and how the consequences of the behaviour for the pupil infl uences its future occurrence. In particular, it advocates that teachers should make frequent use of praise to reinforce appropriate pupil behaviour.

Second, the research has identifi ed a number of principles that can facilitate learning, for example, the use of quick corrective feedback. Such principles have been used to develop programmed learning packages, characterised by short learning steps and quick corrective feedback. These packages are designed to ensure a high probability of success on each step, which thus acts as reinforcement. It is interesting to note at this point that reinforcement can be usefully linked to pupil motivation, since both success in learning tasks and the behaviours used by teachers to encourage pupil effort can constitute reinforcement. Moreover, the link between reinforcement and pupil motivation also draws attention to the danger of assuming that such teacher behaviours are in fact reinforcing when the opposite may be the case. Similarly, a reprimand for a pupil, as a form of punishment, delivered in a context where the pupil is attention-seeking may be experienced as a reward and act to reinforce the pupil’s misbehaviour. To avoid this danger, the teacher needs to be sensitive to the pupil’s social context and values in determining what actions will constitute reinforcement.

References

1. Gagnй, R. M., Wager, W. W., Golas, K. C. and Keller, J. M. (2005). Principles of Instructional Design (5th edition). London: Wadsworth.

2. Fox, R. (2005). Teaching and Learning: Lessons from Psychology. Oxford: Blackwell.

3. Canter, L. and Canter, M. (2001). Assertive Discipline: Positive Behavior Management for Today’s Classroom (3rd edition). Bloomington, Indiana: Solution Tree.

4. Alderman, M. K. (2008). Motivation for Achievement: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning (3rd edition). London: Routledge.

5. Maslow, A. H. (1987). Motivation and Personality (3rd edition). New York: Harper Collins.