Download Motivation Theories Essay Assignment

Fluctuations In Student Interest: Observation And Reflection
As the class progresses note down changes in student attention. Take note of the time, a brief
description of what triggered the change and the changed level of attention (++ = very attentive, + =
attentive, - = not very attentive, -- = un-attentive)
Time
Classroom events
Student
attention
You must also write an essay of between 750 to 1,000 words to discuss the motivation theory
that you learned versus what you observed in the classroom.
Motivation Theories Essay Assignment
IMPORTANT: Read this very carefully
When you write your essay you must compare your classroom observation to the works of
motivational theorists. This sheet contains a list of the main concepts proposed by experts in the
field of motivation.
Essay rules
When you write your motivation essay:
1. You must put your name at the top of the essay.
2. You must put the date at the top of the essay.
3. Your essay must contain between 750 and 1,000 words.
4. Your essay must make references to the theories mentioned in this work sheet.
5. There must be clear evidence in your essay that you are comparing what you see in the
classroom to the theories mentioned in this sheet.
6. You must include a bibliography of the experts you mention and source (web page)
associated with the expert at the end of your essay. A list of author references you can use is
shown at the end of this sheet.
WARNING: Failure to meet any of these points will mean that your essay cannot be submitted
for external moderation and you will not get your TESOL certificate from the ACADEMIC
ADVISORY BOARD examination board.
Abraham Maslow
Source: http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
Abraham Maslow developed the Hierarchy of Needs model in 1940-50s USA, and the
Hierarchy of Needs theory remains valid today for understanding human motivation, training,
and personal development.
Maslow originally defined 5 motivation levels where level one shows the most basic of human
needs which cause motivation. The original 5 levels have since been modified to 8 levels. These
levels are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.
Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.
Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance,
prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.
Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc.
Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.
Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal
growth and peak experiences.
Transcendence needs - helping others to achieve self actualization.
Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having evolved over tens of
thousands of years. Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain how these needs
motivate us all.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states that we must satisfy each need in turn, starting with the
first, which deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself.
Only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied are we
concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development.
Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer
concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.
Maslow said that needs must be satisfied in the given order. Aims and drive always shift to next
higher order needs. Levels 1 to 4 are deficiency motivators; level 5, and by implication 6 to 8,
are growth motivators and relatively rarely found. The thwarting of needs is usually a cause of
stress, and is particularly so at level 4.
Examples in use:

You can't motivate someone to concentrate on learning (levels 5) if they feel insecure in
class (level 4).

You can't expect someone to raise their own skill expectations (level 7) when they lack basic
skills (level 5).
Frederick Herzberg
Source: http://www.businessballs.com/herzberg.htm
Frederick Herzberg (1923-2000), clinical psychologist and pioneer of 'job enrichment', is
regarded as one of the great original thinkers in management and motivational theory.
Herzberg was the first to show that satisfaction and dissatisfaction when working nearly always
arose from different factors, and were not simply opposing reactions to the same factors, as had
always previously been (and still now by the unenlightened) believed.
In 1959 Herzberg wrote the following, which helps explain this fundamental part of his theory,
i.e., that the factors which motivate people are different to and not simply the opposite of the
factors which cause dissatisfaction:
"Job satisfiers deal with the factors involved in doing the job, whereas job dis-satisfiers deal
with the factors which define the job context."
Herzberg's research identified that true motivators were other completely different factors,
notably:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
personal growth
advancement
responsibility
the work itself
recognition
achievement
When these 6 factors are satisfied, the person is truly motivated.
David McClelland
Source: http://www.businessballs.com/davidmcclelland.htm
McClelland is chiefly known for his work on achievement motivation.
David McClelland is most noted for describing three types of motivational needs.
the need for achievement (n-ach)
The n-ach person is 'achievement motivated' and therefore seeks achievement, attainment of
realistic but challenging goals, and advancement. There is a strong need for feedback as to
achievement and progress, and a need for a sense of accomplishment.
the need for authority and power (n-pow)
The n-pow person is 'authority motivated'. This driver produces a need to be influential,
effective and to make an impact. There is a strong need to lead and for their ideas to prevail.
There is also motivation and need towards increasing personal status and prestige.
the need for affiliation (n-affil)
The n-affil person is 'affiliation motivated', and has a need for friendly relationships and is
motivated towards interaction with other people. The affiliation driver produces motivation
and need to be liked and held in popular regard. These people are team players.
McClelland said that most people possess and exhibit a combination of these characteristics.
Some people exhibit a strong bias to a particular motivational need, and this motivational or
needs 'mix' consequently affects their behaviour and working/managing style. McClelland
suggested that a strong n-affil 'affiliation-motivation' undermines a teacher's objectivity,
because of their need to be liked, and that this affects a teacher's decision-making capability. A
strong n-pow 'authority-motivation' will produce a determined work ethic and commitment, and
while n-pow people are attracted to the leadership role, they may not possess the required
flexibility and people-centred skills. McClelland argues that n-ach people with strong
'achievement motivation' make the best leaders, although there can be a tendency to demand too
much in the belief that they are all similarly and highly achievement-focused and results driven,
which of course most people are not.
McClelland suggested other characteristics and attitudes of achievement-motivated people:
 achievement is more important reward.
 achieving the aim or task gives greater personal satisfaction than receiving praise or
recognition.
 rewards are regarded as a measurement of success, not an end in themselves.
 security is not prime motivator, nor is status.
 feedback is essential, because it enables measurement of success, not for reasons of praise or
recognition (the implication here is that feedback must be reliable, quantifiable and factual).
 achievement-motivated people constantly seek improvements and ways of doing things
better.
 achievement-motivated people will logically favour tasks that naturally satisfy their needs.
David Ausubel
Source: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/subsumption-theory.html
David Ausubel was a cognitive learning theorist who focused on the learning of school subjects
and who placed considerable interest on what the student already knows as being the primary
determiner of whether and what he/she learns next. Ausubel viewed learning as an active
process, not simply responding to your environment. Learners seek to make sense of their
surroundings by integrating new knowledge with that which they have already learned.
According to Ausubel, students are forever integrating new material into their cognitive
structures by seeking to make connections between the new information and that which they
already know. This is a naturally occurring process; it is how we make sense of the world and
how we learn. It is not necessary that a student be motivated in order for this process to work. It
is just how our brains function.
Motivation is not such a big deal for Ausubel. Certainly it is not a necessary precursor for
learning to occur. If anything, motivation is more a result or outcome of instruction rather than
a cause of it. He would never say anything like, "You have to motivate your students to learn."
We naturally seek to integrate new information into our existing cognitive structures. Students
don't require activities to increase their motivation.
Ausubel was prescriptive with regards to how to develop effective lessons and instructional
materials. This is built around his idea of subsumption, taking in new information and
anchoring it to pre-existing contents within a student's cognitive structure. If we conduct
lessons as Ausubel suggests, then motivation is not an issue. In fact, motivation will follow
from a well-conducted lesson. Ausubel would have us pay attention to following his
instructional prescriptions, not to motivation. If students are taught as he envisions, then
motivation will not be an issue.
Albert Bandura
Source: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-learning.html
Albert Bandura is a contemporary learning theorist who went beyond the strict behavioral focus
to document how people learn vicariously from observation of others. Bandura noted that our
behavior is changed when we see a person take a specific action and be rewarded for that
action. In the future we are more likely to take that same action. This is vicarious learning in
which we learn through imitation rather than through direct reinforcement. Bandura’s theory is
referred to social-cognitive learning theory.
Bandura indicated that motivation had more of an effect on our actions than our learning. Thus,
he would not use reinforcers in the same way as a behaviorist such as Skinner.
Several factors can influence the motivation of students. One important factor is the student's
self-efficacy. Bandura has repeatedly shown that when students have high self-efficacy for a
certain learning task, they will put forth more effort to accomplish this task. They will work
harder and persist longer with this learning task. As a result they are more likely to be
successful than students with lower self-efficacy. Self-efficacy has a motivating effect on
students.
Bandura recognizes that our motivation is effected by others through vicarious experiences. If
we observe someone put forth effort to accomplish something, achieve it and be rewarded as a
result, then this act of observation motivates us to engage in that practice. Our motivation is
increased through the vicarious experiences of observing others. Indeed, if you think about it,
this is the basis for most advertising. Companies motivate us to buy their products or services
by showing someone use their product or service and the satisfying result that follows. The
model selects a certain type of toothpaste or clothing and then he or she becomes more
interesting to others.
Bandura would have teachers ensure that there are opportunities for students to observe
effective models who are reinforced for taking the desired actions. Teachers should also
encourage students as a way to enhance their self-efficacies and thus improve their learning.
Jerome Bruner
Source: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist.html
Bruner views people as being active in the process of learning, continually structuring and
restructuring their environment. Thus, he is quite opposed to the view of the passive learner
mechanically associating stimuli and responses. Instead, Bruner believes that people selectively
perceive certain aspects of their environment, represent those perceptions internally, and then
act on those internal representations. Bruner has written about the course of cognitive
development in which a child progressively develops three modes of representation: enactive,
iconic, and symbolic. To be successful, the mode of instruction should match the mode that the
learner is using.
Bruner sees motivation as essential for learning – a necessary precondition. However, he does
not want to use extrinsic motivators such as rewards. Rather Bruner wants the motivation to be
intrinsic arising within the students. Bruner would not be inclined to motivate students with the
promise of stars, good grades, extra time for recess, extra points or any kind of a reward like
behaviorists would. For Bruner, these external rewards hinder intrinsic motivation and true
learning.
Bruner would activate intrinsic motivation by letting the students have a say in what they study
and how they go about studying. He would stress building lessons around students' natural
curiosity so as to ensure high levels of intrinsic motivation.
A key aspect of Bruner's view on instruction is discovery learning. He favors discovery learning
because he believes this results in more learning how to learn and more problem solving, which
are the major outcomes schools should seek according to Bruner. Another advantage of
discovery learning is that it produces higher levels of intrinsic motivation. By engaging students
in a discovery learning environment, you come closer to ensuring that students will be
inherently motivated to learn. Bruner suggest that we stay from direct instruction, that we avoid
lecturing, and instead place students in a discovery learning environment working on problems
that interest them.
Robert Gagne
Source: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/conditions-learning.html
Robert Gagne was an experimental psychologist who was concerned with learning and
instruction for several decades. His earlier work was in a behaviorist tradition, but later he was
influenced by the information-processing view of learning and memory. He is well known for
his synthesis of research on learning and the identification of internal and external conditions of
learning.Gagne bases his view of motivation on the concept of competence. He believes that we
all seek to become more capable, so in a sense learning becomes its own reward. Because of his
early behavioral roots, Gagne sees a role for reinforcement in promoting motivation.
To increase a student's level of motivation, Gagne would appeal to that student's sense of
becoming more capable following instruction. In a sense, this is similar to giving the student the
objectives for a lesson and point out explicitly what the student will be able to do when he or
she completes the lesson. Gagne would also appeal more broadly to the sense of success and its
benefits that will follow to establish expectancy for what will happen when a student is
successful in a lesson. He would also stress the practical application of what will be learned as a
way to further motivate students.
This diagram shows Gagne's 9 Instructional Events that form the basis of any lesson. The first
instructional event is "gain the learner's attention". Some assume incorrectly that this is how
Gagne handles motivation. This is not the case. The purpose of "gain the learner's attention" is
simply to get the learner's attention so that he or she will hear and see the rest of the lesson. It is
not to motivate the learner. That is a separate matter.
B. F. Skinner
Source: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/operant-conditioning.html
B.F. Skinner is perhaps the predominant figure in American psychology. He is an experimental
psychologist at Harvard who has developed behaviorism as a position in learning (he remains
hesitant to use the term “theory”).
Skinner emphasizes observable behavior in the study of humans—hence the term
“behaviorism.” He rejects any attempt at introspection or use of hypothetical internal processes
or structures to account for learning. Instead, Skinner uses the consequences of a behavior to
explain why the behavior continues or fades.
Skinner was forever the behaviorist who would not speculate on any internal process because
they are unobservable. So for Skinner motivation must be defined in behavioral terms, not as
some internal drive or desire. Thus, Skinner does not deal with intrinsic motivation. He simply
focuses on observable behavior and what increases it. You recall that for Skinner behavior that
is followed by a reinforcer is increased. He has no need to talk about motivation separately. If
you want a behavior to increase, make sure it is reinforced. That's the whole of the matter to
him. He does not see that talking about motivation adds anything to our understanding.
Simply put, if you want to motivate students to do something, you define those specific
behaviors and then provide reinforcers following the behaviors. There is nothing more to the
deal in Skinner's view.
Lev Vygotsky
Source: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/social-development.html
Vygotsky thought that the social world played a primary role in cognitive development. He saw
language as a major tool not only for communications but also for shaping individual thought.
He started cognition within a historical and cultural framework because he believes that was the
only way that cognition could be understood. Vygotsky placed an emphasis on social and
cultural aspects of learning. Certain aspects of Vygotsky's work have influenced education,
especially his concept of the zone of proximal development. Many current constructivist ideas
about instruction find their roots in Vygotsky.
Vygotsky believes that motivation is somewhat important for learning, but not essential. We
can enhance students' motivation by selecting problems that are interesting to the students as the
basis of instruction. Further, teachers can ensure the cultural relevance and appropriateness of
the curriculum and instructional activities.
The “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD) is a key concept of Vygotsky. This states that
learning is optimal when students are working at those tasks in the ZPD, i.e. those tasks they
can't accomplish on their own but can when working with a more knowledgeable other.
Motivation is also optimal when students are working on tasks within their ZPDs. So it would
be important for teachers to monitor students to ensure they are working within their ZPD as a
way to promote sufficient motivation for learning. A task that is appropriately challenging will
be motivating.
The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is the difference between what a learner can do
without help and what he or she can do with help.
Jean Piaget
Source: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/genetic-epistemology.html
Piaget's proposed principles of equilibration, assimilation, accommodation, and schema
formation. Piaget proposes that children possess an inherent desire to maintain a sense of
organization and balance in their conception of the world (equilibration). A sense of
equilibration may be experienced if a child assimilates a new experience by relating it to an
existing scheme, or the child may accommodate by modifying an existing scheme if the new
experience is too different.
In addition, individuals will repeatedly use new schemes because of an inherent desire to master
their environment. This explains why young children can, with no loss of enthusiasm, sing the
same song, tell the same story, and play the same game over and over and why they repeatedly
open and shut doors to rooms and cupboards with no seeming purpose. It also explains why
older children take great delight in collecting and organizing almost everything they can get
their hands on and why adolescents who have begun to attain formal operational thinking will
argue incessantly about all the unfairness in the world and how it can be eliminated.
Bibliography
Below are the references you must include in your bibliography for citations you make for each
author.
Author
Reference to include for each author’s citation – copy and paste them
Abraham
Maslow
Businessballs.com (1940) Abraham Maslow - Hierarchy of needs and
diagrams of Maslow's motivational theory - pyramid diagrams of
Maslow's theory. [online] Available at:
http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
Frederick
Herzberg
Businessballs.com (2000) Frederick Herzberg - Motivational theory,
motivators and hygiene factors, free herzberg diagrams. [online] Available
at: http://www.businessballs.com/herzberg.htm
David
McClelland
Businessballs.com (1941) David McClelland - Achievement motivation
needs theory. [online] Available at:
http://www.businessballs.com/davidmcclelland.htm
David Ausubel
Instructionaldesign.org (1968) David Ausubel - Subsumption theory.
[online] Available at:
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/subsumption-theory.html
Albert
Bandura
Instructionaldesign.org (1973) Albert Bandura - Social learning theory.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/sociallearning.html
Jerome Bruner
Instructionaldesign.org (1990) Jerome Bruner - Constructivist theory.
[online] Available at:
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/constructivist.html
Robert Gagne
Instructionaldesign.org (1992) Robert Gagne - Conditions of learning.
[online] Available at:
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/conditions-learning.html
B. F. Skinner
Instructionaldesign.org (1950) B. F. Skinner - Operant conditioning.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/operantconditioning.html
Lev Vygotsky
Instructionaldesign.org (1962) Lev Vygotsky - Social development theory.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/socialdevelopment.html
Jean Piaget
Instructionaldesign.org (1982) Jean Piaget - Genetic epistemology.
[online] Available at: http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/geneticepistemology.html
Additional material
McLeod, S. (2011) Albert Bandura | Social Learning Theory. [online] Available at:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html
McLeod, S. (2008) Jerome Bruner. [online] Available at:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html
McLeod, S. (2010) David Kolb | Learning Styles. [online] Available at:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html
McLeod, S. (2009) Jean Piaget | Cognitive Stages of Development. [online] Available at:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
McLeod, S. (2007) B. F. Skinner | Operant Conditioning. [online] Available at:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
McLeod, S. (2007) Lev Vygotsky. [online] Available at:
http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html