I have worked as an educator and education program management professional for the past 15 years and one of the most common questions that I have seen haunt all educators from time to time is on days when nothing goes well in a class. The children we are teaching seem disinterested, bored and totally disengaged and try as we might there is simply nothing we are able to do to get them going. And during those times all of us end up offering to play a game or telling them a story instead of going ahead with our lesson plan. Now if this happens now and then it is fine but if it happens more often than not and if it happens with specific children more often we start wondering!!!

What is it that the class is lacking in? How do we make the children more motivated?

So today I am trying to answer the question after years of exploring the topic. I am going to try and answer 3 core questions

1. What is motivation?

2. What are some of the major drivers of motivation? and

3. How do we translate this into our classrooms or homes so that our children are more motivated?

Let us begin by exploring the word “Motivation”. Motivation comes from the word “Motive” which is the impulse that causes an individual to act. Therefore, motivation is defined as “The enthusiasm to act/ do something, the reason for people’s actions, desires and needs or an internal process which makes people move towards a goal.

Or simply put motivation is the “Act of being engaged”

Now this engagement can be looked as a 3 step process of “thoughts & feelings” translating into “behaviors/action” which then translate into “performance”. However, I would say that it doesn’t stop there. Motivation is infact a cyclical process of these 3 steps where great performance in a particular area leads to further thoughts or deeper insights and the cycle goes on. Each stage of the cycle is composed of many dimensions including attitudes, beliefs, intentions, effort, and withdrawal which can all affect the motivation that an individual experiences.

So now that we have defined Motivation, let us look at its major drivers. Now there are 2 prominent theoretical classifications of drivers of motivation.

Content theories

These theories focus on the “What?” They try to answer what drives motivation in individuals and some of the prominent ones are Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Alderfer’s ERG theory, McClelland’s achievement, affiliation and power theory and Herzberg’s two factor theory.

I will not go into details of each of them will talk about just one, but will link some reading material at the end of this article. So let me pick up McClelland’s theory of achievement, affiliation and power where he talks about these three learned needs as motivators of every individual and how one of these needs is is dominant in a person at any given time. An interesting fact which I learnt while going through his theory was how he shaped some of the current practices in interviewing for positions like the “STAR” technique as an extention of the 3 motivators which helps interviewers understand what an individual is more motivated by and will they be a good fit for the position applied for.

Process theories

These theories focus on the “How?” motivation occurs. What kind of processes influence our motive? Again some of the prominent theories in this paradigm are Vroom’s expectancy theory, Adam’s equity theory, Skinner’s reinforcement theory and Locke’s Goal setting theory. Out of them perhaps Skinner’s reinforcement theory is the most well known which we commonly refer to as the carrot and stick method where external stimuli in response to an individual’s performance is believed to drive motivation to do better or to not do worse.

Therefore, from these major theories we can conclude that there are “Intrinsic/Internal” and “Extrinsic/ External” drivers of motivation.

Now that brings us to the question which one is better? Are appreciations and punishments better tools to drive motivation or should we work on developing intrinsic factors that drive motivation?

Now this can be explained through Herzberg’s two factor theory where he suggests that satisfaction and dissatisfaction at any field are influenced by two sets of factors: hygiene factors and motivators. It has been seen that while better form of “Extrinsic drivers” work well to improve performance of individuals in tasks which involve only mechanical skill, but once tasks call for even rudimentary cognitive increase in extrinsic drivers in fact reduce performance. Experiments on this have been performed in various places. One example is MIT where students were asked to perform simple tasks like solving mathematics puzzles, spatial puzzles and even playing basketball and their performance was tied to cash rewards of three levels. Students who were offered the highest reward performed the worse.

This however, does not mean that extrinsic drivers of motivation are totally useless. Things like grades, salary, praise etc are important “Hygiene factors” which if not received equitably lead to dissatisfaction but the increase of which do not lead to higher motivation. People want these extrinsic drivers to feel that their inputs got them their desired outputs.

“Intrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is driven by internal rewards. In other words, the motivation to engage in a behavior arises from within the individual because it is intrinsically rewarding.”

Three primary drivers of Intrinsic Motivation are “Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose”

Autonomy is important because each individual needs a degree of power/ freedom over their own decisions and choices, without which they do not feel the urge to perform tasks. Our self-direction is a natural inclination. Daniel Pink in his book Drive points to the simple example of how children play and explore all on their own. We’re all built with inner drive.

The second important driver is Mastery, humans have an urge to do things which are fun, and want to get better at them. Gaining mastery is the reason many of us play musical instruments, learn dance, art etc. and do it over and over again during weekends despite our busy schedules. An important thing to note here however is that the task at hand should not be too difficult otherwise it can be so frustrating and if the person feels that they are not getting anywhere, their interest flags and they may even give up. A sense of progress, not just in our work, but our capabilities, contributes to our inner drive. Teachers/ Employers should look at calibrating what people must do by looking at what they can do. If the must-tasks are too difficult, people will become worried and feel out of their league. If the must-tasks are too easy, they’ll will get bored. The must-tasks should be just right. So Pink concludes that we should work on Goldilocks tasks, which are neither too difficult nor too easy. The trick is not to give tasks fitting a person’s exact capabilities, but to give them space and support to reach a little higher to foster improvement, continual mastery, and growth. What this requires of employers/teachers is paying more attention to how employees/children are doing and feeling about their tasks.

The third important driver is Purpose, People who find purpose in their work unlock the highest level of the motivation game. Pink says that it’s connecting to a cause larger than yourself that drives the deepest motivation. Purpose is what gets you out of bed in the morning and into work. That also means people who have purpose are motivated to pursue the most difficult problems. Meaning, is what helps people go the extra mile and stay engaged. 

My conclusion, to all of the content above is a simple Motivation cycle, where once basic needs are fulfilled an individual feels the need for external drivers of motivation which act as hygiene factors which then leads him/her to seek intrinsic factors to continue to remain motivated.

This brings us to the final question

How do we transfer all of this learning to our classrooms/ homes to ensure our children are motivated?

1. Building Trust – The first step in motivating children is developing a bond with them or developing trust. This can be done through accepting children as they are, listening to them, reflecting or paraphrasing what they say to make them understand that you are listening, helping them articulate their feelings when they are unable to do it themselves, normalising their experiences both past and present so that they know that just because they have gone through some life experience it doesn’t make them lesser than their peers, giving them honest responses. 
2. Positive reinforcements – The second step is by promoting extrinsic motivation through positive reinforcements. Acknowledging their strengths, making them feel accomplished through small rewards, praise etc. Now, in providing positive reinforcement many people believe that practices like leaderboard, competition are good. However, in a classroom environment these may cause undue stress in the child especially in the context of children in shelter homes because they are already in a high stress environment and may have low self esteem and confidence and these types of rewards while reinforcing some children may trigger more negative responses in others.
3. Delegate responsibility – The 3rd step is providing children more autonomy by letting them take up small decisions and responsibilities. These help children develop confidence in their ability to take decisions and keep them engaged in the sessions. Another important aspect to be kept in mind during this process is to accept failures. Often when we give someone responsibility and they fail we tend to express our displeasure and refrain from giving them future responsibility, but we have to remember that in usual scenarios all experts would have failed more times than the beginners would have ever tried. So let children try, let them fail and let them try again. That is the way they will learn.
4. Promote competency – The 4th step is to promote competency or mastery through making children curious about the sessions, developing new ways of participation like role plays, stories, sport, art etc. Changing the regular teaching environment through introducing movement in class, creating study stations etc. Providing feedback is another important component as it helps develop self awareness. Help them set challenging but realistic goals and provide support in achieving these goals, and finally acknowledging when children have developed competence in certain areas and providing them enough avenues to practice and display their skills.
5. Drive sense of purpose – The 5th and final step to drive motivation is to promote a sense of purpose, this can be done by differentiated instruction according to learning styles or engagement levels so that children find the content more relatable, increasing relatability by speaking in their context, providing clarity on expectations from them so that they know that you expect them to do well. Discuss about what drives you – Rarely do kids hear from adults about what drives them. Whether it’s helping others, expressing themselves or providing for the family, work often serves a larger purpose for adults besides remuneration. Conveying this message to children is especially important when so much professional work is abstract and remote. Create awareness among children about larger issues that are happening around them so that they explore and derive purpose from issues which interest them and finally children need to know that everything they do has an impact on others, for better or worse. “Adults should teach their children the basic principle Whatever you do in this world matters,” Damon writes. By conveying confidence in their child, and assigning regular chores that affect the family, parents teach that their child’s contributions have an effect. 

In the end I would like to leave you with Locke’s Goal setting theory which posits that “People will perform better if they have difficult, specific, accepted performance goals or objectives”. Yes, as educators our path is not always easy, yes we need to have the desire to bring specific changes in the lives and futures of our students and know specific steps on how to achieve those changes and finally, yes we should feel ready to accept the challenge only then we would be able to keep ourselves motivated in the long run.

References

http://www.tankonyvtar.hu/hu/tartalom/tamop412A/2011-0023_Psychology/030300.scorml 

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us  – Daniel Pink

http://www.teachhub.com/top-12-ways-motivate-students 

https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/48013/how-parents-can-help-kids-develop-a-sense-of-purpose 
https://mambo.io/gamification-guide/content-theories-of-motivation