What motivates children? Principles 9–12 relate to providing children with opportunities to learn using motivation.
Principle 9: Students tend to enjoy learning and to do better when they are more intrinsically, rather than extrinsically, motivated to achieve
Intrinsic motivation refers to engaging in an activity for its own sake. To be intrinsically motivated means to feel both competent and autonomous (e.g., “I can do it for myself”). Students who are intrinsically motivated work on tasks because they find them enjoyable. All students, including those with disabilities, benefit from being intrinsically motivated when engaging in academic tasks.
Tips for teachers
Promoting intrinsic motivation requires the incorporation of practices and activities that support students’ fundamental need to feel competent and autonomous.
When using grades, teachers might want to highlight their informational (feedback), rather than controlling (rewarding/punishing) function.
Students with disabilities have unique learning needs, so providing some ‘choice’ in how students learn (e.g., watching video versus reading a book) may increase intrinsic motivation.
Autonomy needs are more likely to be satisfied when students have choices. Allowing students to select from an array of achievement activities and to have a role in establishing rules and procedures helps foster perceptions of autonomy.
Supporting students’ intrinsic motivation to achieve does not mean that teachers should eliminate the use of rewards. Certain tasks in the classroom and in life, like practicing new skills, might be inherently uninteresting to students.
Principle 10: Students persist in the face of challenging tasks and process information more deeply when they adopt mastery goals rather than performance goals
Mastery goals are oriented toward acquiring new skills or improving levels of competence. Students who hold mastery goals are motivated to learn new skills or achieve mastery in a content area or on a task for intrinsic reasons. In contrast, students who adopt performance goals are motivated to demonstrate that they have adequate ability (i.e., performance-approach goal orientation) or to avoid tasks in an effort to conceal a perception of having low ability (i.e., performance-avoidance goal orientation). Some research suggests that, while students with learning disabilities benefit from the mastery approach to goals, they tend to be less likely to hold a mastery goal orientation. This may be due to their experiences of academic struggle and lower achievement, making early identification and intervention even more important for students with disabilities.
Tips for teachers
There are specific ways in which teachers can organize instruction to foster mastery goals, including:
Try to emphasize individual effort, current progress over past performance, and improvement when evaluating student work, rather than rely on normative standards and comparison with others.
Deliver student evaluations privately.
Avoid praise like “perfect,” “brilliant,” and “amazing,” which provide no specific information to the student about what was done so well, because it does not promote guidance for replicating high-quality work.
Students with learning disabilities may experience more anxiety around failure, which could lead them to avoid situations in which failure is likely to occur. Treat failures as formative learning experiences.
Principle 11: Teachers’ expectations about their students affect students’ opportunities to learn, their motivation, and their learning outcomes
Teacher expectations about the abilities of their students shape the kinds of instruction delivered to students, the type of feedback provided to students, the grouping practices that are used, anticipated learning outcomes, and methods of evaluation. Whether accurate or not, expectations influence how teachers treat students. Such differential treatment may increase the actual differences in achievement between high- and low-performing students over time.
Tips for teachers
It is best for teachers to communicate high expectations to all students and maintain appropriately high standards for everyone in order to avoid negative self-fulfilling prophecies.
High expectations are conveyed when students with disabilities are placed in the least restrictive environment with adequate supports.
Teachers can continually assess the reliability of the information they are using to form their expectations.
Because teachers can sometimes be unaware that they are treating students differently on the basis of their expectations, it can be helpful for teachers to do a self-check.
When determining which assessments will be given, avoid selecting ‘off grade level’ assessments used for younger children that convey low expectations.
Principle 12: Setting goals that are short term (proximal), specific, and moderately challenging enhances motivation more than establishing goals that are long term (distal), general, and overly challenging
Goal setting is the process by which a person establishes a standard of performance (e.g., “I want to learn 10 new words every day”; “I want to graduate from high school in 4 years”). This process is important for motivation because students with a goal and adequate self-efficacy are likely to engage in the activities that lead to attainment of that goal. Short-term, or proximal, goals are more motivating than long-term, or distal, goals because it is easier to judge progress toward proximal goals. Specific goals (e.g., “I will finish 20 addition facts today with 100% accuracy), are preferable to more general goals (e.g., “I will try to do my best”) because they are easier to quantify and monitor. Moderately difficult goals, rather than very hard or very easy goals, are the most likely to motivate students because moderately difficult goals typically will be perceived as challenging but attainable.
Tips for teachers
Students need to be provided with many opportunities to set short-term, specific, and moderately difficult goals in their classroom work.
When selecting goals for students with disabilities who are performing below grade level, set goals that are specific and achievable in a shorter time period (e.g., decoding a list of 20 words by end of week or reading phonemes with automaticity in 3 months), rather than long term generic goals (e.g., reading at grade level in 2 years).
Keep a written record of goal progress that is regularly checked by both the student and the teacher.
As students become proficient at setting moderately challenging proximal goals, they will learn to become intermediate risk takers (not aspiring too low or too high), which is one of the most important characteristics of achievement-oriented individuals.
Teachers can provide breaks in between tasks (e.g., movement break, quiet time) to ensure optimal efforts moving forward with set goals.
