What motivates children? Principles 9–12 relate to providing children with opportunities to learn using motivation
Principle 9: Children 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). Children who are intrinsically motivated work on tasks because they find them enjoyable. As children develop increasing competence, more complex tasks become more pleasurable. When children have reached this point, learning often becomes its own intrinsic reward.
Tips for teachers
Promoting intrinsic motivation requires the incorporation of practices and activities that support children’s fundamental need to feel competent and autonomous.
When possible, avoid using external rewards to indicate a job well done or to motivate behavior. Instead, provide positive verbal feedback and stress the inherent interest or value in the activity.
Introduce tasks that are just above children’s current abilities.
Where possible, consider children’s interests when planning activities.
Introduce novelty by providing some level of surprise or incongruity and allowing for creative problem-solving.
When introducing tasks and activities, use language and techniques that help foster a sense of autonomy for participating.
Principle 10: Children persist in the face of challenging tasks and process information more deeply when they adopt mastery goals rather than performance goals
Children who pursue mastery goals are oriented toward acquiring new skills or improving their levels of competence. Mastery goals are oriented toward acquiring new skills or improving levels of competence. With mastery goals, children are more persistent because expending effort is consistent with learning and mistakes are interpreted as information about what they have not yet learned. With performance goals, children are more likely to give up because working hard is often seen as a marker of low ability and mistakes as a sign of failure. Because young children are still developing their understanding of learning and themselves, interactions within the classroom can play a significant role in the goals the children take on in their classrooms.
Tips for teachers
When commenting on or asking open-ended questions about children’s activities, teachers can focus on effort, problem-solving strategies, progress and cooperative action, more than on the correctness, neatness, or adequacy of children’s “products.”
Provide positive feedback on successful strategies the child seemed to be using.
Avoid making comparisons between and among children. Focus instead on the progress each child has made on his/her individual work.
Encourage children to see mistakes as opportunities to learn rather than only evidence that they can’t do something.
Principle 11: Teachers’ expectations affect children’s opportunities to learn, their motivation, and their learning outcomes
When teachers come to hold misperceptions or mistaken beliefs, such as expecting less of a child than he or she can actually achieve, that child may begin to perform in ways that confirm the teacher’s original expectation. Over time, teachers’ differential treatment can have ripple effects, further widening the achievement gaps that often exist in the early years of school.
Tips for teachers
It is essential for teachers to believe in all children’s potential and to communicate high expectations to all children, maintaining elevated, developmentally appropriate standards for everyone.
Teachers’ expectations should not be based on stereotypes. Teachers should remind themselves that race, immigrant status, gender, disability, and social class are not solid bases on which to form expectations of children’s ability and potential.
It can be helpful for teachers to do a self-check. One way to do that might be for a teacher to ask whether s/he has low-expectations for a child who exhibits negative behavior, or if s/he is more likely to hold a group of children who share a common trait in low regard.
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 important for motivation because children who have a goal and adequate self-efficacy are likely to engage in the activities that lead to the attainment of that goal. Children need to be provided with many opportunities to set short-term, specific and moderately difficult goals in their classroom environment.
Tips for teachers
Keep a record of goal progress that is regularly checked by the teacher and child or group of children is especially desirable.
With support, young children will be able to set moderately challenging short-term (proximal) goals, and over time they will learn to become “intermediate risk takers,” which is one of the most important characteristics of achievement-oriented individuals.
Although young children have difficulty thinking about long-term (distal) goals in the abstract, teachers can engage children in longer-term planning through class projects, using a calendar, photos of the upcoming event and other concrete reminders.
