Motivation Theories

Motivation Theories

There are many differing models of motivation that serve as tools for thinking through and enhancing motivation in classrooms. In addition, culture influences motivation. For example, in collectivistic cultures, it is common to do things for your family members because the emphasis is on the group and what is best for the entire group rather than what is best for any one individual (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). This focus on others provides a broader perspective that takes into account both situational and cultural influences on behavior; thus, a more nuanced explanation of the causes of others’ behavior becomes more likely. Here are some major theories and perspectives regarding motivation.

Attribution Theory^[1]

Attributions are perceptions about the causes of success and failure. Suppose that you get a low mark on a test and are wondering what caused the low mark. You can construct various explanations for—make various attributions about—this failure. Maybe you did not study very hard; maybe the test itself was difficult; maybe you were unlucky or not smart enough. Each explanation attributes the failure to a different factor. The explanations that you settle upon may reflect the truth accurately—or, then again, they may not. Attributions are important because they reflect personal beliefs about the sources or causes of success and failure. As such, they tend to affect motivation in various ways, depending on the nature of the attribution (Weiner, 2005).

Growth Mindset

Locus, Stability, and Controllability

Attributions vary in three underlying ways: locus, stability, and controllability. Locus of attribution is the location (figuratively speaking) of the source of success or failure. If you attribute a top mark on a test to your ability, then the locus is internal; if you attribute the mark to the tests having easy questions, then the locus is external. The stability of an attribution is its relative permanence. If you attribute the mark to your ability, then the source of success is relatively stable—by definition, the ability is a relatively lasting quality. If you attribute a top mark to the effort you put into studying, then the source of success is unstable—effort can vary and has to be renewed on each occasion, or else it disappears. The controllability  of an attribution is the extent to which the individual can influence it. If you attribute a top mark to your study effort, then the source of success is relatively controllable—you can influence effort simply by deciding how much to study. But if you attribute the mark to simple luck, then the source of the success is uncontrollable—there is nothing that can influence random chance.

As you might suspect, the way these attributions combine affects students’ academic motivations. It usually helps motivation and achievement if a student attributes academic successes and failures to internal and controllable factors, such as effort or a choice to use particular learning strategies (Dweck, 2000). Attributing successes to factors that are internal but stable or controllable, like ability, on the other hand, is both a blessing and a curse: sometimes it can create optimism about prospects for future success (“I always do well”), but it can also lead to indifference about correcting mistakes (Dweck, 2006), or even create pessimism if a student happens not to perform at the accustomed level (“Maybe I’m not as smart as I thought”). Worst of all for academic motivation are attributions related to external factors, whether stable or not. Believing that performance depends simply on luck (“The teacher was in a bad mood when marking”) or on the excessive difficulty of material removes the incentive for a student to invest in learning. All in all, it seems crucial for teachers to encourage internal, stable attributions about success.

Teachers can influence students’ attributions in various ways. It’s useful to frame the teachers’ own explanations of success and failure around internal, controllable factors. Instead of telling a student: “Good work! You’re smart!”, try saying: “Good work! Your effort really made a difference, didn’t it?” If a student fails, instead of saying,“Too bad! This material is just too hard for you,” try saying, “Let’s find a strategy for practicing this more, and then you can try again.” In both cases the first option emphasizes uncontrollable factors (effort, difficulty level), and the second option emphasizes internal, controllable factors (effort, use of specific strategies) (West, 2018).

Teacher Considerations:

• Praise students for effort.
• Are academic tasks and materials at about the right level of difficulty?
• Are there supports in place for students when needed?

Self-Efficacy Theory

In addition to being influenced by their drives, interests, and attributions, students’ motives are affected by specific beliefs about the student’s personal capacities. In self-efficacy theory, the beliefs become a primary, explicit explanation for motivation (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). Self-efficacy is the belief that you are capable of carrying out a specific task or of reaching a specific goal. Note that the belief and the action or goal are specific. Self-efficacy is a belief that you can write an acceptable term paper, for example, repair an automobile, or make friends with the new student in class. These are relatively specific beliefs and tasks. Self-efficacy is not about whether you believe that you are intelligent in general, whether you always like working with mechanical things, or thinking that you are generally a likable person. These more general judgments are better regarded as various mixtures of self-concepts (beliefs about general personal identity) or of self-esteem (evaluations of identity). They are important in their own right and sometimes influence motivation, but only indirectly (Bong & Skaalvik, 2004). Self-efficacy beliefs, furthermore, are not the same as “true” or documented skill or ability. They are self-constructed, meaning that they are personally developed perceptions. There can sometimes, therefore, be discrepancies between a person’s self-efficacy beliefs and the person’s abilities. You can believe that you can write a good term paper, for example, without actually being able to do so, and vice versa: you can believe yourself incapable of writing a paper, but discover that you are in fact able to do so. In this way, self-efficacy is like the everyday idea of confidence, except that it is defined more precisely. And as with confidence, it is possible to have either too much or too little self-efficacy. The optimum level seems to be either at or slightly above true capacity (Bandura, 1997). As we indicate below, large discrepancies between self-efficacy and ability can create motivational problems for the individual.

Teacher Considerations:

• Has the teacher given students experiences where they succeed at challenging tasks?
• Are students defining success as their personal best?
• Has the teacher set realistic performance goals and helped students achieve them by encouraging them to set reasonable goals?

Expectancy-Value Theory

As we have explained in this chapter, motivation is affected by several factors, including reinforcement for behavior, but especially also students’ goals, interests, and sense of self-efficacy and self-determination. The factors combine to create two general sources of motivation: students’ expectations of success and the value that students place on a goal. Viewing motivation in this way is often called the expectancy-value model of motivation (Wigfield & Eccles, 2002; Wigfield, Tonk, & Eccles, 2004), and sometimes written with a multiplicative formula: expectancy x value = motivation. The relationship between expectation and value is “multiplicative” rather than additive because, in order to be motivated, it is necessary for a person to have at least a modest expectation of success and to assign a task at least some positive value. If you have high expectations of success but do not value a task at all (mentally assign it a “0” value), then you will not feel motivated at all. Likewise, if you value a task highly but have no expectation of success in completing it (assign it a “0” expectancy), then you also will not feel motivated at all.

Task value answers the question, “Why should I do this task?” There are four possible answers to the question: intrinsic value, attainment value, utility value, and cost (Wigfield & Eccles, 1992). Intrinsic value is the pure enjoyment a student feels from performing a task. When they are intrinsically interested in it, students are willing to become involved in a given task. Attainment value refers to the importance of doing well on a task. Tasks are perceived as important when they reflect the important aspects of one’s self. Utility value is the perception that a task will be useful for meeting future goals, for instance, taking a Chinese class to get a job in China. The last component of task value, cost, refers to what an individual has to give up to engage in a task or the effort needed to accomplish the task. If the cost is too high, students will be less likely to engage in a given task. For instance, students may not decide to take an extra course when they need to reduce the hours of their part-time job.

Teacher Considerations:

• Did the teacher adjust task difficulty so that success becomes a reasonable prospect?
• Did the teacher select reasonable objectives?
• Did the teacher link the task to students’ personal interests and prior knowledge?
• Did the teacher show the utility of the task to students’ future goals, and showing that the task is valuable to other people the students respect?

Self-Determination Theory

Pintrich (1991) believes that both attribution and self-efficacy theory make motivation appear too cognitive, too abstract, and too devoid of energy and passion. Similarly, Deci and his colleagues (1991) argue that most current approaches to motivation fail to deal with the question of why learners desire certain goals or outcomes. For example, Deci believes that attribution and self-efficacy theory emphasize too strongly the role of beliefs when accounting for intrinsic motivation. He questions how these theories account for the needs of learners to feel competent and independent. He claims that such theories make the motivational process appear too rational, too cold, and too isolated from the day-to-day emotions and feelings that characterize the classroom behavior of children.

The key idea of self-determination theory is that when persons (such as you or one of your students) feel that these basic needs are reasonably well met, they tend to perceive their actions and choices to be intrinsically motivated or “self-determined.” In that case, they can turn their attention to a variety of activities that they find attractive or important, but that does not relate directly to their basic needs. Among your students, for example, some individuals might read books that you have suggested, and others might listen attentively when you explain key concepts from the unit that you happen to be teaching. If one or more basic needs are not met well, however, people will tend to feel coerced by outside pressures or external incentives. They may become preoccupied, in fact, with satisfying whatever need has not been met and thus exclude or avoid activities that might otherwise be interesting, educational, or important. If the persons are students, their learning will suffer.

Teacher Considerations:

• Do students have choices?
• Is there active participation?
• Are there opportunities for students to build relationships with one another?

Motivation Theories

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