Rayne A. Sperling , PhD Educational Psychology rsd7@psu

1. A Discussion About Student Achievement Motivation: Theoretical Views and Instructional Considerations Rayne A. Sperling, PhD Educational Psychology rsd7@psu.edu

2. Agenda • Brief introductions • Rayne introduction • Discussion of flexible plan for session • What is academic achievement motivation? • Does motivation really matter? • Competence and motivation • Motivation drives engagement and leads to competence • Is there such a thing as ‘bad’ motivation? • Participants’ observations, concerns, and issues (What brought you here today?)

3. Agenda • Focus of discussion not only on “motivation” • Student behavior (actual and ideal) • Instructional actions • Resources and directions • TARGETT model and others • Overall take-home messages

4. Approach To share theoreticalapproaches toachievement motivation relevant to Engineeringinstructional contexts • Explain and discuss theories • Explore faculty perceptions/student perceptions • Identify representative and target faculty and student behaviors • Identify and discuss grounded instructional strategies to enhance student motivation

5. Bad Motivation? • Activity • Self-reported measures of achievement motivation • Actual and ideal • Theoretically-ideal versus practically-ideal

6. Academic Achievement Motivation • Some students are not engaged or are engaged in the ‘wrong’ things or for the ‘wrong’ reasons • Observing students’ behaviors may not indicate why they are engaged • Numerous theories and constructs explain students’ motivation for academic tasks • Some recent empirical studies of engineering and STEM students’ motivation

7. Theories • What motivation is NOT: Related constructs and considerations • Interest • Beliefs • Epistemology • Self-regulation • Engagement

8. Theories • There are many perspectives, for example: • Humanistic views • Attribution theory—the ‘Why’ • Self-determination theory • Self-efficacy • Expectancy x value • Goal orientation • Goal theories • Self-worth perspectives

9. Overall Considerations • Locus of control • Belief about whether the outcomes are result of one’s behaviors (internal) or the result of events outside one’s personal control (external) • Locus of causality • Belief about whether the reason for the activity is inside or outside the person • Views of ability • Entity: Ability is stable and uncontrollable • Incremental: Ability is unstable and controllable

10. Example Attributions • High grade • Ability: I am good in math • Effort: I studied hard for the exam • Ability & Effort: I am good in math and I studied hard for the exam • Task Ease: It was an easy test • Luck: I was lucky; I studied the right material

11. Example Attributions • Low grade: • Ability: I am no good in math • Effort: I didn’t study hard enough • Ability and Effort: I’m no good in math and I didn’t study hard enough • Task difficulty: The test was impossible, nobody could have done well • Luck: I was unlucky; I studied the wrong material for the exam

12. Attributions

13. Attributions • Controllable attributions • The fate of ability attributions • Attributional retraining • When NOT to make effort attributions • Teacher attributions for student learning • Modeling accurate attributions Action items/Reflections

14. Self-Determination Theory • Some think of this as the dichotomy of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. • Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation for which the activities are their own reward, inherent interest, enjoyment • Extrinsic motivation refers to motivation for doing something for a separable outcome

15. http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/documents/2000_RyanDeci_IntExtDefs.pdfhttp://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/documents/2000_RyanDeci_IntExtDefs.pdf

16. Some Additional SDT • Interaction of determination across types of motivation • Autonomy (Choice, involvement, relevance, feedback, lesson-framing statements) • Relatedness (Accepting and supportive environment) • Competence (Ability to function effectively in environment: praise, criticism, attributional modeling, emotional reactions, offers of help)

17. Some Additional SDT • Present a challenge • Give learner control--Choice • Evoke curiosity (the role of interest) • Use rewards for tasks that are not already intrinsic • Base rewards and feedback on quality of work • Use rewards to communicate increasing competence or determination or engagement

18. Drawing on Interest Personal and situational interest Mitchell Catch (activities) and Hold (meaningfulness and involvement)

19. Other Views: Social Cognitive • Self-Efficacy • A learner’s beliefs about his or her capability of succeeding on specific tasks • Expectancy x value • Learners are motivated to engage in tasks when they expect to succeed and when they value achievement on the task

20. Self-Efficacy • Those who are efficacious: • Willing to try on difficult tasks • Believe they will succeed and can monitor and control affect • Contributing factors • Past performance • Modeling • Verbal persuasion (depends on the source) • Psychological state (i.e., distraction, anxiety)

21. Increasing Efficacy • One instructional strategy for increasing efficacy is the use of worked examples • Product versus Process worked examples • Scaffolded presentation of worked examples • Success on related tasks • Collaborative tasks • Peer-guided tutoring groups

22. Expectancy x Value • Expectancy for success • Perception of task difficulty • Self-schema • Task value • Intrinsic interest • Importance • Utility value • Cost The equation…

23. Addressing Value • Lesson-framing statements • Meaningfulness • Nature of problems • Utility • Payoff for depth of engagement and understanding

24. Students in Context • One motivation for a person’s behavior is to protect self-worth. • Major source of self-worth information is performance on public tasks. • In competitive academic settings, only a few students will succeed. • To try hard and fail is a threat to self-worth.

25. Defensive Strategies • Don’t participate • False effort: make yourself appear as though you are working on the task when you’re not • Self-handicapping: doing something to put yourself at a disadvantage

26. Defensive Strategies • Set goals too high: failure provides no information about your own ability • Set goals too low: same as above only now success provides no information • Procrastinate: (publicly) put off working on the project, look like you don’t care…hey, you did well given that you only worked on it for a day… • Underachieving: Setting (public) standards low

27. Goals • Learning (Mastery) goals: Goals to learn, to improve. This produces task-involved learners • Example behaviors: • Work hard for understanding • Perseverance • Performance goals: Goals that focus on perception of others.This produces ego-involved learners Are performance goals always ‘bad’?

28. Performance Goals • Likely to cheat • Sloppy work • Attention seeking for good performance • Work for the grade • Compare grades • Choose tasks that will likely result in positive evaluations • Need clear evaluation criteria Instructor behaviors that promote performance orientation

29. Goal Orientations

31. Goals • Approach and Avoidance • Other goal considerations and theories • Social goals • Pleasing others • Parents, teachers, peers • Future goals • Work-avoidance goals

32. The TARGETT model • Task • Autonomy/responsibility • Recognition • Grouping • Evaluation • Time • Teacher expectations Ames (1992), Maehr & Anderson (1993), Todorovich & Model (2005), Woolfolk(2001)

33. Goal Structures • Cooperative: Students believe their goal is attainable only if other students will also reach the goal • Competitive: Students believe that their goal is attainable only if others don’t reach the goal • Individualistic: Students believe that their own attempt to reach a goal is not related to other students’ attempts to reach the goal.

34. Teacher Expectations • Beliefs and predictions about student abilities • Objectives: make clear you expect growth, appropriate but high expectations

35. Teacher Expectations • More capable students are given: • More opportunity for public performance on meaningful tasks • More opportunity to think • Higher level assignments (taxonomy) • More autonomy (less interruption, more choice) • More opportunity for self-evaluation • More honest feedback and contingent feedback • More respect for the individual learner • Meaningful time

36. Avoiding the Expectation Trap... • Use information from tests and prior experiences carefully • Context may change behavior and cognition • Be careful in discussion with low ability students • Body language, wait time, ample and appropriate praise, call on frequently, prompts and cues too • Variety of instructional materials • Diversity-background experiences • Gender and ethnicity and race cautions

37. Conclusion • Things you currently do ‘right’ • Things you knew • Things that surprised you • Action items • Resource requests