Get 100% on the homework.
Receive a sticker when you score in the top 10% of the class.
Make Dean’s List.
Be rewarded with a new pair of shoes if you get all A’s.
These are all types of extrinsic motivation. But is this actually motivating people to do and be the best they can in school?
As it turns out, these types of motivators pale in comparison to intrinsic motivation and people don’t perform as well when creativity is involved. Watch the video below to see how this applies to classrooms.
By the time most students reach high school, they have either become someone who is primarily extrinsically motivated (Type X) or intrinsically motivated (Type I). This plays a huge role in how they approach schoolwork and what their performance will be in class.
As a teacher, it is your job to help foster students to adopt the Type I trait to help them succeed. To do this, you must understand Self-Determination Theory.
SDT – we have 3 innate psychological needs: autonomy, relatedness, and competence. When these needs are met, we are productive and happy.
This chart shows a scale as to how much motivation you will have to do a task. Notice that the more intrinsic the cause is, the more motivated the person will be to do it.
How does this idea manifest in the classroom?
- When students are only working for grades or for an evaluation of some sort, their creativity is killed. Teachers can strive to create assignments that don’t receive grades but are still a vital part of learning.
- Leave assignments open-ended to allow for creativity and for students to feel accomplished.
- Allow several different ways to complete a project to let students use their creativity to come up with something different than the same presentation you’ve seen a thousand times before.
- Use extrinsic motivation for good! Only use it for routine tasks or for things that do not incorporate creativity such as memorizing vocabulary, cleaning up after a lab, or learning the chemical symbols for the elements.
Important points to remember in the classroom:
- Autonomy – this could be letting the students create their own assignment to demonstrate that they are learning. Trust your students and allow them to complete things and learn on their own for a while.
- Mastery – students want to achieve mastery, however, just when you think you’ve got it, something else comes up. You can get really close to touching mastery, but you will always be learning something new about the topic. Allow students to research things they are interested in and becomes “experts” on a topic. They will learn way more this way than you lecturing at them will ever teach.
- Purpose – if you can connect what you’re doing in the classroom to a real-world goal or application, this increases the desire to do it and be motivated. Try to create lessons that are intertwined with current events. Give students the responsibility of producing something and give them the purpose to succeed, not just on the assignment, but in life.
"Many studies have shown that when teachers foster autonomy, it stimulates kids' motivation to learn, tackle challenges and pay attention, Deci says." #StudentCentered #IntrinsicMotivation #Inspire and #EmpowerEACHStudent https://t.co/C62iB67oNI
— Karina Bruzzese (@BruzzeseKarina) September 26, 2018
Motivating students can be hard, but when you know how, seeing results can quickly follow! #EDT431 @AnnMacKenzie #scienceteaching #nsta https://t.co/zRS3qIibuH
— Margaux Haiber (@margaux_haiber) September 26, 2018
I am glad that you pointed out that extrinsic motivation can be a good thing within the classroom. There is definitely a point in which students do deserve a reward for their hard work. The key to this is not to reward things that require creativity like you had said. The things you described, such as memorization and cleaning up, are repetitive tasks that don’t really require critical thinking or even creativity. I completely agree that these are the tasks that can be rewarded if done well, or if effort is put in. From a students perspective though, it might be confusing to be rewarded on the “easy” tasks, and not rewarded on the more “difficult” tasks. Students may misinterpret your reasoning for this as an educator. How would you keep a good balance of rewards in your classroom, and also explain to students why some actions require rewards, while others do not?
Kate, I think its so important to not get too caught up in dissing extrinsic motivation because it really can be used for good! You simply cannot use solely intrinsic motivation all the time and expect it to work in all aspects. I think in terms of students misinterpreting the reasoning for rewards, you just need to be clear about when you are giving a reward and why. You can literally say “So-and-so was able to tell me where everything on the periodic table was located and so she is getting a starburst”. Depending on the grade level, this won’t be seen as an easy task and the student is still learning something, but it’s a very routine thing to be able to identify where things are on the table. They aren’t being creative in this. However, if the student is learning about a specific element and does a really great job with it, you can have them share with the class to show what they’ve found in a creative way to foster the intrinsic motivation to want to learn more. I also think it is important to use extrinsic motivators in extreme moderation because they can very easily be abused. If candy or extra credit are novelties, they will be more effective overall.
Hello Margaux,
Great post! I liked watching the video, it gave me good insight. I like how you have bullet points for everything. I should have done that in my post. I wrote long paragraph and I think that is why I am struggling with these. Anyway! I love how you mention the three components of intrinsic motivation. I also wrote about those in my work as well. I like how you talk about how you should let students choose, when reasonable. Adolescents (I use this word to help me sound smarter. lol) love to have choices. They also need to know the purpose of everything that they are doing, so they can fully benefit from it. It is best, when going into a lesson, to go over what they are expected to do and what the purpose is. I like how you said apply it to real life! That would make learning much more enjoyable. Now kids have a reason to learn something. I like how you mentioned all the components and the type I’s vs. the type X personality. You did a great job at explaining the concept. I don’t know about you, but I liked this book very much. Great post!
Delaina 🙂
Thanks Delaina! I think it’s very important to let students understand the purpose of what they are doing because otherwise they won’t see a point in learning it. For example, how many times have you been in a math class and ask the teacher why you have to learn an equation or how to FOIL or learn the trig signs and the teacher just says “Because you have to” or “Because it’s important for next year” or something along those lines? That is so bad for motivating the students to want to learn and honestly just usually makes them sort of angry. And I also agree with you, I really liked this book.
Margaux,
I really enjoyed reading your blog! I love the gotcha moment in the beginning with the list of different extrinsic motivators. The video you found is super applicable to not only what we are learning in class, but also what we are going to be doing when we have our own classrooms! Your “Types of Motivation” visual was funny and caught my eye, and the tweet that you found from Karina Burzzese was eye-opening as well. All-around great post!
Thanks Bryce! I like being able to catch people in the beginning of the post with things that they can connect with and probably have been extrinsically motivated by to be able to pique their interest for the rest of it. And I also loved the video and thought it was perfect for this sort of topic! I’m also glad you found parts of the post funny — that means I’ve done something right 🙂
Margaux,
First of all, I really enjoyed reading your blog. One of my favorite parts about it is the fact that you started listing examples of extrinsic motivation at the very beginning. This catches the readers attention right away, and gives a good idea of what this blog is going to be about. The chart you have with the different types of motivation was a nice touch! It gives a nice visual.
If I could give you any advice, it would be to maybe give definitions of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation at the very beginning of the blog. This may clear up any confusion between the two at the very beginning.
Otherwise, I really enjoyed it!!
Thanks so much Katie! I think it’s important to be able to immediately show the reader what examples of what I’m going to be talking about are so that they have an idea or example while reading the rest of the post. I could definitely have included a better definition of the two types of motivation for those who may be unfamiliar with the topic and vocabulary I’m using. But thanks!