Motivating Elementary Students to Want to Learn
Moving From Extrinsic to Intrinsic Classroom Motivation
Oct 23, 2009
While promises of external rewards may motivate some K-8 students, they rarely result in the sustained motivation that helps children persevere when facing academic challenges. Teachers who develop intrinsic motivation in their students enjoy a dynamic classroom atmosphere in which students take an active role in their own learning, and are likely to see academic gains that surpass expectations. Intrinsic motivation is taught by promoting metacognitive reflection, encouraging appropriate attributions, and building self-efficacy in students.
Promoting Metacognitive Reflection
Metacogntion, or the ability to think about one's own thinking, includes a set of skills that promote ownership over the learning process, as well as a repertoire of strategies students can use when faced with challenging content or assignments. Metacognitve learners begin their work by planning, asking themselves what the task entails, what information will be needed, and what they think will happen as they get involved.
As the work ensues, they monitor their own progress, asking themselves what they are doing well, why it is working, and what still needs to be done. Finally, when finished with the task, they evaluate their performance, asking what they learned from the process, what they did well, and what they could improve. Because metacognitive learners stay in control of their learning processes, they stay intrinsically motivated to succeed.
Teachers can promote metacognitive thinking by modeling the processes themselves, thinking aloud as they solve problems and discussing the strategies that they use or that students can try in various situations. Using "thinking" language, such as asking students what strategies they have already tried to solve a problem, or how they plan to organize their approach to a learning task, and also put students in control of their own learning.
Encouraging Appropriate Attributions
Intrinsic motivation may be influenced by the factors to which children attribute their success or failure. For example, if those who do poorly on a test attribute their low scores to the difficulty of the test, the meanness of the teacher, or outside distractions, they will likely be unmotivated to try to do better next time, believing that their success or failure is outside of their control.
However, those who attribute their success or failure to factors they can control (such as time spent studying, actual study methods, or amount of sleep before the test), will likely be intrinsically motivated to do well next time, too. Teachers can encourage appropriate causal attributions by discussing internal and external factors that contribute to learning outcomes, and encouraging students to explore the ways in which their own efforts affect results before examining outside factors.
Building Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy, or a feeling of capability, is developed through accomplishment, and it is the only true way to build self-esteem and a "can-do" spirit in others. For those with low self-efficacy and little motivation, teachers should first provide tasks that may be accomplished independently. More complex tasks may be broken down into manageable portions, with each accomplished step recognized. Past successes should be pointed out frequently, and effort and approximations reinforced repeatedly.
Elementary teachers can motivate students to want to learn, to approach new learning challenges with enthusiasm, and to persevere when difficulties arise. The key to intrinsic motivation lies in students knowing they can control their own learning through metacogntion, appropriate attributions and strategies, and the self-efficacy that comes from building on past successes.
Further Reading
Blackburn, Barbara. Classroom Motivation From A to Z: How to Engage Your Students in Learning. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education, 2005.
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