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How Motivation Affects Learning and Behavior

Motivation affects students' learning and behavior in several key ways: it directs behavior toward particular goals, leads to increased effort and energy, and increases initiation of and persistence in activities. Motivation also affects cognitive processes, determines which consequences are reinforcing or punishing, and often enhances performance. When students are motivated in their schoolwork, they tend to be higher achievers and less likely to drop out.

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162 views2 pages

How Motivation Affects Learning and Behavior

Motivation affects students' learning and behavior in several key ways: it directs behavior toward particular goals, leads to increased effort and energy, and increases initiation of and persistence in activities. Motivation also affects cognitive processes, determines which consequences are reinforcing or punishing, and often enhances performance. When students are motivated in their schoolwork, they tend to be higher achievers and less likely to drop out.

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rcampos_69
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How Motivation Affects Learning and Behavior

By J.E. Ormrod Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall


http://www.education.com/reference/article/motivation-affects-learning-behavior/
Updated on Apr 30, 2014

When it comes to art, Anya is highly motivated. We can reasonably draw this conclusion
based on her close attention in class, her eagerness to draw whenever she can, and her
career goal. Motivation is something that energizes, directs, and sustains behavior; it
gets students moving, points them in a particular direction, and keeps them going. We
often see students motivation reflected in personal investment and in cognitive,
emotional, and behavioral engagement in school activities (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, &
Paris, 2004; Maehr & Meyer, 2004; Reeve, 2006).
Virtually all students are motivated in one way or another. One student may be keenly
interested in classroom subject matter and seek out challenging course work,
participate actively in class discussions, and earn high marks on assigned projects.
Another student may be more concerned with the social side of school, interacting with
classmates frequently, attending extracurricular activities almost every day, and
perhaps running for a student government office. Still another may be focused on
athletics, excelling in physical education classes, playing or watching sports most
afternoons and weekends, and faithfully following a physical fitness regimen. Yet
another studentperhaps because of an undetected learning disability, a shy
temperament, or a seemingly uncoordinated bodymay be motivated to avoid
academics, social situations, or athletic activities.
When Anya comes to school each day, she brings her strong interest in art with her. But
motivation is not necessarily something that learners bring to school; it can also arise
from environmental conditions at school. When we talk about how the environment
can enhance a learners motivation to learn particular things or behave in particular
ways, we are talking about situated motivation (Paris & Turner, 1994; Rueda & Moll,
1994). In the pages to come, well find that as teachers, we can do many things to
motivate students to learn and behave in ways that promote their long-term success
and productivity.
How Motivation Affects Learning and Behavior

Motivation has several effects on students learning and behavior.

Motivation directs behavior toward particular goals. As we discovered in Chapter


10, social cognitive theorists propose that individuals set goals for themselves and
direct their behavior accordingly. Motivation determines the specific goals toward
which learners strive (Maehr & Meyer, 1997; Pintrich et al., 1993). Thus, it affects the

choices students makefor instance, whether to enroll in physics or studio art,


whether to spend an evening completing a challenging homework assignment or
playing videogames with friends.
Motivation leads to increased effort and energy. Motivation increases the amount of
effort and energy that learners expend in activities directly related to their needs and
goals (Csikszentmihalyi & Nakamura, 1989; Maehr, 1984; Pintrich et al., 1993). It
determines whether they pursue a task enthusiastically and wholeheartedly or
apathetically and lackadaisically.
Motivation increases initiation of and persistence in activities. Learners are more likely
to begin a task they actually want to do. They are also more likely to continue working
at it until theyve completed it, even if they are occasionally interrupted or frustrated in
the process (Larson, 2000; Maehr, 1984; Wigfield, 1994). In general, then, motivation
increases students time on task, an important factor affecting their learning and
achievement (Brophy, 1988; Larson, 2000; Wigfield, 1994).
Motivation affects cognitive processes. Motivation affects what learners pay attention
to and how effectively they process it (Eccles & Wigfield, 1985; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002;
Pugh & Bergin, 2006). For instance, motivated learners often make a concerted effort
to truly understand classroom materialto learn it meaningfullyand consider how
they might use it in their own lives.
Motivation determines which consequences are reinforcing and punishing. The more
learners are motivated to achieve academic success, the more they will be proud of an
A and upset by a low grade. The more learners want to be accepted and respected by
peers, the more they will value membership in the in group and be distressed by the
ridicule of classmates. To a teenage boy uninterested in athletics, making or not making
the school football team is no big deal, but to a teen whose life revolves around
football, making or not making the team may be a consequence of monumental
importance.
Motivation often enhances performance. Because of the other effects just identified
goal-directed behavior, effort and energy, initiation and persistence, cognitive
processing, and the impact of consequencesmotivation often leads to improved
performance. As you might guess, then, students who are most motivated to learn and
excel in classroom activities tend to be our highest achievers (A. E. Gottfried, 1990;
Schiefele, Krapp, & Winteler, 1992; Walberg & Uguroglu, 1980). Conversely, students
who have little interest in academic achievement are at high risk for dropping out
before they graduate from high school (Hardr & Reeve, 2003; Hymel et al., 1996;
Vallerand, Fortier, & Guay, 1997).

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