Cognitive Theories of Motivation

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Cognitive Theories of Motivation

• EDU 330 Educational Psychology
• Daniel Moos

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Motivation Thought question

• (1) Teachers expectations influence
• The way they use praise and criticism
• Statements they make to students about their
  performance (i.e. the explanations they offer for
  success and failure)
• Emotional displays
• Offers of help
• Describe the differences in the way a teacher
  might respond to a high expectation student
  compared to a low expectation student for each of
  these four areas
• (2) To what extent do you think teachers should
  promote competition in the classroom? Does your
  answer depend on the developmental level?
  Content-area?

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Motivation in the classroom Teacher perspective
(1)
Mastery, improvement
High grades, doing better than others
Effort, improvement
High grades, demonstration of high ability
Meeting challenges, hard work
Doing better than others, success with minimum
effort
A basis of concern and anxiety
A normal part of learning
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Motivation in the classroom Teacher perspective
(2)
Student learning
Student performance
Increased understanding
High grades, doing better than others
Incremental, alterable
An entity, fixed
Measure progress toward present criteria, feedback
Determine grades, compare students to one another
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Motivation in the classroom Student perspective
Sustains effort, increases self-efficacy,
accepting of challenges, increases achievement
Learning Goal
To understand the difference b/w well-written and
poorly written essays
Can increase effort, self-efficacy, achievement
Can detract from accepting challenges
Performance-approach goals
To produce the best essay in the class
Decrease motivation and achievement, particularly
for learners who are not confident
May avoid writing the essay so they will not look
dumb
Performance-avoidance goals
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Motivation Attribution theory (I)
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Motivation Attribution theory (II)

• Which student is most likely to feel guilty?
• Ann She feels as though she can control her
  effort
• Which student is most likely to feel shame,
  embarrassment?
• Bob Failure due to lack of ability, which he
  viewed as uncontrollable
• Which students motivation is most likely to
  increase in the future?
• Ann With increased effort, Ann can expect
  success in the future
• Explain why Billy would emphasize that he did not
  study?
• Billy is attempting to preserve the perception of
  high ability by pointing out that he was able to
  get an acceptable grade without studying
• Explain why- in spite of the fact that he did
  well on the test- Armondos attribution is not
  desirable
• He attributed success to luck, over which he does
  not have control

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Motivation Attribution Theory (III)
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Motivation Self-determination theory (I)
Self-determination theory Process of deciding
how to act on ones environment (Ryan Deci,
2000)
Competence
Feedback (Your problem-solving skills are
improving. Good work!)
Ability to function effectively in the environment

Independence and ability to alter the environment
Teacher asks for student input on rules,
encourages students to set monitor goals
Autonomy
Teacher spends time with her students before
after school, helping them w/ homework, etc
The feeling of being connected to others in ones
environment
Relatedness
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Motivation Implications (1)

• Model/acknowledge improvement
• Encourage internal attributions for successes and
  controllable attributions for failures.
• Emphasize incremental rather than entity views of
  intelligence.
• Give students the opportunity to practice
  exercises similar to those theyll encounter on
  assessments.
• Assess frequently, and give students ample time
  to complete assessment activities.
• Increase learner self-efficacy by providing
  students with evidence of accomplishment and
  modeling your own self-efficacy
• Promote student interest by modeling your own
  interest, personalizing content, providing
  concrete examples, involving students, and
  offering choices