Elective Credit: Student Motivation to Learn
Unfortunately, as children grow, their passion for learning frequently seems to shrink. Learning often becomes associated with drudgery instead of delight. A large number of students--more than one in four--leave school before graduating. Many more are physically present in the classroom but largely mentally absent; they fail to invest themselves fully in the experience of learning.
Awareness of how students' attitudes and beliefs about learning develop and what facilitates learning for its own sake can assist educators in reducing student apathy.

WHAT IS STUDENT MOTIVATION?
Student motivation naturally has to do with students' desire to participate in the learning process. But it also concerns the reasons or goals that underlie their involvement or noninvolvement in academic activities. Although students may be equally motivated to perform a task, the sources of their motivation may differ.
A student who is INTRINSICALLY motivated undertakes an activity "for its own sake, for the enjoyment it provides, the learning it permits, or the feelings of accomplishment it evokes" An EXTRINSICALLY motivated student performs "IN ORDER TO obtain some reward or avoid some punishment external to the activity itself," such as grades, stickers, or teacher approval.

The term MOTIVATION TO LEARN has a slightly different meaning. It is defined by one author as "the meaningfulness, value, and benefits of academic tasks to the learner--regardless of whether or not they are intrinsically interesting" Another notes that motivation to learn is characterized by long-term, quality involvement in learning and commitment to the process of learning.

WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS' MOTIVATION?
Motivation to learn is a competence acquired "through general experience but stimulated most directly through modeling, communication of expectations, and direct instruction or socialization by significant others (especially parents and teachers)."

Students home environment shapes the initial constellation of attitudes they develop toward learning. When parents nurture their children's natural curiosity about the world by welcoming their questions, encouraging exploration, and familiarizing them with resources that can enlarge their world, they are giving their children the message that learning is worthwhile and frequently fun and satisfying.

When children are raised in a home that nurtures a sense of self-worth, competence, autonomy, and self-efficacy, they will be more apt to accept the risks inherent in learning. Conversely, when children do not view themselves as basically competent and able, their freedom to engage in academically challenging pursuits and capacity to tolerate and cope with failure are greatly diminished.

Once students start school, they begin forming beliefs about their school-related successes and failures. The sources to which children attribute their successes (commonly effort, ability, luck, or level of task difficulty) and failures (often lack of ability or lack of effort) have important implications for how they approach and cope with learning situations.
The beliefs teachers themselves have about teaching and learning and the nature of the expectations they hold for students also exert a powerful influence . "To a very large degree, students expect to learn if their teachers expect them to learn."

School wide goals, policies, and procedures also interact with classroom climate and practices to affirm or alter students' increasingly complex learning-related attitudes and beliefs.
And developmental changes comprise one more strand of the motivational web. For example, although young students tend to maintain high expectations for success even in the face of repeated failure, older students do not. And although younger children tend to see effort as uniformly positive, older children view it as a "double-edged sword" To them, failure following high effort appears to carry more negative implications--especially for their self-concept of ability--than failure that results from minimal or no effort.

ARE THERE ADVANTAGES TO INTRINSIC MOTIVATION?
Does it really matter whether students are primarily intrinsically or extrinsically oriented toward learning? A growing body of evidence suggests that it does.
When intrinsically motivated, students tend to employ strategies that demand more effort and that enable them to process information more deeply.

Experts found that when students were confronted with complex intellectual tasks, those with an intrinsic orientation used more logical information-gathering and decision-making strategies than did students who were extrinsically oriented.
Students with an intrinsic orientation also tend to prefer tasks that are moderately challenging, whereas extrinsically oriented students gravitate toward tasks that are low in degree of difficulty. Extrinsically oriented students are inclined to put forth the minimal amount of effort necessary to get the maximal reward.

Although every educational activity cannot, and perhaps should not, be intrinsically motivating, these findings suggest that when teachers can capitalize on existing intrinsic motivation, there are several potential benefits.

HOW CAN MOTIVATION TO LEARN BE FOSTERED IN THE SCHOOL SETTING?
Although students' motivational histories accompany them into each new classroom setting, it is essential for teachers to view themselves as "ACTIVE SOCIALIZATION AGENTS capable of stimulating ...student motivation to learn".
Classroom climate is important. If students experience the classroom as a caring, supportive place where there is a sense of belonging and everyone is valued and respected, they will tend to participate more fully in the process of learning.
Various task dimensions can also foster motivation to learn. Ideally, tasks should be challenging but achievable. Relevance also promotes motivation, as does "contextualizing" learning, that is, helping students to see how skills can be applied in the real world . Tasks that involve "a moderate amount of discrepancy or incongruity" are beneficial because they stimulate students' curiosity, an intrinsic motivator. In addition, defining tasks in terms of specific, short-term goals can assist students to associate effort with success. Verbally noting the purposes of specific tasks when introducing them to students is also beneficial.

Extrinsic rewards, on the other hand, should be used with caution, for they have the potential for decreasing existing intrinsic motivation.

What takes place in the classroom is critical, but "the classroom is not an island" Depending on their degree of congruence with classroom goals and practices, school wide goals either dilute or enhance classroom efforts. To support motivation to learn, school- level policies and practices should stress "learning, task mastery, and effort" rather than relative performance and competition.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO HELP UNMOTIVATED STUDENTS?
A first step is for educators to recognize that even when students use strategies that are ultimately self-defeating (such as withholding effort, cheating, procrastination, and so forth), their goal is actually to protect their sense of self-worth .

A process called ATTRIBUTION RETRAINING, which involves modeling, socialization, and practice exercises, is sometimes used with discouraged students. The goals of attribution retraining are to help students to (1) concentrate on the tasks rather than becoming distracted by fear of failure; (2) respond to frustration by retracing their steps to find mistakes or figuring out alternative ways of approaching a problem instead of giving up; and (3) attribute their failures to insufficient effort, lack of information, or reliance on ineffective strategies rather than to lack of ability.

Other potentially useful strategies include the following: portray effort as investment rather than risk, portray skill development as incremental and domain-specific, focus on mastery .

Because the potential payoff--having students who value learning for its own sake--is priceless, it is crucial for parents, teachers, and school leaders to devote themselves fully to engendering, maintaining, and rekindling students' motivation to learn.

How we motivate Students
Some students seem naturally enthusiastic about learning, but many need-or expect-their instructors to inspire, challenge, and stimulate them:

Unfortunately, there is no single magical formula for motivating students. Many factors affect a given student's motivation to work and to learn interest in the subject matter, perception of its usefulness, general desire to achieve, self-confidence and self-esteem, as well as patience and persistence. And, of course, not all students are motivated by the same values, needs, desires, or wants. Some of your students will be motivated by the approval of others, some by overcoming challenges.

We have identified those aspects that enhance students' self-motivation .To encourage students to become self-motivated independent learners, we do the following:

> We give frequent, early, positive feedback that supports students' beliefs that they can do well.
> We ensure opportunities for students' success by assigning tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult.
> We help students find personal meaning and value in the material.
> We create an atmosphere that is open and positive.
> We help students feel that they are valued members of a learning Windsor community.

We believe that good everyday teaching practices can do more to counter student apathy than special efforts to attack motivation directly. Most students respond positively to a well-organized course taught by an enthusiastic instructor who has a genuine interest in students and what they learn. Thus our activities that we undertake to promote learning will also enhance students' motivation.

We Capitalize on students' existing needs. Students learn best when incentives for learning in a classroom satisfy their own motives for enrolling in the course. Some of the needs our students may bring to the classroom are the need to learn something in order to complete a particular task or activity, the need to seek new experiences, the need to perfect skills, the need to overcome challenges, the need to become competent, the need to succeed and do well, the need to feel involved and to interact with other people. Satisfying such needs is rewarding in itself, and such rewards sustain learning more effectively than do grades. We design assignments like win assignments and other in-class activities, and discussion questions to address these kinds of needs.

We make students active participants in learning. Students learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating, solving. Passivity dampens students' motivation and curiosity.
The seven characteristics we use to student motivation:

> Teacher enthusiasm
> Easy to read and understand subject material
> Organization of the course
> Appropriate difficulty level of the material
> Active involvement of students
> Rapport between teacher and students
> Use of appropriate, concrete, and understandable examples

We help students set achievable goals for themselves.
We tell students what they need to do to succeed in your course.
We Strengthen students' self-motivation.
We Work from students' strengths and interests.
We increase the difficulty of the material as the semester progresses.
We emphasize mastery and learning rather than grades.
We design tests that encourage the kind of learning we want students to achieve.
We give students feedback as quickly as possible.
We reward success.
We introduce students to the good work done by their peers