How People Learn II Learners, Contexts, and Cultures (2018) / Chapter Skim
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6 Motivation to Learn
6 Motivation to Learn
Pages 109-134
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From page 109... ...
• hildren and adults who focus mainly on their own performance C (such as on gaining recognition or avoiding negative judgments) are 1 As noted in Chapter 1, this report uses the abbreviation "HPL I" for How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (National Research Council, 2000)
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From page 110... ...
We begin by describing some of the primary theoretical perspectives that have shaped this research, but our focus is on four primary influences on people's motivation to learn. We explore research on people's own beliefs and values, intrinsic motivation, the role of learning goals, and social and cultural factors that affect motivation to learn.
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From page 111... ...
. As we discuss below, learners who have a fixed view of intelligence tend to set demonstrating competence as a learning goal, whereas learners who have an incremental theory of intelligence tend to set mastery as a goal and to place greater value on effort.
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From page 112... ...
The students who completed the activity made significant academic gains, and the researchers concluded that even brief interventions can help people overcome the bias of prior knowledge by challenging that knowledge and supporting a new perspective. Another approach to overcoming the bias of knowledge is to use strategies that can prevent some of the undesirable consequences of holding negative perspectives.
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From page 113... ...
. In contrast, situational interest refers to a psychological state that arises spontaneously in response to specific features of the task or learning environment (Hidi and Renninger, 2006)
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From page 114... ...
Findings from studies of this sort suggest that educators can foster students' interest by selecting resources that pro mote interest, by providing feedback that supports attention ( enninger and R Hidi, 2002) , by demonstrating their own interest in a topic, and by generating positive affect in learning contexts (see review by Hidi and Renninger, 2006)
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From page 115... ...
External rewards can be an important tool for motivating learning behaviors, but some argue that such rewards are harmful to intrinsic motivation in ways that affect persistence and achievement. For example, some research suggests that intrinsic motivation to persist at a task may decrease if a learner receives extrinsic rewards contingent on performance.
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From page 116... ...
. Students who received praise for ability were more likely to adopt performance goals on a subsequent test, whereas those praised for effort were more likely to adopt mastery goals.
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From page 117... ...
Effects of Choice When learners believe they have control over their learning environment, they are more likely to take on challenges and persist with difficult tasks, compared with those who perceive that they have little control (National Research Council, 2012c)
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From page 118... ...
. Learning environments differ in the learning expectations, rules, and 3 When an individual encounters negative stereotypes about his social identity group in the context of a cognitive task, he may underperform on that task; this outcome is attributed to stereotype threat (Steele, 1997)
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From page 119... ...
Learners who believe intelligence is malleable, she suggested, are predisposed toward adopting mastery goals, whereas learners who believe intelligence is fixed tend to orient toward displaying competence and adopting performance goals (Burns and Isbell, 2007; Dweck, 1986; Dweck and Master, 2009; Mangels et al., 2006)
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From page 120... ...
When learners with mastery goals work to recall a previously learned piece of information, they also activate and strengthen memory for the other, related information they learned. When learners with performance goals try to recall what they learned, they do not get the benefit of this retrieval-induced strengthening of their memory for other information (Ikeda et al., 2015)
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From page 121... ...
. Table 6-2 summarizes a longstanding view of how the prevailing classroom goal structure -- oriented toward either mastery goals or performance goals -- affects the classroom climate for learning.
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From page 122... ...
Over the life span, academic achievement goals also become linked to career goals, and these may need to be adapted over time. For example, an adolescent who aspires to become a physician but who continually fails her basic science courses may need to protect her sense of competence by either building new strategies for learning science or revising her occupational goals.
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From page 123... ...
. Similar research also points to an apparent shifting between two distinct neural networks that researchers have associated with an "action now" mindset (with respect to the choices and behaviors for executing a task during learning)
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From page 124... ...
. In this section, the commit tee discusses three specific lines of research that illustrate the importance of culturally mediated views of the self and social identities to learners' percep tions of learning environments, goals, and performance.
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From page 125... ...
For example, several studies have compared students' indications of endorsement for performance-avoidance goals and found that Asian students endorsed these goals to a greater degree than European American students did (Elliot et al., 2001; Zusho and Njoku, 2007; Zusho et al., 2005)
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From page 126... ...
. In middle school, this culturally connected identity is linked to higher grade-point averages among African American (Altschul et al., 2006; Eccles et al., 2006)
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From page 127... ...
. The effects of social identity on motivation and performance may be positive, as illustrated in the previous section, but negative stereotypes can lead people to underperform on cognitive tasks (see Steele et al., 2002; alton and Spencer, W 2009)
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From page 128... ...
and GRE. The effects of negative stereotypes about African American and Latino students are among the most studied in this literature because these stereotypes have been persistent in the United States (Oyserman et al., 1995)
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From page 129... ...
. For example, in a study of African American children in an urban elementary school, introduction of a reading test as an index of ability hampered performance only among students who reported being aware of racial stereotypes about intelligence (Walton and Spencer, 2009)
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From page 130... ...
, so research is needed to determine for whom and under which conditions values-affirmation approaches may be effective. Although research suggests steps that educators can take that may help to 4 The 2006 study included 119 African American and 119 European American students; the 2009 study was a 2-year follow-up with the same sample.
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From page 131... ...
Some interventions focus on the psychological mechanisms that affect students' construal of the learning environment and the goals they develop to adapt to that environment. For example, a brief intervention was designed to enhance student motivation by helping learners to overcome the negative impact of stereotype threat on social belongingness and sense of self (Yeager et al., 2016)
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From page 132... ...
Fourth, these brief interventions focus on reducing barriers to student motivation rather than directly increasing student motiva tion. Such interventions appear particularly promising for African American students and other cultural groups who are subjected to negative stereotypes about learning and ability.
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From page 133... ...
More research is needed on instructional methods and how the structure of formal schooling can influence motivational processes. What is already known does support the following general guidance for educators: CONCLUSION 6-2: Educators may support learners' motiva tion by attending to their engagement, persistence, and per formance by: • elping them to set desired learning goals and appropri h ately challenging goals for performance; • reating learning experiences that they value; c • upporting their sense of control and autonomy; s • eveloping their sense of competency by helping them d to recognize, monitor, and strategize about their learning progress; and • reating an emotionally supportive and nonthreaten c ing learning environment where learners feel safe and valued.
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