What motivates students?
1. Intrinsic motivation
Students tend to enjoy learning and to do better when they are more intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated to achieve.
This principle is directed at how instructors can increase intrinsic motivation through classroom practices and activities that support the fundamental need of students to feel autonomous.
It is important to note that not everything of importance is intrinsically motivating to all students and that there is a place for extrinsic motivation in education. During the unit on motivation, when intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are typically discussed, students can examine their personal motivations and how they influence their success.
2. Mastery goals
Students persist in the face of challenging tasks and process information more deeply when they adopt mastery goals rather than performance goals.
Students who form mastery goals are focused on attaining new skills or increasing existing ability, but students who develop performance goals typically are focused simply on showing adequate ability.
When students set performance goals, they have a tendency to avoid tasks that might expose weaknesses and end up missing opportunities that would foster the development of new skills. Those with mastery goals are more likely to be motivated to learn new skills and achieve higher levels of competence.
3. Teacher expectations
Teachers’ expectations about their students affect students’ opportunities to learn, their motivation and their learning outcomes.
The beliefs that teachers have about their students affect students’ opportunities to learn, their motivation and their learning outcomes.
Psychological research has uncovered ways for teachers to communicate high expectations for all students and avoid creating negative self-fulfilling prophecies.
4. Goal setting
Setting goals that are short term (proximal), specific and moderately challenging enhances motivation more than establishing goals that are long term (distal), general and overly challenging.
This principle explains how students can use short-term (proximal), specific and moderately challenging goals to increase self-efficacy and build toward larger goals.
Students should maintain a record of progress toward their goals which is monitored by both the student and the instructor. After students experience success with moderately challenging proximal goals, they will be more likely to become intermediate risk takers, which is one of the most significant attributes present in achievement-oriented individuals.
As a result, they will be capable of achieving larger distal goals. Tips based on this principle can easily be used to create engaging class assignments for the motivation unit in the introduction to psychology curriculum.
These principles reflect the importance of relationships, culture, community and well-being on learning. They focus on how instructors can help students by fostering healthy relationships with them and an interest in their lives outside the classroom.
13. Social contexts
Learning is situated within multiple social contexts. This tells us the various communities students belong to (e.g. families, peer groups, schools, neighborhoods) and their culture (e.g. shared language, beliefs, values and behavioural norms) influence learning.
This principle is related specifically to many concepts from social psychology (e.g., norms, attribution theory, individualistic versus collectivist cultures) and provides suggestions for incorporating culture into every unit to increase student engagement and build stronger relationships.
Introductory psychology classes can incorporate opportunities for students to engage with the larger community through service-learning projects, guest speakers and psychology clubs.
5. Interpersonal relationships
Interpersonal relationships and communication are critical to both the teaching-learning process and the social development of students.
6. Well-being
Emotional well-being influences educational performance, learning, and development. Various components of emotional well-being can be included across many psychology units, such as self-concept and self-esteem (social psychology), self-efficacy and locus of control (motivation and personality) and happiness and coping skills (emotion and stress).
7. Classroom conduct
Expectations for classroom conduct and social interaction are learned and can be taught using proven principles of behaviour and effective classroom instruction.
Numerous research-based ideas are presented for both correcting inappropriate student behaviours and for establishing appropriate replacement behaviours at both the classroom and school-wide levels.
8. Expectations and support
Effective classroom management is based on (a) setting and communicating high expectations, (b) consistently nurturing positive relationships, and (c) providing a high level of student support.
This principle highlights practical techniques to create a culture of high academic achievement and positive classroom behaviour at both the classroom and school levels.
9. Formative and Summative assessment
Formative and summative assessments are both important and useful, but they require different approaches and interpretations.
Formative assessments are typically used as a part of everyday practice and are given either prior to or during instruction. Such tools are designed to collect evidence regarding the progress of student learning in order to provide effective guidance.
Summative assessments, on the other hand, result in an overall evaluation of student learning or programme effectiveness and are typically utilized at the end of a unit or course thus having more limited impact on current instruction.
Frequent use of formative assessment accompanied by immediate and specific instruction helps students achieve learning goals and assume a greater responsibility of their own learning process.
The analysis of data collected through formative assessment allows the instructor to differentiate instruction and provide appropriate individualized support.
10. Assessment Development
Student skill, knowledge, and ability are best measured with assessment processes grounded in psychological science with well-defined standards for quality and fairness.
Formative and summative assessments need to be evaluated for both reliability and validity.
Instructors can improve the reliability and validity of formative and summative assessments by aligning them to learning targets, utilizing item analysis, discussing the results with other educators, and monitoring outcomes for discrepancies across groups or subgroups of students.
During the unit on intelligence and individual differences, it can be helpful to demonstrate to students how the exams they are taking can be evaluated for content validity by illustrating how the assessments are aligned with learning targets.
11. Assessment evaluation
Making sense of assessment data depends on clear, appropriate and fair interpretation.
Effective teaching requires that instructors be able to accurately interpret test results and clearly communicate the results to students and parents.
Students can use what they learn about testing and statistics to evaluate the various assessments given in class for reliability and validity.
Discussions of descriptive statistics are more meaningful when students examine their own assessments.
Conclusion
Although this is not an exhaustive list of educational psychological research, it does provide an important starting point for improving teaching and learning outcomes.
These principles are helpful for the instructor but can also be incorporated into the psychology curriculum as examples of how applied psychology can be used to solve real-world problems. At the same time, these principles will help students develop skills to learn more effectively in all of their classes.
Cosmos E. Kwaw
M.Ed (I.T), B.Ed (Educ. Tech'gy), LLB (On Going), Cert. (ADR)
Waow very insightful
ReplyDeleteKeep it up