the value of extrinsic motivation from June 8th

If extrinsic motivation is so bad why don’t educators change?

On the surface this sounds like a very simple question to answer, however, with a better understanding of the different forms of extrinsic motivation one will see that not all extrinsic motivation is bad. It isn’t until one admits that “extrinsically motivated behaviors are not inherently interesting and thus must initially be externally prompted” that they can see the purpose of extrinsic motivation. The problem arrises when many of the teachers who use extrinsic motivation don’t know how to reach the student and help guide the extrinsic motivation closer to intrinsic motivation. This disconnect occurs when teacher fail to relate the worth of the material in the outside world. If a student feels like the material does not pertain to them they begin to feel it is unimportant and move towards a position of amotivation; amotivation as described by Ryan and Deci (2000) “is the state of lacking an intention to act.” This is not always entirely the fault of the teacher, when you take into account each child has a different life experience therefore they will all be extrinsically motivated differently. It could take a teacher half of the school year to fully understand each child individually and know how to motivate them. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive for such abilities, it simply states that teachers have such little time with a child in the reality of their education that is hard to expect them to be able to motivate every singe child in every single subject. This is why the best kind of motivation a teacher could give at any level of a child’s education is that of praise, specifically the praise of their effort. Studies by Dweck (1999) suggest that children are more likely to continue working on a difficult project despite setbacks if their effort had been praised on previous projects. To sum it up, extrinsic motivational tactics are very volatile, when fully understood and properly applied they can also very good motivational tools. When methods of motivation are in question, always resort back to the praise of effort. It can have some pretty amazing results.