Educational Material

iram · Loyal Member Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 336

Motivation in School Learning

Introduction:

In the last forty years, researchers have studied student motivation and have learned a great deal about:
• What moves students to learn and the quantity and quality of the effort they invest;
• What choices students make;
• What makes them persist in the face of hardship;
• How student motivation is affected by teacher practices and peer behaviour;
• How motivation develops;
• How the school environment affects it.
Most of the motivation research focused on well-adjusted students who are successful in school. However, successful students differ from their less-successful peers in many ways.
What Are the Conditions that Foster Motivation to Learn? To understand the conditions that foster motivation to learn in school, we must first consider what students are saying about their school experiences. From there, we can look at what we have learned about practices that can enhance motivation to learn, even in more traditional, non-learner-centered schools.
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" (Mark Lepper 1988). 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 (Lepper).
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--regard-less of whether or not they are intrinsically interesting" (Hermine Marshall 1987). Another notes that motivation to learn is characterized by long-term, quality involvement in learning and commitment to the process of learning (Carole Ames 1990).
What factors influence the development of student’s motivation?
According to Jere Brophy (1987), 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)."
Children's 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 children 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 (Raffini). As Deborah Stipek (1988) notes, "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 children 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" (Ames). 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.
There is very little school learning without mental activity on the part of the learner. The most effective learning takes place when there is a maximum of mental activity. Maximum mental activity is best attained through strong motivation.

Motivation the superhighway to learning:

The major problem of the curriculum-maker and the classroom teacher is in knowing and applying the science and art of motivation. How do children learn “in doing what comes naturally”? Can such situations be artfully created? If so, how? What is the best technique for utilizing this knowledge in motivating school learning?
In our present state of knowledge, there is no sure method or procedure to guarantee the desired results in so many easy lessons. However, much data are now available in the literature of motivation and learning that can be great help in producing more effective teaching.
It is our task to present the best obtainable information based on known facts, experimental and clinical studies, observation, and the experience of successful classroom teachers as concisely as possible with in the confines of a single chapter.

A few preliminary considerations:

The child is a dynamic, living, growing, developing, maturing personality. Human beings share with all living things the universal, generalized, undifferentiated, more-or-less vague, urge to live. The infant unconsciously and automatically seeks those activities that aid in survival. Gradually this vague urge to survive takes on many manifestations according to the peculiar culture of his group, in short, from his total environment. The teacher is not directly concerned with the hereditary factors in the child By the time the child starts school he has already a well–developed personality. Many of his attitudes have become more or less stable. What ever may be said in defense of john Locke’s Tabula Rasa theory will certainly not apply to the kingderten child, for he is already a dynamic, growing., developing, maturing personality.
Nevertheless. As part of the total environment, the together has the privilege and responsibility of not only you present the nature needs and wants in motivating school learning, but also of helping to direct, and, to some extent, shape these dynamic needs and wants according to the ideals of a democratic society. The task of the teacher is doubly important and rewarding.
The child is a total personality. Another factor to be constantly kept in mind is that the child is total personality; and “integrated organized whole.” It is the individual, the self, the totality, which has to be satisfied in the fulfillment of any need and want. This makes possible the acceptance of substitutes (in most cases) and presents the possible the teacher with a multiple-choice situation. When we speak of individual parts such as needs, desires, whishes, likes and dislikes and so on, it is for the sake of convenience. The totally is too complicated to take hold of in a single grasp. It should not be assumed, however, that these units have any entity or any validity apart from the total organism.
Unconscious and semiconscious needs and wants, the individual is also motivated by unconscious and semiconscious needs and wants. Fortunately, many of these can be redirected by proper motivation in formal education. We shall concern ourselves with these as well as the conscious in presenting the practical suggestions for effective motivation of school learning.

Practical suggestions:

Any successful school program will have to take into account the dynamic nature of the child; his past experience, his total environment plus individual differences, and the manifold needs and wants as they manifest themselves.
The following practical suggestions are presented as tools for the classroom teacher. Care should be exercised to keep them from turning into weapons. “Brain washing,” in one from or another, may be used by unscrupulous parties to influence people. Manipulating people, individually and collectively, is becoming a science. Some of the new social scientists talk of the “ depth approach” and call themselves motivation analysts, motivation researchers, social engineers, and so forth. The cold war and all propaganda, including the big business of advertising, utilize the art of motivation. The technique of manipulating people is a two-edged sward in and out of the classroom.

Maturation:

It is useless to attempt motivation is school learning if the assignment is too difficult or the goals too remote for the child’s readiness or his maturation. Maturation and motivation must be synchronized. Formal learning can take place only if the learner is physically, mentally, emotionally, and culturally mature enough to understand and carry out the assignment. For example, very young children are influenced more readily by immediate satisfactions, follow the more primitive needs and wants, and are not too strongly motivated by outside incentives. They also have a relatively short attention span.
The connection between motivation and maturation has received a great deal of experimental and clinical study in recent years with remarkable success. Further studies will determine more accurately the degree of maturation required for the learning of specific subjects and also reveal whether retardation or precocious ness is due to heredity or environmental factors. Individual differences, however, will always present a problem to the classroom teacher. Children are at present classified in the schools largely according to their chronological age. Although chronological age does set a sort of patter for maturity, it does not eliminate the problem of individual differences and variations in the development of different phases of maturity in the same child.
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iram · Loyal Member Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 336

Bring assignment within child’s experience:

Experience is not only the best teacher: it is the only teacher. There can be no learning apart from experience and every experience can be an education. We speak of a self-educated man as through there were some other kind of education. Broadly speaking, all education is self- education. Formal education by the schools merely seeks to improve the quality of the education by improving the quality of experience, for the quality of learning is determined by the quality of experience on the part of the learner.
Learning is also conditioned by past experience. We interpret new experience in the light of the old. Identical environmental circumstances mean different things to different people and are variously interpreted. Their reactions also differ widely. Eyewitnesses at the scene of a crime or accident will give widely different interpretations of what actually transpired. If all witnesses give identical accounts, they are suspected of collusion and their testimony discounted. Learning based on past experience and tied in with the “ total pattern” is more effective in comprehension and speed of learning. It is better integrated and longer retained because it is better organized. It is more functional and therefore meets the objective of all school learning in producing approved conduct through the various satisfactorily desirable experiences of the learner.

Respect for personality of the child, appealing to ego-maximization:

Ridicule and sarcasm are far from the best means of motivating school learning. Children, as well as adults, their pride and self-respect. Any attempt to embarrass or humility a child, especially in the presence of his classmates, is likely to end in one of two undesirable results--- withdrawal or pugnacity. Shame and embarrassment are not healthy emotions. They produce uncertainly, hesitation, frustration, loss of confidence and self-respect. Sometimes they force a child to complete withdrawal from school activities and set up a mental attitude against all learning. In extreme cases, the child refuses to cooperate at all. He will not answer any questions, nor talk or utter a single word in school. In most cases the opposite takes place. The child becomes pugnacious and aggressive, with a hostile attitude toward the school and toward society. He is then ripe for delinquency. It is his way of getting back at his tormentors, be they teachers or parents or authority in general.
Disregard for the personal integrity of the child is unwise, because it threatens just about all of his basic needs and wants—self-respect, freedom from fear and the feeling of failure and guilt, the needs for love and affection, for security, for achievement and success, and most important of all, the need of belonging and being accepted. A feeling of frustration is the worst psychological atmosphere for motivating school learning.
On the other hand, an appeal to ego-maximization has exactly the opposite effect. We may set it down as a basic principle in motivation that we like those people, objects, and situations that make us feel important. Conversely, we dislike those people; objects situations that make us feel inferior. Accordingly, we prefer to play those games in which we excel; to associate with people who listen when we talk and who respect our opinions. We diligently avoid situations that are likely to prove embarrassing and which place us in an inferior position. This is why we resent personal questions and being the but of a joke. Practical jokers who delight in playing pranks on other people rarely can take a joke at their own expense. The teacher can accomplish a great deal more in motivating school learning by appealing to ego-maximization than shaming, ridiculing, and belittling the would-be learner.
Securing attention, creating interest and enthusiasm.
The in-at tentative child is preoccupied and does not hear what is said. He might as well be absent. Securing attention is, therefore, the primary prerequisite for motivating school learning.
It is well to remember that the attention span is very short, especially in young children. The only thing that will bridge the gap is interest and enthusiasm. Interest may exist to some extent on the part of the pupil; more likely it needs to be artfully created by the teacher.
Capitalizing on natural interests and cultivating new ones is the mark of a good educational program. “Intrinsic interest must be achieved”.
Interest is created by the acquisition of new skills, by encouragement, and above all, by satisfying experience. The wise teacher will take advantage of the slightest show of interest. The best time to explain a subject is when it is presented to an inquiring mind--- when the child asks questions. This is the true pedagogical moment; it is better than the “logical” moment according and the lesson plan.
The teacher’s own interest and enthusiasm are contagious and will go a long way toward inspiring and maintaining interest on the part of the pupil. As the child grows and develops, he acquires and displays new interests commensurate with his level of maturation. These may be used as points of departure in the development of new interests in an ever-expanding process. Offering multiple-choice situations and numberous incentives suitable to the child’s abilities and comprehension may accelerate the process.

Significance of attitude in motivation:

Closely related to attention and interest is attitude. Attitude is one’s set to react in a given way in a particular situation. It is relatively permanent and wider in some than interest. Attitude limits and channels motives. In its broader aspects, it is almost synonymous with motive. It is a habitual response to identical or near-identical total situations. A person’s perspective his interpretation of units and segments of experience as well as totalities and general outlook on life--- is gravely affected by his interests and attitudes. Attitude is not only a readiness for new experiences: it also creates the contours of the new experience and sets boundaries.
On the other hand, anticipation often over mobilizes attitude to the extent of “reading” something into the situation, exaggerating and distorting the facts. If you are waiting for someone whom you are expecting shortly, any person appearing on the distant horizon will be mistaken for this person, because anticipation and expectation tend to magnify the slightest points of similarity.

Praise and reproof:

Many experimental studies have been conducted to determine the relative merits of praise and reproof in motivating school learning. According to Schmidt, there is no unequivocal evidence one-way or the other. Results prove that both are useful in moderation and may have a bad effect if carried too far or used indiscriminately. “Praise for success and reproof for failure are more effective than indiscriminate praise and reproof”. Apparently the personality of the child is a determining factor. Some take to both praise and reproof; others respond best to one or the other. The football coach of a certain college discovered that one of his star linesmen would sulk under reproof and refuse to cooperate, but that praise would build him up to top efficiency.
Other determining factors are age, sex, peculiar circumstances, and most significantly, how the praise and reproof are administered.
Most people accept the opinions of others as to their abilities and disabilities. The tendency is to live up to the standards set for them. Witness the boy in school who said, “ I could do better if I were not so lazy”. How did he get to think of himself as lazy if he had not been designated so by others? Similarly, the so-called “bad boy” is dubbed such in one class and his reputation precedes him in the next. A clever salesman assumes the sale is made and talks as though he believes the prospect to be well to do and has good taste. The customer is more likely to meet the expectations of the salesman rather than admit he cannot afford the purchase. The sociologists refer to this as the “mirrored self.” Society is the mirror that reflects our social status, traits of character, and personality. Reputation is important not only as a gauge of what others think of us, but also as a determiner of our own opinion of ourselves.
Rewards and punishments:
Rewards and punishments are in the same category as praise and reproof, if we consider praise as one from of reward and reproof as one from of punishment. Much that was presented above will apply here also, except that rewards and punishments cover a wider area. Praise and reproof would constitute one form of reward and punishment.
The objective in both reward and punishment is identical—to affect future conduct favorably. They differ as to methodology. Reward seeks to influence conduct favorably by associating a pleasant feeling with the desired act; punishment seeks to deter or prevent and undesirable act by associating unpleasant feeling with it. If it was not for the anticipated deterrent effect of punishment and the hope of changing motivation, it would have no reason for existing, except as an instrument revenge and sadism. It would be sheer cruelty. The question is: just how successful is punishment in school learning and how does it compare in effectiveness with reward as an incentive?

Advantages and disadvantages of rewards versus punishment: -

In terms of motivating learning, the advantages of rewards over punishments are:
(1) They create pleasurable associations that are strong inducement to repeat the desired act;
(2) They have the advantage of being ides-motive through the force of suggestion;
(3) Being pleasant, they generate interest and enthusiasm; and
(4) They appeal to ego-maximization and develop high morale.
Some of the disadvantages of rewards in motivating school learning are:
(1) They are mostly extrinsic in motivating the pupil toward winning a prize instead of cultivating a taste for the thing itself;
(2) They afford temptation to cheat;
(3) They encourage the wrong attitude (“What do I get out of it?”), expecting something for nothing; and
(4) In most instances only a few children may hope to win, those least needing motivation.
Punishments also have some advantages as well as some disadvantages. The advantages may be listed as:
(1) They often act as deterrent;
(2) They serve as a form of discipline; and
(3) They are especially useful if
(a) They appear as natural consequences of the undesirable act,
(b) Are used in combination with reward, and
(c) If the child can be made to realize that it is the undesirable act and not he that is being punished.
Some of the disadvantages of punishments in motivating learning are: -
(1) They are based on fear, not a healthy emotion;
(2) They lose effectiveness if the child is no longer afraid or is willing to take the consequences;
(3) They are likely to reinforce the undesirable conduct by overemphasis;
(4) They create unpleasant feeling that are negative and associated with failure;
(5) The results are not always permanent;
(6) They may engender ill-will toward teacher and society; and
(7) There is no reliable measure of severity in punishments. Punishments that are considered severe by one pupil may be laughed off by another, and deliberately provoked for the compensation of being in the spotlight by still another.
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iram · Loyal Member Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 336

Success versus failure: -

Success furnishes its own drive. Like happiness, success, is often an end in itself. Many an enterprise is under taken for the sheer satisfaction of succeeding in that enterprise. Success is, therefore a type of reward, whereas failure is considered a type of punishment. The success-failure motive runs all through life and is constantly operative in everything we do. It is the chief determiner of morale. Every effort in adjusting to new situations is conditioned by trial and error, or trial and success.
Learning takes place in both instances. We learn by our failures as well as by our success. We tend to repeat successful attempts. In school learning, both success and failure can be useful within limitations. Failure may be a spur to success. No one wants an easy victory. Every novice hopes to best the champion. On the other hand, if failure is too severe or too often repeated, it is discouraging. It reduces aspiration and learning. As the mercury in the thermometer fluctuates with temperature, so the level of aspiration varies with success and failure as determined in the mind of the learner. What actually happens to us is not nearly so important as what we do about it. “Understood failure challenges effort. Understood success stimulates effort. …From what the pupil knows and understands comes the motive for further learning.” Success and failure should be so balanced that the child does not lose his perspective. In the classroom the teacher can manipulate the situation so that every child will get a taste of success to temper the ill effects of failure. Failure may be considered temporary, with success as the ultimate goal.
Children can be taught to take success and failure in stride through classroom situations as well as on the athletic field. There is also the possibility of setting goals and aspirations out of reach as well as out of grasp. If one’s aspirations are out of all proportion to his abilities, he may become discouraged, embittered, demoralized.

Positive versus negative: -

Most investigators favor reward motivation over punishment, because it is positive, whereas punishment is negative. Experimental studies show that learning with positive guidance is superior to negative guidance. The positive is more definitely associated with success; the negative is associated with failure. The positive is more predictable. It sets up a pattern and tends towards habit-formation. The nervous system is so constituted that once a stimulus is received, its force is on going, even after the original incentive is dropped.
Similarly, an idea tends to work out in action unless it is hindered by another idea or by a physical barrier. The negative approach of telling children what not to do is unfortunate, because it suggests, emphasizes, and keeps ‘warm’ at the focus of consciousness, the undesirable act. The idea takes the form of compulsion and the act becomes inevitable. One reason why New Year resolutions are so easily broken is that they are usually negative—something the person is not going to do in breaking a habit. But stressing the negative serves only to keep the idea so strongly in mind that it gets done despite “will-power.”
Another unfortunate feature of the negative approach is that it emphasizes the error and tends to “stamp” it in. In teaching spelling, it is better that the misspelled words not be shown to the pupil. The tendency is to repeat the mistake.

Clear assignments and definite goals: -

In line with what was said about positive versus negative is the desirability of making assignments and objectives clear and concise. Seeing goal more clearly is an aid to organization, resulting in better perception of relationships, clearer insight, and superior meaningfulness. Clinical and experimental studies definitely show the effectiveness of clear goals and knowledge of results. Knowing how one is progressing could be an incentive in both success and failure if success is not too easy and failure not over whelming; otherwise it might have the opposite effect. Athletic coaches usually have a marked advantage in that the pupils posses a clearer insight and understanding of the goals and objectives.
Self-motivation.
Knowledge of results, high aspiration, and clear goals are the best preparation and incentive to self-motivation, especially if the pupil is directed and encouraged to set his own goals and seek intrinsic incentives and superior remote goals. There is no better means of developing character and ideal citizenship in a free society.
The teacher can do much by defining and redefining goals and helping the pupils to do this for themselves by presenting the possible choice and letting them choose. Experienced social workers do not tell people what to do. They help the individual to view his problem objectively and in true perspective. They suggest possible alternatives. The final solution is left to the individual.
The will-to-learn.
Self-motivation implies a will-to-learn. A pre-requisite to all effective learning is a desire on the part of the learner for knowledge or understanding or for skill. In fact, the speed and efficiency in learning is in direct ratio to the aspiration or will to learn, except perhaps when the urge is intense enough to cause an emotional disturbance and thus interfere with learning. An analogous situation occurs when a person ‘loses his temper’ and renders himself less efficient in a task requiring skill.
In summary of suggestions based on experimental studies on methods of improving the will to learn, Book and Novell offer the following:
(1) Demonstrate to the learner by figures and facts that desire for improvement is a condition of advancement;
(2) Make the learner feel that it is worth while to exert an effort, and that if he does, he will be rewarded by success;
(3) Have a reliable method of measuring progress;
(4) Keep the learner succeeding so that he may be assured that he has not yet reached the limit of performance; and
(5) Show that others have improved and developed beyond the learner, or when needed, that others have failed for a time.

Unconscious needs and wants made conscious:

One significant means of strengthening the will-to-learn and improving aspiration is to help the pupil make his unconscious and semiconscious needs and wants conscious. According to Brill, many of our actions are guided by our unconscious. An appeal to emotion is often more effective than an appeal to reason.
Moreover, the unconscious is a true index of the real innermost wishes and desires, and it never lies. One need not be a psychoanalyst nor concur fully with their theories and practices to take advantage of the many valuable findings by Freud and his followers. Helping the pupil to clarify his unfelt goals and objectives, as well as his pressing immediate needs and wants, gives him a better insight into the reasons for learning. It will also serve to accomplish another major goal of school learning, namely, self-appraisal.

Self-appraisal:

Under or over evaluation of self can be tragic. Many people live mediocre lives because they do not know “their own strength.” They have a sense of false modesty concerning their abilities. On the other hand, the person who overrates his capabilities is constantly running into rebuffs and failure for attempting the impossible. Proper appraisal of one’s own potentialities is essential to a happy and useful life. It is also central in the learning process.
The school program and the classroom teacher can do much in aiding the pupil to appraise himself and his talents properly. In fact, much of this appraisal is unavoidable in a system of grades, promotions, special rooms, awards of one sort or another, and graduations. The schools and colleges are selective agents for placement bureaus and employment services that rely heavily on the candidates record in school and the recommendation of there teaches. Our immediate concern is with directing motivation in school learning so as to achieve proper self- appraisal and accelerate learning all along the line. “To the extent that self-evaluation leads to self-knowledge and realistic goal setting. It can be an important part of the motivational setting of the school.”

Means and ends:

The so-called average person, as well as the child, is motivated more strongly by immediate needs and wants than by remote ones. The lure of the immediate is greater because it is already on its way to accomplishment. The orientation is favorable. It is like drifting with the tide. In terms of inertia, it represents a body in motion; it needs no initial push or pull. On the contrary, it will take energy to inhibit or divert. With the very young child, one cannot and need not go much beyond the immediate. But as the child matures, he should learn to modify an immediate want for a more remote goal by visualizing the end result more vividly. This will abridge some of the distance and make the remote seem imminent. Some of the enthusiasm and satisfaction of anticipating the distant goal may be borrowed and appropriated to the means motive. The child who is told he must keep his room neat and tidy and stop teasing the cat and little sister if he wants a bike for his next birthday is offered a lesson in self-discipline. Even a very young child can discipline himself by eating meat and potatoes and drinking milk first in order to get later the ice cream and cake for dessert.

Values, ideals, and life goals: -

Choice, as between an immediate and remote goal, or any choice, involves values. Values are meaningless with mote a hierarchy of values. If everything were of equal value, then nothing would be of value. And a hierarchy of values implies some sort of philosophy of life. Goals ultimately group themselves into value systems. Value systems are synonymous with life goals. They serve as standards, as guiding principles, and place boundaries on behavior.
They delineate character and personality.
Ideals, as such, are abstract and cannot motive anything. It is the personality (the person) that determines behavior. Personality develops in response to basic needs and wants. The process being very early in life. Personality, in turn, even while in the early formative period, serves to regulate conduct. Motivation of school learning is very much concerned with the development of character and personality both as to method and ultimate result. To be effective in character-building, ideas need to be personified. It is mush easier to be loyal to a person than to an idea. “Identification” is made more readily to a person than to an idea. Children are highly imaginative and decidedly imitative. They identify themselves with imaginative and real people whom they admire and envy. They are hero-worshippers. When they are encouraged to imitate worthwhile personality, they unconsciously identify themselves also with the trails of their heroes.

Setting a good example:

The teacher is a very important person in the school child’s life .He personifies the democratic ideal and serves a model. This is why the personality of the teacher is just about the most decisive factor in the success or failure of the school program. His influence as a person far exceeds method and materials in teaching. Some years ago, Hartshorne and May26 conducted a series of tests for honesty in several types of schools representing divers ethnic groups and class’s society. They found, among other things, that the personality of the teacher played a decisive role .A certain teacher in one of the schools tested had the highest rating for her classes year after year despite the fact that some of the children coming to her rated lowest the year before coming under her influence.

Group dynamics:

The teacher, although very important, is not the only influence in a child’s life. His playmates, parents, siblings, relative, in short every person with whom he comes into contact influences his behavior directly or indirectly. The relatively new science of group dynamics is shedding a great deal of light on individual behavior in the classroom and in all the group contacts.
Learning in groups seems to be superior to learning in isolation…Group dynamics are more effective when all members of the group are more effective when all members of the group are intersected the problem being studied. …Where there are vast differences in motives, group dynamics will be adversely affected… Children are more cooperative, show more initiative, quarrel less, and display less friction and hostility between the members when they work in a group where democratic leadership prevails…. Group dynamics offers the best means available for development of social skills essential for democratic living, better social understanding and preparing the individual member of the group for democratic citizenship.

Competition versus cooperation: -

Experimental studies show that among very young children (infants) the cooperative responses are more noticeable than the competitive responses. True cooperation, however, is a learned reaction and takes time to accomplish.
Rivalry is an effective incentive to use with children of the elementary school grade, as a means of inducing them to better work in connection with their school studies. The interest, which this arouses, the outlet for a natural desire to compete with others of equal ages, and the training, which it gives in the building up of a cooperative spirit as opposed to selfish individualism, justifies its use.
Competition and rivalry satisfy basic needs in the individual and the race. We speak of competitive games and often refer to the game of life as such, we are competing for something or other. Competition and rivalry are rooted in the élan vital, the evolutionary urge. They constitute the push in the struggle to survive and the desire for supremacy. Competition runs all through life. A man must complete for the means of livelihood, for his social position, for his friends, in fact, for everything that is worthwhile. Civilized society has not eliminated rivalry; on the contrary, it has extended the field from the purely physical and biological to the intellectual, social, moral, and spiritual.
Rivalry as a principle of motivation is universally recognized. We make practical use of it in the home, the shop, the school, the playground, the athletic field, and in commerce and industry. It is the greatest urge for increased production and for social control. Our present concern is to determine the role of rivalry and competition in motivating school learning. For information on this point, we rely heavily on experimental studies and statistical research. The object is to utilize the advantages and avoid the pitfalls.
The advantages are:
(1) It provides zest and meaning to life,
(2) It is positive and satisfies a basic urge,
(3) It builds up moral and ego-maximization,
(4) It stimulates growth, development, and maturation,
(5) It could lead to self-improvement, for competition can be against oneself as well as against others. The chief danger is that if competition is too keen, the individual is likely to suffer defeat, humiliation, frustration, and possibly demoralization.

Cooperative rivalry.

The paradox of cooperative rivalry may be the answer to raw competition. It is achieved through group competition that contains both elements. Members of a group cooperate with each other while the group competes with other groups. Groups may cooperate with other groups in competition with still others groups, and so on. National groups follow this plan in their alliances. Cooperative and friendly rivalry develop team play, community spirit, self-discipline, and high morale. It satisfies the urge to belong, to be accepted. And, most important of all, it encourages participation, so essential in a free society.

Participation through participation: -

This could serve as a motto for all schools. Participation is both an ideal method of motivation school learning as well as the most desirable objective in all formal and informal education. In a democratic society, it is not only desirable but absolutely essential that every citizen take an active interest in the welfare of the nation by informing himself on important issues and by casting his ballot accordingly, in short by participating as fully as possible in the life of the community, Participation, then, is the goal of all our striving in education. The best training for participation as a citizen is participation as a pupil and student. Participation as the ideal means and end in education is what is means by participation through participation. What was said under group dynamics, goal-setting, making methods and materials meaningful to the pupil, and teacher-pupil is applicable here.

Appealing to as many motives as possible and to the total personality:

If appealing to a single motive is effective, then appealing to two or more motives is just that much more effective. This is the basic principle of the transfer of learning. It is also significant in the motivation of learning in the first place. “The effectiveness of a given motive in any situation varies directly with the number of cooperating motives or facilitating factors, and inversely with the number of competing motives or inhibiting factors.” To make the widest and possibly the strongest appeal, it is useful to capitalize on natural interests, to take into account immediate as well as remote goals, to make the task as meaningful as possible, to arouse interest and curiosity by displaying interest and enthusiasm and by presenting a wide variety of satisfactions and numerous incentives. Much of what was presented above in practical suggestions for effective motivation of school learning in applicable here. A review of these factors is presented in the summary following.

Understanding Motivation to Learn:
The frustrations that many teachers feel in trying to motivate hard-to-reach students come from the realities of time pressure, the large number of students with learning and emotional needs, heavy accountability demands from administrators and parents, and other stress-producing situations that exist in many of our schools. It is helpful for teachers to know what those studying motivation are discovering about the nature of motivation to learn and the ways it can be developed and enhanced in students. This understanding helps teachers realize that almost everything they do in the classroom has a motivational influence on students--either positive or negative. This includes the way information is presented, the kinds of activities teachers use, the ways teachers interact with students, the amount of choice and control given to students, and the opportunities for students to work alone or in groups. Students react to who teachers are, what they do, and how comfortable they feel in the classroom. In short, this is because motivation is a function of what motivation researchers Deci and Ryan (1991) describe as natural needs for control, competence, and belonging that exist in all of us.
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iram · Loyal Member Joined: 17 Jun 2008 Posts: 336

Summary: -
Using the classroom as an experimental station, the skillful teacher will guide the pupil through new experimental station, in his driver to adjust and readjust himself to his environment in a democratic society in such a way as to play his best role as a happy and useful citizen. In acquiring such skill, the teacher may profitably explore the practical suggestions presented in the chapter and summarized as follows:
1. Adjust assignment and requirements to the child’s abilities, his readiness or near–readiness, to his physical, mental and social maturation.
2. Bring the assignment within the child’s experience and link it up with the present total environment.
3. Respect the personality of the child by appealing to ego-maximizations in recognition of the first law of motivation: that life beings and ands with the individual so far as he is personally concerned.
4. Secure attention and create interest and enthusiasm by taking advantage of the “natural” interests of the child and attempt to develop proper attitudes just when the child is ready to be influenced properly.
5. Use praise and reproof judiciously, as prescribed by the experimental findings on the subject.
6. Apply rewards and punishments within certain limitations and recognize that pleasurable associations are more effective and longer lasting than unpleasant and painful experiences.
7. Develop good sportsmanship through proper adjustments to success and failure, create opportunities for success in sufficient instances to offset the inevitable failure, and keep them in such balance that the individual will be able to take both success and failure in stride.
8. Emphasize the positive approach, not overlooking the limited usefulness of the negative.
9. Be consistent in recognition of the fact that consistency is far superior to severity and pays large dividends in proper habit-formation and character building.
10. Make assignments clear and concise so that pupil will have a readable blueprint of his task.
11. Work out desirable goals and objectives through a democratic approach, enlist cooperation as to method and means, as well as ends and objectives, by defining and redefining methods and goals and offering multiple choices.
12. Attempt to secure self-motivation on the part of the pupil, which is not only proven to be more effective in motivating learning, but which will also go a long way in achieving the ultimate end of all school learning by encouraging the initiative and self-direction so important for a free society.
13. Stimulate and encourage a will-to-learn by developing definite purpose, aspiration, and ambition.
14. Make the pupil’s unconscious and semiconscious needs and wants conscious, and more urgently felt.
15. Encourage more accurate self-appraisal.
16. Borrow interest and enthusiasm from the end motive to the means motive, introducing the element of play, which is an end in itself, in contrast with work, which is regarded as a means to an end.
17. Personify ideals to make them more tangible through “identification” and a realistic-idealistic philosophy of life.
18. Set a good example in one’s attitude to the pupil and the task at hand, for, in the final analysis, the teacher’s personality is the greatest single factor in success or failure of motivating school learning.
19. Take advantage of the recent findings on group dynamics and the urge of rivalry and teamwork.
20. Explore the virtues of cooperation versus competition, having due regard for the experimental studies in the field.
21. Develop the art of cooperative rivalry by participation through participation.
22. Appraise the advantages of drill and transfer of learning, permitting the pupil to “take” the lesson and integrate it as his own experience rather than having it ‘poured in’.
23. Appeal to the total personality and as many motives as possible.
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