UNIT 4 MOTIVATION
Structure
Introduction
Objectives
What is Motivation?
Theories of Motivation
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
How to Motivate the Self?
How to Motivate Others?
4.7.1 Motivating Colleagues
4.7.2 Motivating Students
Let Us Sum Up
Unit-end Exercise
Suggested Readings
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Teaching is one of the most demanding and challenging jobs. Teachers are
perpetually engaged in imparting knowledge and shapinglmoulding the minds
of the young. As teachers, you are expected to guide and assist your students to
realize their potential. For this purpose, you must help your students to
maintain a certain level of motivation. While you are in this job, you expend a
lot of your energy, both physical and psychological. For doing well in your job
as a teacher, you need to constantly motivate yourself. In this unit, we will
focus our discussion 6n the concept of motivation and how to motivate
ourselves and others.
4.2 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
explain with examples some of the main concepts of motivation,
discuss intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,
devise strategies to increase your motivation,
analyse how your behaviour affects the motivation of others,
develop effective strategies to increase the motivation of your individual
student.
4.3 WHAT IS MOTIVATION?
"Why don't the students pay attention"? "i-iow do I make Raju learn"? You
must be making these laments often and hearing the same from your
colleagues too. Can you really make Raju learn? I think, you know that the
truth is that you can try to make Raju learn by facilitating the learning process.
But you will first have bo create the desire to learn i n him. We seem to think
that there is something needed to push the students towards a particular
, behaviour (goal), like learning maths, spelling etc. Yes, we are talking about Motivation
motivation or increasing the motivation so that a particular behaviour happens.
Motivation refers to those factors which increase or decrease an individual's
vigour for some activity. Motivation is something that energizes and directs
behaviour. There are two identifiable components of motivation. These are
need and drive. A person has to be in a state of need or desire so that helshe is
activated to do something to satisfy the need or desire. When you are watching
television or reading a book and you feel thirsty, you may ignore your thirst
for sometime, but as your throat becomes parched your feeling of discomfort
increases (need for water) and-you get up and move towards the kitchen for
satisfying your need by drinking water (goal). You felt a deficit (thirst) within
you that drove you towards the goal (water). The deficit or a requirement
-
which you first ignored but when it grew stronger, you were goaded into
activity (walking to the kitchen and drinking water). We can say, needs are
based on a deficit or a requirement within a person which may be physiological
or psychological. Physiological needs such as needs for water, food, sex, sleep,
warmth, etc. are more obvious than psychological needs which are more subtle
and less identified, such as, needs for affection, approval, prestige, etc. When
the need goads or impels a person into action, we say, that the person is in a
state of drive. Therefore, a drive, although based on need, has the feature of an
observable change in behaviour.
There are four phases involved in the process of motivated behaviour:
1. A need is aroused in the organism (thirst).
2. Behaviour directed towards satisfying the need is set in motion (reaching
for water and drinking it).
3. The need is satisfied.
4. The organism relaxes.
When a person is in a state of tension, a condition of unrest or discomfort
between the arousal and satisfaction of a need occurs. When the need is
satisfied the person relaxes and equilibrium is restored. Motivation, we can
say, is a stimulating condition, either external or internal or both, by which a
process of behaviour is initiated and continued until a state of equilibrium is
restored.
Successful teaching brings effective and meaningful learning. Motivation is an
essential part of learning. Teacher's effectiveness lies in understanding the
motivation of learners. How to motivate students in the classroom for learning
is a crucial problem which concerns all teachers at all stages of teaching. Uma
Rani of Government College of Education, Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu
conducted a study to find out the effect of activating motivational strategies on
enhancing competencies in teaching science among student- teachers. She
selected a sample of twenty two student-teachers from the physical science
group. A single group, pre-test---treatment---posttest experimental design was
used. The experiment was conducted in six phases. The study revealed that
post-test scores were higher than those of pre-test. This finding implies that the
competency in teaching science using activating motivational strategies had a
positive effect and helped in producing competent science teachers.
So far, our attempt has been to understand the concept of motivation. We have
attempted only a brief description because as students of Educational
Psychology, you are already familiar with the concept. A lot of research has
Structure
Introduction
Objectives
What is Motivation?
Theories of Motivation
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
How to Motivate the Self?
How to Motivate Others?
4.7.1 Motivating Colleagues
4.7.2 Motivating Students
Let Us Sum Up
Unit-end Exercise
Suggested Readings
4.1 INTRODUCTION
Teaching is one of the most demanding and challenging jobs. Teachers are
perpetually engaged in imparting knowledge and shapinglmoulding the minds
of the young. As teachers, you are expected to guide and assist your students to
realize their potential. For this purpose, you must help your students to
maintain a certain level of motivation. While you are in this job, you expend a
lot of your energy, both physical and psychological. For doing well in your job
as a teacher, you need to constantly motivate yourself. In this unit, we will
focus our discussion 6n the concept of motivation and how to motivate
ourselves and others.
4.2 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
explain with examples some of the main concepts of motivation,
discuss intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,
devise strategies to increase your motivation,
analyse how your behaviour affects the motivation of others,
develop effective strategies to increase the motivation of your individual
student.
4.3 WHAT IS MOTIVATION?
"Why don't the students pay attention"? "i-iow do I make Raju learn"? You
must be making these laments often and hearing the same from your
colleagues too. Can you really make Raju learn? I think, you know that the
truth is that you can try to make Raju learn by facilitating the learning process.
But you will first have bo create the desire to learn i n him. We seem to think
that there is something needed to push the students towards a particular
, behaviour (goal), like learning maths, spelling etc. Yes, we are talking about Motivation
motivation or increasing the motivation so that a particular behaviour happens.
Motivation refers to those factors which increase or decrease an individual's
vigour for some activity. Motivation is something that energizes and directs
behaviour. There are two identifiable components of motivation. These are
need and drive. A person has to be in a state of need or desire so that helshe is
activated to do something to satisfy the need or desire. When you are watching
television or reading a book and you feel thirsty, you may ignore your thirst
for sometime, but as your throat becomes parched your feeling of discomfort
increases (need for water) and-you get up and move towards the kitchen for
satisfying your need by drinking water (goal). You felt a deficit (thirst) within
you that drove you towards the goal (water). The deficit or a requirement
-
which you first ignored but when it grew stronger, you were goaded into
activity (walking to the kitchen and drinking water). We can say, needs are
based on a deficit or a requirement within a person which may be physiological
or psychological. Physiological needs such as needs for water, food, sex, sleep,
warmth, etc. are more obvious than psychological needs which are more subtle
and less identified, such as, needs for affection, approval, prestige, etc. When
the need goads or impels a person into action, we say, that the person is in a
state of drive. Therefore, a drive, although based on need, has the feature of an
observable change in behaviour.
There are four phases involved in the process of motivated behaviour:
1. A need is aroused in the organism (thirst).
2. Behaviour directed towards satisfying the need is set in motion (reaching
for water and drinking it).
3. The need is satisfied.
4. The organism relaxes.
When a person is in a state of tension, a condition of unrest or discomfort
between the arousal and satisfaction of a need occurs. When the need is
satisfied the person relaxes and equilibrium is restored. Motivation, we can
say, is a stimulating condition, either external or internal or both, by which a
process of behaviour is initiated and continued until a state of equilibrium is
restored.
Successful teaching brings effective and meaningful learning. Motivation is an
essential part of learning. Teacher's effectiveness lies in understanding the
motivation of learners. How to motivate students in the classroom for learning
is a crucial problem which concerns all teachers at all stages of teaching. Uma
Rani of Government College of Education, Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu
conducted a study to find out the effect of activating motivational strategies on
enhancing competencies in teaching science among student- teachers. She
selected a sample of twenty two student-teachers from the physical science
group. A single group, pre-test---treatment---posttest experimental design was
used. The experiment was conducted in six phases. The study revealed that
post-test scores were higher than those of pre-test. This finding implies that the
competency in teaching science using activating motivational strategies had a
positive effect and helped in producing competent science teachers.
So far, our attempt has been to understand the concept of motivation. We have
attempted only a brief description because as students of Educational
Psychology, you are already familiar with the concept. A lot of research has
