1.+What+is+Motivation?

=What is ﻿Motivation? =

Motivation is an internal state that steers individuals to put energy and sustained effort into what they do. Motivation is of particular interest to educators because of the crucial role it plays in student learning. What motivates people to learn or engage in tasks? 

The study of using rewards in educational settings stem from behaviorist theories of learning ([|B.F. Skinner]1953; [|Watson], 1924). These theories assume that teachers can use rewards to engage students in particular tasks and that the rewards can be stopped once the behaviour is well established. However Anderman & Anderman (2010) state that while rewards may work for students who are not intrinsically motivated the assumption that the motivation will continue when the rewards are discontinued may not be true.

According to Lei (2010), there are a number of researchers who see motivation as either [|intrinsic] or [|extrinsic]. Intrinsically motivated individuals engage in tasks because they truly want to be engaged and they enjoy doing so without external rewards or reinforcements. In contrast, extrinsically motivated individuals engage in a task in order to gain some type of reward such as good grades or positive reinforcement or to avoid an externally imposed punishment (Anderman & Anderman, 2010). Compared to extrinsically motivated individuals, intrinsically motivated individuals will engage in learning tasks under their own initiative to seek understanding of the subject matter they are studying while extrinsically motivated individuals may engage in a task based on rewards or positive reinforcements. Ormrod (2008) stated that students are generally either motivated intrinsically or extrinsically and both types of learners have the same goal to achieve certain learning outcomes and both motivations may not have the exact same effect on student learning.

There are both advantages and disadvantages associated with intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Some of the benefits of intrinsic motivation according to Lei (2010) include:
 * Participate in task not depending on external rewards
 * Actively engaging in the task
 * Willing to undertake more challenging aspects of the task
 * Relate positively to learning and understanding the task
 * Ability to overcome anxiety, stress and frustration related to learning the task
 * Persistent in spite of occasional failure
 * Relate to the task with positive emotions
 * Expend lots of time and efforts in task

Some disadvantages according to Lei (2010) include:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Lose track of time and space
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Get absorbed in tasks and ignore other tasks
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Not spending enough time to enjoy other favourite activities
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Spend excessive time on the learning process

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Some benefits of extrinsic motivation:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Rewards or reinforcements are incentives for learning
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Learn to get recognition
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Learn to get higher grades
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Competition in learning
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Competition for rewards

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Some drawbacks of extrinsic motivation:
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Exert only minimal efforts to complete tasks
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">May lose interest in task when reinforcement ceases
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Need of frequent rewards or reinforcements to achieve desirable learning outcomes
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Compete with peers
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">High stress and frustration

Although most researchers look at intrinsic and extrinsic motivations separately, many believe that students can be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated at the same time for the same task (Lepper, Corpus & Iyengar, 2005). Lei (2010) mentioned that in many instances, students may be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to varying degrees. Educators, therefore should attend to both types of motivation.They should encourage students to be intrinsically motivated to learn materials for personal growth, enrichment and achievement and not to rely on rewards or positive reinforcements as the main source of motivation; However, educators also need to be aware of the role of extrinsic rewards in encouraging students to learn..