Chapter 10 page 200
Self-determination. Many researchers, especially Edward Deci, have argued that the desire to
have self-determination—the autonomy to make one’s own choices and to have some control over one’s
own actions—is a primary, fundamental motivator. When people have some self-determination over their
activities, they are more motivated to engage in the activities. When people lack self-determination, they are
less likely to want to engage in activities.
Instructionally, motivation improves when learners are given choices. Sometimes, relatively trivial
kinds of choice promotes motivation. In one interesting study, students were playing a computer game to
teach them the order of arithmetic operations (e.g., parentheses have priority over other operations,
multiplication is carried out before addition, etc.). Students who were simply allowed to choose their token
in the game (which rocket ship they wanted to “be” when playing the game) reported greater motivation,
and they learned more than students who had not been given this simple choice.
In the business world, organizational psychologists have often found that a crucial aspect of
motivation is giving employees the power to make decisions. For instance, engineers are likely to be more
engaged in their work if they have control over challenging decisions than if their work is all highly
specified for them.
In schools, motivational researchers argue that students should have more choices in their daily
school lives. To give a very simple example, when students choose their own books to read, they are likely
to be more eager to read it than when the book is selected for them.
There is sometimes a tension, however, between providing students with more choices and
maximizing student learning. When given choices, students may make choices that fail to promote their
own learning. Researchers investigating computer-assisted instruction have often found that students who
are given choices over what instructional material they will study fail to study enough to master the
material. Students who are required to go through all the instructional sequence often learn more.
Interest. Researchers who have studied students’ interest have pointed out that there is a difference
between situational interest and general interest. Situational interest is a temporary interest. For instance,
a history student might not usually be interested in the history of ancient Rome but be interested
temporarily on a day in which her professor comes to class dressed in a toga.
General interest is interest that an individual generally has on a topic. One student may be
generally interested in mathematics. Another may be generally interested in European history. Professors
usually have a general interest in the topics covered in the courses they teach, especially graduate courses
which focus on their area of specialty. Teachers must usually try to stimulate situational interest in students
to win their temporary attention. But then they should go on to try to build general interest in students.
What increases interest? According to one theory (Schank, 1979), interest is raised when (a)
expectations are violated through incongruent information or (b) expectations are unfulfilled because
potentially relevant information is missing. In addition, Schank argues that some topics are inherently and
universally interesting to humans: death, danger, power.
Here are some ways to enhance interest:
An obvious way is to try to relate the material to the students’ existing goals.
A very important way to enhance interest is to help students learn cognitive strategies. Cognitive
strategies help students increase their understanding, and material that is well understood is usually much
more interesting than material that is poorly understood. This is a method that is often ignored by teachers.
Interest can be enhanced by various forms of cognitive conflict, such as expression of different opinions
within a classroom. Disagreement among students with different points of view raises interest in students.
Stimuli that are moderately different from what students understand generally enhances interest. Thus, a
moderately novel math problem may generate interest, whereas a math problem that is very similar to or
very different from previous problems will be less interesting.