Motivation in education

Motivation in education is one of the essential aspects that must be taken into account. An educational system that helps students face tasks and meet their challenges is necessary to achieve quality learning.. To do this, an exhaustive analysis of these motivational aspects must be carried out.

The existence of high interpersonal variability is the first issue that must be kept in mind when we talk about motivation in education. This means that each student has both reasons and a different motivational process. For this reason, there is no magic strategy that motivates all students equally, but a study of variability factors can help us address this problem.

In this article we explain Three aspects to take into account when studying motivation in education. These are: interest, self-efficacy and goal orientation. Let’s dig deeper.

Motivation in interest-based education

The student’s interest in the content of the study topic is an essential aspect. On many occasions this variable has been underestimated, assuming that what is really important is the effort that students make to learn along with their level of resilience. But it is a serious mistake, since if content is boring and heavy, the effort made by the student will be largely unproductive. Furthermore, when the subject is interesting, the effort is categorized as something positive and satisfying for the individual.

On the other hand, to understand in depth the variable “interest” from motivation in education, it is important to consider it from two points of view. Thus, interest can be treated at an individual level, focusing on the particular interests of each individual or, situationally, focusing on how interesting the way of instructing the content is.

When talking about individual interest, the conclusions are largely obvious. When a subject or subject topic engages a student, performance increases greatly.. This is because interest promotes exploration behaviors and constructive reasoning around that topic of interest.

Now, if we talk about situational interest, everything is more confusing. How do we make a subject more interesting? John Dewey stated that subjects were not made interesting by decorating or seasoning them with irrelevant details. For a subject to be interesting, instruction must be provided that allows students to understand its complexity, since the simple fact of understanding something is attractive to any human being. The problem arises when the instruction is not adequate and the student does not understand the subject. In this way, the data you learn are meaningless and of no interest.

Motivation based on self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is another of the central aspects when studying motivation in education. This is understood as a personal expectation or judgment about one’s own ability to perform a task. That is, the belief about whether one is competent or not. Thus, it is important not to confuse the concepts self-efficacy and self-concept; The first is a specific judgment about a specific task and the second is a generic idea about one’s characteristics and capabilities.

High self-efficacy helps students increase their motivation towards studying and learning.. This happens because being good at something causes a highly rewarding feeling. On the other hand, low self-efficacy can be very negative on a motivational level, since the brain acts as a defense mechanism to maintain our self-esteem. In this way, those tasks in which one is not very good or do not have skill lose interest for the individual.

One of the biggest errors in our educational system is the great importance given to error, along with the habit of rewarding success through others. Regarding the first aspect, we must bear in mind that by focusing on penalizing failures and errors, importance is given to punishment and this can trigger a serious decline in self-efficacy in the long run. On the other hand, when success is rewarded in reference to others (“José has gotten the best grades in the class, you could learn from him”), what happens is that many students are being placed below, whose self-efficacy can be be damaged.

So, The best way to manage self-efficacy is to carry out instruction based on enhancing students’ strengths and reinforcing their weaknesses. Furthermore, an evaluation of success based on personal improvement should be promoted.

Motivation based on goal orientation

Goal orientation is the direction that the student’s motivation takes. That is to say, the reasons or motives why the student develops the learning behavior. Regarding this aspect, it must be taken into account that, depending on these reasons, the motivational process will change. In the educational context we can find 3 different goals:

Performance-approximation: In this category, students who seek to obtain the best grades in the class stand out.Performance-avoidance: It corresponds to students who seek not to be the worst or to avoid failure.Competence: It refers to students who seek to understand the subject in depth, to achieve competence in it.

In this area, another of the great problems of the educational system occurs. Students with achievement-approach goals tend to get better grades than others; because their motivation drives them to achieve their goal. Instead, Having competition goals does not correlate with better grades, but it does correlate with a deep understanding of the subject.

How is it possible that those who care about understanding the subject do not always get better grades? The answer is that To get better grades, according to this evaluation system, it is easier to resort to rote learning than to deep understanding. And this principle is learned quickly by those students who have approach goals. On the other hand, those who seek competition need to make an added effort.

As we see, Motivation is a fundamental aspect to take into account if we want to provide quality education. Now, it is not only enough to know the subject, but above all, with an adequate application of the appropriate strategies and knowledge. Because motivating is not only about awakening inspiration and interest in students, but also about conveying to them that they are valid and capable of achieving their goals and understanding in depth the content of the different subjects.

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