Teachers often ask the question: 'How to improve the motivation of my students?' There is a genuine concern expressed here. Teachers naturally know that the performance of their students hinges around the issue of motivation.
The Teacher as a Leader
A teacher's main responsibility is to lead the students to achieve greater performance. Thus we can say that an effective teacher is an effective leader, and teaching is leading. Thus leadership development becomes the central theme of faculty development.
Effective leaders are those who empower their followers and are empowered by the followers. In a way it is mutual empowerment. Power is not in the leader or in the followers, but in the mutual relationship.
The power of a good teacher is of a very special type. It is power that comes from his or her ability to influence the student, through expertise and genuine concern for the well-being and development of the student. The teacher leads by demanding and obtaining higher and higher performance from the students. Good teachers get the students to set stretch targets, and helps them to achieve them. The teacher offers himself or herself as the most important resource for the students to achieve their goals.
Understanding Motivation
Effective teachers are students of human motivation, and keep learning about it throughout their career, just as they spend time updating knowledge in their respective areas of specialization. A teacher learns the art of motivation when he raises his role to that of a leader, rather than being a mere conduit for knowledge transfer.
Among the various models used for understanding motivation, I find that the one given by David C. McClleland, developed during his tenure at Harvard, and elaborated in his book 'The Achieving Society' (1961) is highly relevant for educators, as well as leaders in every field.
McClelland's theory talks about three types of motivation: Achievement, Power and Affiliation. Which of these correlates strongly with academic performance? It is Achievement Motivation. So the question for the teacher becomes 'How can I nurture achievement motivation in my students?'
What is meant by Achievement Motivation? In essence, it is the motivation to excel. This can be expressed as the need to surpass standards, break records set by oneself or by others, do better than what one has done till now, do something unique, discover new ways of doing things, create something original and pursue a chosen goal with passion for a long time.
The Achievement Motivated individual sets clear goals, wherein he sees a reasonable possibility of success, and then stretches himself to accomplish the goals. He doesn't need certainty of success; rather he prefers to set goals where the likelihood of success and failure are fairly balanced, say 50-50. That is because he likes to take on challenges which are neither too easy nor extremely difficult for his skill level and resources.
The Achievement Motivated individual persists in the goal-directed behaviour, without easily giving up in the face of difficulties. Only if he has sufficient reason to believe that the goal is really unachievable, does he give up and refocus on a new goal that would satisfy his achievement need. He likes clear and frank feedbak, and uses measurement of the outcomes for obtaining feedback about how well he is doing.
Now, isn't that the kind of student that every teacher would like to teach? One who sets clear goals for academic success, and works hard to achieve them. One who takes feedback about performance, and tries to improve his performance from one test to the next.
The reality is that the vast majority of students in an average school or college are not achievement motivated. This does not mean that they have no motivation; it only means that their motivation is not related to the need for achievement. They are in fact motivated enough to do a lot of things, other than work on their academic areas. When a teacher talks about motivating his students, knowingly or unknowingly he is talking about arousing the achievement motivation in his or her students, and helping them to excel in their studies. How can the teacher do this successfully?
How to arouse Achievement Motivation?
Motivation comes from the same Latin root that is there in motion, movement, mobile etc. Motivation is that which makes someone or something move. For living beings, especially human beings, this motive force can come from within. We call this internal motive force as motivation.
Motivation produces goal-directed movement. Remember, there is a goal towards which the movement is happening. So the pre-requisite for motivation to be present is the presence of a goal. This would mean that if a teacher wants to motivate his or her student, one of the tasks would be to help the student to clarify his or her goal. And then help the student to stay focused on the goal, inspite of distractions that come on the way.
In my sessions with fresh engineering graduates, I help them to clarify their goals for a two year period. Before coming to goal-setting, I engage them in a number of activities that arouse achievement related thoughts and emotions in their minds. I help them to recollect their experiences of 'peak performance.' Invariably I have found that every person, even the one with average or below average academic record, has had some experience in which he or she set a goal and stretched to achieve that. An experience in which he or she worked with a clear goal and achieved that, or at least got close enough to success. Even failure would have been delightful because of the worthiness of the goal, and the confidence gained by stretching oneself beyond self-imposed limits.
In achivement motivation programmes of longer duration, I ask the participatns to write creative stories, first without inputs on achievement motivation, and thereafter following a systematic schema (achivement syndrome), which characterises achievement thinking. If there is enough time, I engage them in achievement related games and activities, which give them experiential feedback about their motivational profile, and bring to surface their latent achievement needs. One of the important components of the programme is the consistent use of achievement language, which arouses achievement imagery.
Teacher's Language Influences the Student's Motivation
As I mentioned earlier, the Teacher's role is that of a Leader. The teacher influences the student through his expertise and genuine concern for the student's performance.
The motivation of the teacher has a great impact on the motivation of the student. A motivated teacher not only kindles the spark of motivation in the student, but also keeps the fire burning. How does the teacher do this? There is only one resource available to the teacher to do this. And that resource is language. It is the language used by the teacher, including body language, that kindles or douses the spark of motivation in the students. It is not a matter of being technically right, but more a matter of how things are conveyed.
What is the language that arouses and sustains motivation in the learners? Good teachers, just like good leaders, somehow get it right. Mentioned below are some aspects of the language that motivates learners:
- Conveys respect for the learner as a person. No devaluing statements, either explicitly in words or implicitly through body language.
- Conveys positive expectations and the teacher's belief in the ability of the learner.
- Focuses on the learner's goals, with a continuous effort to clarify, and if required, recalibrate the goals based on performance.
- Acknowledges and appreciates improvement in the learner's performance as well as the efforts put in by the learner. Does not devalue the learner even if he or she fails.
What can Teachers Do?
What are the practical steps for the teacher to address the issue of student motivation? Here are some of them:
- Consistently use the language that arouses and sustains motivation, as discussed in the previous section.
- Highlight and recognize achievement, even small ones if a learner has stretched beyond his or her usual limit. Celebrate the success of the learners. Do not be stingy in praising the learners. This does not come naturally to many people, and a conscious effort needs to be made to overcome this culturally induced limitation on the part of the teacher's behaviour.
- Give clear feedback on a continuous basis. Negative feedback should start with an appreciation of something positive about the learner. Focus on behaviour rather than personality of the learner.
- Beware of the need for controlling power. Distinguish between controlling the process and controlling the person. Controlling the process (for example, submission of an assignment on time) is important for getting the desired results. Attempts to control the person will either lead to submission and dependency or aggression and disobedience.
- Most important, recognize that the teacher is the role model. When the teacher models achievement-oriented behaviour, the students tend to do follow the same behaviour. Model achievement by engaging in research, exploring the subject matter in depth, striving to be a better teacher year after year, learning from feedback and experimenting with innovative learning methodologies.
That's all for the timebeing. In a future blog, I plan to write about teaching as the process of co-designing and co-creation.
