Internal Motivation, External Motivation And Students

When a student comes to middle school, intrinsic motivation becomes  one of the most important factors that determines how well they want to learn. In fact, the apathy that usually comes with being an unmotivated student sometimes involves other behaviors that are difficult to deal with on their own. That is why it is so important to motivate students, especially when they are teenagers.

As they develop socially, children adopt behaviors, values, and rules. It also means that they begin to have their own way of thinking, feeling and acting. This is the phase where rebellion, apathy, lack of perspective, isolation and avoidance are major dangers to watch out for. But motivation can help.

What kind of motivation should you encourage?

Motivation is the special ingredient in achieving goals. It is a necessary factor that pushes you to action. But traditionally, experts have defined two different types of motivation:

• Intrinsic motivation is the type that makes you want to do things that are interesting to you. Just doing them gives you satisfaction.
• External motivation is the most useful type. It has to do with things you do as a way to reach other goals or avoid punishment. For example, external motivation will be when a child does his math homework so that they can play football with their friends later.

So if you can get a student to read because they are interested in what they are learning, and that makes them feel satisfied, you have made them internally motivated. The problem is that this type of motivation does not work for everything.

That is why internalization is such an important part of it. It means adopting behaviors, values ​​and rules that come from the outside and later become an independent process. As you can see, intrinsic motivation is the goal of education. It is so important that there should be a whole subject about it!

Academic achievement and student motivation

Good and Brophy (1983) said that the concept of motivation in school implies two specific things:

• A student’s level of participation in school lessons.
• The effort they put into their homework, no matter what the subject or activity is.

They also said that there is a moderately positive correlation (.34) between motivation and performance. On top of that, there is a two-way relationship because they both build on each other. Basically, motivated students will have a high level of performance. The high level will then motivate the students to maintain their level of achievement.

It is worth mentioning that in families with several children, there are usually large differences between each child’s academic performance. One can be much more motivated to schoolwork than another.

Students with additional problems as well, such as language challenges, can work much harder to achieve their goals. They motivate themselves through a desire to do better. At the same time, highly intelligent students may end up being comfortable with lower grades.

When we think about it, there is a good chance that students with high-level abilities who are okay with their mediocre points will start to fail more when they get to middle school and high school. The problem is that they never internalized the value of making an effort.

To encourage a student’s inner motivation

The problem becomes even greater if a child’s family does not care to motivate them. How can you get a teenager to have inner motivation if no one has ever taught them how?

One thing you need to make sure is that they understand what this concept entails. Then they can start to change the way they think about things. You also need to teach them to visualize their goals. For example, if they never think about studying and it is not a habit, help them make it one.

Parents must also learn other parenting styles. Some recommend it is to  encourage self-regulation and to hold them accountable for their decisions.

McClelland’s human motivation theory

The American psychologist David McClelland came up with a classroom motivation theory that involves these things:

• Promote a taste for new things.
• Encourage children to be curious.
• Encourage personal autonomy by using the results of their school work.
• Learn to evaluate yourself.
• Responsibility.
• Parents who insist that they have a high academic performance and receive clear evaluations.
• To move more towards independence as children get older.

Other motivation theories also say that a student’s self-evaluation is affected by various motivational variables, such as their academic performance and the way they perceive their own efforts and abilities.

The theory is that students who are highly motivated to achieve things (make an effort to stand out, fight for success and achieve their goals) see their victories as a result of their skills and efforts. They also generally have higher self-esteem than unmotivated students. There is even more evidence of something we cannot emphasize enough: the importance of encouraging students to be motivated early.