What is Meant by “Motivation”?
In general, motivation is a complex amalgam of all the factors at work in a given point in time that influence an organism’s “movement” toward a goal. Like all animals, humans respond to drive states that are governed most basically by hormonal and neural processes (2.1.4 From Synapses to Learning—Understanding Brain Processes); examples of such drive states are hunger, hunger, thirst, sexual desire, and need for warmth. Though we share these biological foundations of motivation with the entire animal world, we humans are capable of regulating or modifying our responses. In countless situations we must recognize what actions are relevant or appropriate to achieve an end; and to the extent that we can manage our perceptions, emotions, attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, and values, we can, as individuals and groups, be much more in control of our responses to challenge.
Consistent with this general perspective, K. P. Cross, respected scholar and prolific author in the field of teaching and learning in higher education, maintains that key determinants of motivation for learners are expectancy, sense of self-worth, and the role of attribution (2001). Expectancy refers to learners’ expectations of whether they will succeed or fail based on past experiences. Sense of self-worth relates to the need to protect one’s integrity or ego. The role of attribution refers to the learner’s explanation of the causes of their success or failure.
Two Models of Self-Regulated Motivation
Motivation theory provides two models that are useful to Process Educators for understanding why learners differ in their levels of engagement, response to facilitation, need for constructive intervention, and flexibility in being able to collaborate with mentors. Self-regulation processes can be analyzed either as cycles of response to specific performance standards, or as change in quality of self-regulation of motivation over time, i.e., growth that results in expertise (2.2.3 Developing Working Expertise (Level 4 Knowledge)). These two perspectives are introduced and illustrated with examples that show how Cross’s factors of expectancy, sense of self-worth, and the role of attribution can be examined with these models in mind.
The Performance Feedback Loop Model
Carver (2004) provides a brief history of self-regulation theory. According to Carver, a self-regulating person controls and manages his or her reactions and behavior to achieve goals despite changing conditions and priorities. Behavior and outcomes are aspects of self-regulation that we can observe, but there are always many implicit and unobservable influences such as the person’s perceptions and emotional state.
Figure 1 illustrates a general model of how self-regulation works. If learners perceive opportunities to learn, have a realistic sense of their own competence or self-efficacy, and know the criteria and standards for the performance, they are likely to perceive the situation more accurately than will learners who are confident but who lack competence and who are unaware of the standards. Learners’ performances will tend to be unpredictable if they misperceive their own reactions or those of others, or if they overreact or under-react to the learning situations. Others may even unfairly stereotype such learners, underestimating their potential to perform. If learners have had unresolved negative experiences in the past, they are likely to avoid similar situations; if people learn to cope with failures and are able to regulate their emotional reactions, they are more likely to respond to failure by persisting with a revised strategy based on a realistic analysis of feedback. Therefore, a person’s perception of and reaction to feedback critically affects an individual’s decision on whether or not to persist.
Figure 1 Phases of Behavior Change Model of Motivation
|
The Behavior Change Model
Rothman, Baldwin, and Hertel (2004) offer the behavior change model to explain the self-regulation of motivation; it is more developmental in nature, but still consistent with Carver’s feedback loop model. They approach self-regulation of motivation as a behavior change process that occurs in four phases: initial response, continued response, maintenance, and habit. In the initial response phase, learner expectancies, sense of self-worth, and attributions of success vary widely. At the beginning of a course, educators must quickly assess the range of variation in learning skills to help learners adapt their learning styles and strategies (4.3.2 Student Learning Styles). At this phase some students will benefit from specific constructive interventions to help them meet the learning challenges (3.2.8 Constructive Intervention Techniques). Once students understand how to perform at the expected level of quality, they are likely to persist longer, feel more confident, and attribute their progress to their own increasing capabilities. During the first two phases (initial response and continued response) educators must provide a well-structured curriculum and facilitate it carefully to establish a shared sense of expectancies. An excellent way to do this is to practice ongoing cycles of assessment. The maintenance phase may take longer and may occur over a number of courses or perhaps throughout a major degree plan. People will take responsibility for their own learning and growth and will show other signs of their control of learning processes if they have ongoing learning experiences with varied contexts and increasing levels of challenge. The habit phase may take longer still; a self-grower will select certain areas of performance in which to become a life-long expert.
Table 1 illustrates the four phases proposed by Rothman et al. (2004). Selected educator strategies are identified for each phase from Faculty Guidebook modules on learning facilitation and related topics; learner reactions are hypothesized for the beginning and end of each of the four phases.
The two models, taken together, are fully consistent with Process Education principles, though perhaps process educators differ in their belief that, even if people achieve an expert’s level of performance, further transformation is always possible.
Empirical Evidence Related to Self-Regulation of Motivation
Cross’s insights about expectancy, sense of self-worth, and identification of attribution are entirely consistent with the performance feedback loop and behavior change models of motivation. Educators and learners must work together, using the assessment process, to establish realistic expectancies about performance challenge, even if learners initially resist or try to avoid such standards. Cross’s insights about the relationships between assessment, performance, and self-regulation are well supported by empirical research reviewed by Carver (2004) and Rothman et al. (2004). Realistic assessment of performance supports a positive growth-oriented feedback loop, which will quickly result in increased expectations of success, and, over time, improvements in self-worth. The self-regulating individual uses assessment to identify the real factors related to success, which then become a source for improving their cognitive attribution patterns from overly general to specific.
In an authoritative monograph, Baumeister, Campbell, Kruegger, and Vohs (2003) reviewed the empirical evidence to conclude that self-esteem is known to rise and stay high when it emerges from realistic performance improvements. The positive emotions associated with successful performance can further enhance persistence and openness to additional growth experiences. In other words, when learners can consciously attribute their success to specific factors and their failures to missing factors that can be addressed, they will continue to succeed and will experience many positive mental health benefits.
Dunning, Heath, and Suls (2004) found that most individuals demonstrate substantial flaws in the accuracy of their self-assessments. Vancouver and Kendall (2006) found evidence that, when people have an unrealistically high sense of self-efficacy, in other words, when they have a sense of confidence that is not tied to realistic assessment of performance, they tend to be insufficiently prepared for challenges. and their motivation to perform is diminished. In other words, being too confident tends to reduce the amount of effort and attention invested in preparation, which leads to avoidance of challenge. The Accelerator Model (4.3.4) is a technique designed to facilitate improvement in performance through self-chosen or instructor-guided increases in challenge.
Theory of Performance and Self-Regulation of Motivation
This section reviews those individual performance factors that are most controllable through self-regulatory feedback. 1.2.1 Theory of Performance (ToP) identifies six components that determine one’s level of performance: identity, skill level, knowledge level, context, personal factors, and fixed factors. ToP assumes that there is a threshold level of knowledge and skills that learners must possess before performance and qualitative growth becomes possible. It assumes that some performance-related factors are fixed or relatively unchangeable, such as physical, learning, and mental health disabilities. The widest variability in self-regulation of motivation is likely to come about from context challenges; for example, someone may be able to role play in a classroom but be unable to perform in a radio talk show situation. Variability in self-regulation of motivation is especially apparent when people are trying to control their level of identity.
Both models of self-regulation can be used to apply and assess results from the ToP. The feedback loop theory of self-regulation of motivation can be used to efficiently analyze improvements in knowledge, skills, and adaptations to changing contexts. The phases of change model can be used to analyze personal factors and adaptations to fixed life factors. Throughout the phases an individual must continually set standards of challenge, assess progress, and establish consistency in order to achieve the more subtle and long-lasting motivational characteristics that are possible for self-growers regardless of the discipline, area of expertise, or aspect of life.
Many of the instructional strategies explained in the Faculty Guidebook assist educators with the facilitation of learning and growth. Mentoring for Self-Growth (Chapter 4.2), also focuses on personal and cultural factors that must be taken into account in order to enhance learning performance. Continuous improvement of learning performance depends on one’s openness to assessment (4.1.3 Mindset for Assessment); in turn, openness to assessment is related to personality style, individual and cultural values, academic and career interests, and learning style. Unless learners gain some control over all the factors in the performance model, they will be inhibited both in their ability to improve their performance quality and in their overall personal development.
Concluding Thoughts
In this module the shorter- and longer-term factors important to learning and growth are addressed by two models of self-regulation of motivation. The performance-feedback-loop model fits Process Education’s emphasis on specific learning activities in which objectives and standards are specified. Effective learners must move toward the expected standards by using assessment efficiently. The phases-of-change self-regulation model fits Process Education’s emphasis on the life-long growth that is essential to the development of expertise and maturity. Cross (2001) supports the integration of self-regulation with general motivation theory by identifying expectancy, sense of self-worth, and attribution as the three key factors in motivation. These emerge through careful collaboration between learners and educators over many cycles of assessment. The phases of change occur gradually and are supported by success, which in turn reinforces a positive sense of self-esteem and identity. Students who understand why and how they succeed, and also why and how they fail, will persist to become self-growers. Educators who conceptualize their instructional strategies in terms of ongoing cycles of change will also recognize how to select and assess Process Education strategies and techniques that will address specific needs in real time.
References
Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Kruegger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? [A special supplement to Psychological Science]. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 4, (1).
Carver, C. S. (2004). Self-regulation of action and affect. In R. Baumeister, & K. Vohs (Eds.). Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications (pp. 130-148). New York: Guilford Press.
Cross, K. P. (2001). Motivation: Er…will that be on the test? The Cross Papers (5). Mission Viejo, CA: League for Innovation in the Community College.
Dunning, D., Heath, C., & Suls, J. M. (2004). Flawed self-assessment: Implications for health education, and the workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 71-106.
Rothman, A. J., Baldwin, A. S., & Hertel, A. W. (2004). Self-regulation and behavior change: Disentangling behavioral initiation and behavioral maintenance. In R. Baumeister, & K. Vohs (Eds.). Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications (pp. 130-148). New York: Guilford Press.
Vancouver, J. B., & Kendall, L. N. (2006). When self-efficacy negatively relates to motivation and performance in a learning context. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(5), 1146-1153.