Essay on Impact of Motivation in Learning Psychology

According to Nilsen (2009), motivation is driving force that moves a person towards the accomplishment of particular interests. In learning, enthusiasm, interest, and excitement are the basic components of motivation. Usually, different persons have different levels of motivation and different kinds of motivation. The orientation of motivation largely depends on the individual situation and what one aspires to achieve. It is worthwhile noting that motivation influences an individual to perform particular actions while the motivation to learning follows a long-term involvement in learning (Nilsen, 2009).

Williams, Burden, and Lanvers (2002) draw various views on the concepts of motivation. There is a shift in the emphasis from the past perspectives of motivation as an emotional state that reflects the inner forces, fairly state mental and behavioral contingencies to a complete process-oriented approach where peoples beliefs and thoughts play a significant role (Williams, Burden & Lanvers, 2002). However, there are major questions that come from this perspective particularly on the mental processes of motivation, their operation and their roles in achievement and learning. It also raises questions about how to sustain and improve motivation to optimal levels.

Classification of Motivation

Kyndt, Dochy, Stryven, and Cascallar (2011) classify motivation into two categories, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation. Usually, when highlighting the concept of motivation, scholars distinguish between the intrinsically and extrinsically motivations in particular concepts such as learning. In learning, intrinsic motivation emanates from the enjoyment and inherent interest of learning when extrinsic motivation, learners study to attain outcomes separable from and outside of the learning itself (Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons, 1990). As such, intrinsic motivation follows self-determination whereas extrinsic motivation reflects an individual lack of self-determination. Nevertheless, there were key findings from refined analysis of extrinsic motivation factors. Some degrees of extrinsic motivation depend upon the levels of self-determination and autonomy.

Nilsen (2009) provides a comprehensive account of the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation based on the self-determination theory. The theory differentiates between the two kinds of motivation based on the goals and reasons that influence an individual to act. Intrinsic motivation has the practice of participating in tasks that one finds enjoyable and interesting. Learners with more intrinsic motivation will learn from their mistakes and persist with their learning processes even in the face of hardships (Nilsen, 2009). Moreover, intrinsic motivation builds a central position for the integration process where the elements of the students internal knowledge integrate with new knowledge (Vancouver & Kendall, 2014). Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, comprises the tendency for the involvement of tasks due to unrelated factors such as punishment and expectations of rewards. For example, during exams, learners expect to get good grades or poor grades.

However, there are variances in both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation depending on the situations and time. Intrinsic motivation influences an individuals behavior positively. Learners motivated intrinsically perform their learning tasks through self-regulation and will concentrate on their learning over and over again and use various strategies to manage hindrances to their learning. It establishes a state where there are concentration and hard work that results in a flow of skills. Activities, skills and perceived difficulties of activities are critical to the achievement of flow of knowledge. Ultimately, learners use various deep learning strategies to gain knowledge and overcome challenges related to learning.

Motivation and Learning

Learning is a continuous process that seeks to achieve particular goals and objectives that forms the basis of motivation. This learning can either be controlled or conditioned learning depending on the motivation of learning. Controlled learning strictly enshrines on the controlled motivation that is a regulation consisting of locus of causality and perceived as external regulations (Kyndt et al., 2011). The external regulation comprises of introjected regulation and external regulation. Introjected regulation is a partial internal component not considered as part of an individual; it has the capacity of creating feelings for pressure or coercion. Learners with kinds of introjected regulation experience internal pressures to work on their self-worth to avoid shame and guilt (Kyndt et al., 2011). An external regulation provides the least kind of autonomous about extrinsic motivation. Internalization of the reasons for learning is not present since there is a belief that learning is as a result of external contingencies like punishments and rewards.

Autonomous motivation consists of two kinds of regulation where the primary causes are located internally. Identification of the causality entails identifying values of activities, aligning and accepting regulations (Kyndt et al., 2011). Learners with the personal relevance of studying engage in quite willingly and volitionally. For instance, learners study while expecting to become successful. Since learners study willingly and volitionally, identification estimates intrinsic motivation (Kyndt et al., 2011). The gap with intrinsic motivation is that through intrinsic motivation students pursue out of particular interests in various fields and topics irrespective of the potential consequences. Through identification, the primary reason for learning remains intrinsic naturally and shapes autonomous motivation.

There are various types of models proposed by various engineers of motivation. Pintrich (1999) presents various models that self-regulated learning. The self-regulated models include cognitive learning strategies, self-regulatory and meta-cognitive strategies, and the resource management strategies.

Cognitive Learning Strategies

According to Pintrich (1999), cognitive strategies follow the work of Mayer and Weinstein, organizational strategies, elaboration, and rehearsal. These strategies contribute to the students performance in the classroom. They are essential for the simple memory tasks such as words, list of items and recalling information to complex tasks that require great detail of information.

Rehearsal strategies entail saying or reciting words loudly in a lesson. Highlighting of texts, use of active voice and reflective statements motivates learners to continue learning. In fact is more of a rehearsal strategy than an elaborative technique. The use of rehearsal strategies aims at enabling learners to select and attend to crucial information from texts and lists that keep information active specifically in working memory. Otherwise, there may not be an in-depth reflection of the processing levels. Elaboration strategies entail the creation of analogies, summary, and paraphrasing of the learning materials, generative-note taking and explanation of ideas in the learning materials, asking questions and giving out answers (Pintrich, 1999).

Generative note-taking involves reorganizing and connecting ideas for understanding and linear note-taking. Other deeper processing strategies under this model include learning behaviors that consist of a selection of the main ideas from a piece of text, listing the material or context for learning and use of other particular techniques for organizing and selecting the texts (Pintrich, 1999). Students can sketch a network of fundamental ideas and identify the expository or the prose structures of the texts.

Self-Regulatory and Meta-cognitive strategies

The models of the meta-cognitive self-regulatory strategies include motoring, planning and regulating. According to Pintrich (1999), the three types of strategies under the meta-cognitive are conceptual and tend to have a high empirical correlation. Planning entails investigation of various activities for students during the learning process such as the aims of the study, generating questions before studying a text. Other activities include skimming through texts before reading and conducting a task analysis of the issue. Such learning activities build a basis for learners to use cognitive strategies and activate essential aspects of previous knowledge, enhance comprehension and organization of the learning materials.

Monitoring strategies consist of monitoring individuals academic behavior and thinking about the self-regulated learning. There must be the existence of particular goals for self-regulation to take place and a criterion where a person compares achievements against the standards (Vancouver & Kendall, 2014). It includes tracking the attention while listening to a lecture or reading a text. It also entails the use of self-texts where the reader asks him/herself questions about the learning to ensure understanding and comprehension of a lesson or a lecture. It also provides the learners with an opportunity of adjusting to the time available as well as monitoring the speed for learning.

Pintrich (1999) refers regulation strategies close to monitoring strategies. As learners continue monitoring their performance and learning against some criterion and goals, monitoring process emphasizes the need for regulation processes to retrieve behaviors that align with the goals or set criterion. For instance, as learners learn through asking particular questions, they have to read so that they can monitor their understanding and then go back to the main text to reread it. This kind of reading applies a regulatory strategy.

There are various sources of motivation that motivate learners to study a particular field or concepts of a study. Edmunds and Bauserman (2006) acknowledge that students learn as a result of motivators that come from various sources such as availability of learning materials, mentors, and personal motivations. According to interviews conducted by Edmunds and Bauserman (2006), children get motivations from family members, teachers, themselves, sharing learning materials and availability of learning materials. The above sources continuous influence students learning patterns concerning the interests of learning.

A family is a source of motivation while undertaking a career as the family provides a learner with the support required for learning. The study revealed that close family members such as parents excite learners about studying. The participants mentioned that sisters, grandmothers and other siblings play a critical role in influencing someone to learn. For some learners, they study so that they can make peace with their families especially not to disappoint their parents.

Learners motivate themselves as they seek to pursue particular goals. Usually, every learner in higher education institutions has a dream while undertaking a particular course, these dreams or career goals are the primary individual motivators. Edmunds and Bauserman (2006) acknowledge that students learn following attributions by their desires. Learners are referring themselves to sources of motivation claim that reading is a motivation that comes from self. Such learners will always read on their own without directions from their instructors.

The availability of reading resources motivates students to learn; it is a self-regulatory mechanism which provides learners with the reason for learning. Often, increased resources particularly most recent ones tempt scholars to put effort into reading those books. The books can be in the school library or public libraries outside the school. According to a study by Edmunds and Bauserm...