Learning and Motivation

Learning cannot take place without motivation

Learning

A relatively permanent change in the behavior and mental processes of an individual due to knowledge and experiences is called learning. Behavior refers to a way of talking, body language, walking, responding to a particular situation, and so on while mental processes refer to thinking, feeling reasoning, and decision making.

Motivation

Motivation is an internal state that arouses, directs, and maintains behavior. Motivation can be seen in mostly five areas as the choices people make about their behavior, the time taken to get started to do something, the intensity or level of involvement in a chosen activity, the causes a person to persist or to give up doing an activity and the feeling and thinking of a person while engaged in an activity.

Types of motivation

There are two types of motivation that a person’s behavior is aroused, directed, and maintained. Intrinsic motivation is the type of motivation that is a natural tendency to seek out and conquer challenges as someone pursues personal interests and exercise capabilities. Extrinsic motivation is another type of motivation that is created by external factors such as rewards and punishments.

As mentioned above learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior due to experiences and motivation is an internal state to arouse behavior, direct it and maintain it. If the behavior is aroused whether intrinsically or extrinsically, directed and maintained, a change in behavior has occurred which is learning.

How Motivation Affects Learning and Behavior

Motivation directs behavior toward particular goals

 Social cognitive theorists propose that individuals set goals for themselves and direct their behavior accordingly. Motivation determines the specific goals toward which learners strive. Thus, it affects the choices students make. For instance, whether to enroll in physics or studio art, whether to spend an evening completing a challenging homework assignment, or playing video games with friends.

Motivation leads to increased effort and energy

Motivation increases the amount of effort and energy that learners expend in activities directly related to their needs and goals. It determines whether they pursue a task enthusiastically and wholeheartedly or apathetically and lackadaisically.

Motivation increases initiation of and persistence in activities

Learners are more likely to begin a task they actually want to do. They are also more likely to continue working at it until they have completed it, even if they are occasionally interrupted or frustrated in the process. In general, motivation increases students’ time on task, an important factor affecting their learning and achievement.

Motivation affects cognitive processes

Motivation affects what learners pay attention to and how effectively they process it. For instance, motivated learners often make a concerted effort to truly understand classroom material, to learn it meaningfully, and consider how they might use it in their own lives. 

Motivation determines which consequences are reinforcing and punishing

The more learners are motivated to achieve academic success, the more they will be proud of a high grade and upset by a low grade. The more learners want to be accepted and respected by peers, the more they will value membership in the group and be distressed by the ridicule of classmates. To a teenage boy uninterested in athletics, making or not making the school football team is no big deal, but to a teenager whose life revolves around football, making or not making the team may be a consequence of immense importance.

Motivation often enhances performance

Because of the other effects just identified goal-directed behavior, effort and energy, initiation and persistence, cognitive processing, and the impact of consequences, motivation often leads to improved performance. The students who are most motivated to learn and excel in classroom activities tend to be the highest achievers. Conversely, students who have little interest in academic achievement are at high risk for dropping out before they graduate from high school.