THE EFFECT OF MOTIVATION ON LEARNING.

One of the most important factors that lead one to achieving a goal is the drive. This drive is known as MOTIVATION. It is a zeal and determination that leads one to persevere and reach greater heights, in no matter what avenue in life, weather personal goals or professional goals. This essay explains the different ways in which people are motivated weather intrinsic or extrinsic and how different theorist behavioural, cognitive and biological explains motivation. It also focuses on Abraham Maslows theory of self actualization, Vrooms expectancy theory and Dwecks theory of self efficacy. According to Princeton University (online) definition, motivation is the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action towards a desired goal and the reason for the action (drive). This drive may come from an internal/intrinsic or external/extrinsic source depending on the individual. Extrinsic motivations is the desire to perform a certain behaviour based on the potential external reward that maybe received as a result, those motivations through rewards such as points, compliments, money or grades. On the other hand intrinsic motivation is based on taking pleasure in an activity rather than working towards an external goal. Behavioural theories focuses more on extrinsic motivation for learning while cognitive theories focuses on both extrinsic and mainly intrinsic form of motivation in learning. To understand motivation in behavioural psychology, it is necessary to look into the work of Ivan Pavlov and Watsons take on classical and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning psychologist argues that biological responses are as a result of an associated stimulus which motivates conditioned behaviours. In the classroom the teacher positively reinforces good behaviour with smiles and nods of encouragement or even a spoken well done, which is designed to motivate school children to learn and negative reinforcement for bad or unfavourable behaviour. On the other hand cognitive theories focuses on the information processing approach to learning, it is the categories and labels people use help identify thoughts, emotions,

dispositions and behaviours. The cognitive attribution theory argues that every individual tries to explain their achievement and that of others by offering certain attribution. Weiner (1979) proposes that the different effort put into work by a student is related to their explanations of success and failure. Success is attributed to ability and effort and failure is attributed to lack of effort or interest. (Tollefson, N., 2000) Biological theorist Hebbs, Hedonic tone attributed motivation to arousal and learning. According to him a person needs just the right amount of arousal for optimal learning and an excess in arousal can lead to an increase in anxiety. The arousal level is affected by thinking and cognitive processes but controlled by a lower part of the brain. In the Hedonic tone, for a long and complex problem, arousal and anxiety must be low but to motivate students to learn something with quick hand-eye coordination, you need a higher arousal (Atterton. 2009). It is impossible to talk about motivation without mentioning the humanistic theory of Abraham Maslow (1970) self actualization. In his hierarchy of needs figure, the goal is clear and the motivation for an individual to achieve optimum potential lies on his behaviour. To achieve self actualization, the individual must first go through achieving his physiological needs: food, drink, air, temperature, rest activity and sex. Safety needs: protection and security. Social/love and belongingness: formation of social relationships. Esteem needs: respect of self and others. Cognitive needs: knowledge and understanding. Aesthetic needs: beauty and balance. And finally self actualization. The expectancy theory (Vroom 1964) is a cognitive approach which proposes that motivation is equal to the multiplication of expectancy, instrumentality and value, and a low value in one of these would result in a low value of motivation. This theory relates to Feather (1969 cited in Tollefson 2000) which proposes that the multiplication of expectancy and value determines the amount of effort put in, and a low value in either reduces the effort a student gives. Dweck (1986 cited in Tollefson, 2000) on self efficacy identified two types of goals, performance goals and learning goals. According to him, students with high self efficacy put in more effort at whatever goal and

students with low self efficacy are more likely to withdraw effort for performance goals and change learning strategies for learning goals.