4 - Understanding your motivation
How often, as a student, do you read the syllabus, determine what the assignments are, and attempt to do exactly what is asked of you to earn that A - barely paying attention to what you’re actually learning in the process?
I’ll wager an answer - most of us, most of the time.
This explains why we like to see a clear syllabus with very specific instructions on any graded assignments, including grading rubrics and examples - with little room for uncertainty.
This model taps into our extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation refers to doing something with the goal of achieving some sort of separate outcome (Ryan & Deci 2000). Extrinsic motivation requires a clear goal with a clear incentive to achieve that goal (and this feedback loop is ingrained in us from a very early age when we receive smiley faces or gold stars for a job done to the expectations of the teacher).
There is nothing wrong with utilizing our extrinsic motivation in the classroom, however there are limits to the value of extrinsic motivation in the educational process. Research has shown that extrinsic motivation is most effective for short, clear tasks (e.g., turning in and doing well on an assignment) (Ryan & Deci 2000).
This is where we can turn to our intrinsic motivation.
What is intrinsic motivation? Intrinsic motivation refers to the motivation to do something because it is inherently pleasing, exciting, or interesting, or doing something for the sheer joy of doing it - not the rewards or outcomes that might emerge (Ryan & Deci 2000). Intrinsic motivation has the potential to facilitate innovation, creativity, and engagement on longer-term projects. (Kuvaas et al 2017).
The real distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is the difference between doing something for the pleasure of doing the thing itself versus doing something for the pleasure of the reward or outcome that may stem from it (Locke & Schattke 2018). Locke & Schattke also identify a third type of motivation, achievement motivation, which sits somewhere in the middle of the other two - such that you can enjoy the task and also be doing it for the feeling of success of achievement from the outcome. Philosophical discussions on the contrast of paying attention to “means versus ends” run in alignment with this intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. We tap into our intrinsic motivation when we see the big picture, we can tie what we are doing in to the moment to something in the future and when we find pleasure in the process itself (Ng 2018).
How does this relate to your work as a virtual student?
Arguably, understanding our motivation is about more than just applying it to being a virtual student, but about being a student overall. Being virtual simply enhances the salience of the issues at play. Physically going to class at least forces you to pay some attention to what is going on, but laying in bed with your computer makes it much easier to disengage and maybe watch something on Netflix while “attending” class.
Take a moment and think about your favorite class that you've taken, and then think about an assignment that you really enjoyed - try not to think about the grade or the outcome - but the process. What was it about this assignment that you enjoyed? What pleasure did you derive from the doing?
Once you have started to clarify what brings you pleasure about the work, then you can start to apply that to other classes by adapting the things that bring you pleasure in doing them to tasks that may not seem inherently interesting to you.
For example, I was never really interested in accounting or finance as stand alone topics. During my MBA, when I took these classes for the first time, I was a little overwhelmed and afraid that I would not get an A, no matter how hard I worked. However, for both of these classes, I started working with friends who were equally as flummoxed (and one or two who were really comfortable with the topics). Then the process of studying became a social event. We learned by reverse engineering problems and then sharing stories about the experience of working with these types of problems in our own work. And as the content started to make sense to me, I found the elegance in these respective fields. It helped me to tie the work I was doing in class to the work world. Thinking about how these things I was learning for class were playing out in the real world gave me a bigger picture sense of what I was learning. And even if I never applied it once in my own life, I now had an understanding of it.
So I found a bit of intrinsic motivation - pleasure in the doing came from working with friends and appreciating the value of what I was learning. There is also a bit of extrinsic motivation, what I was learning would help me to communicate with people in these fields later - at least by asking thoughtful questions about their work because I had a basic understanding of what they were doing in those fields. I also recognized that there were critical thinking and problem-solving skills I was developing that were going to be useful to me no matter what field I chose to pursue.
In the next post, I will challenge you to do some exercises to start to tap into your own intrinsic motivation and to effectively use your extrinsic motivation to deepen your engagement as a virtual student.
Kuvaas, B., Buch, R., Weibel, A., Dysvik, A., & Nerstad, C. G. (2017). Do intrinsic and extrinsic motivation relate differently to employee outcomes?. Journal of Economic Psychology, 61, 244-258.
Locke, E. A., & Schattke, K. (2018). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: Time for expansion and clarification. Motivation Science.
Ng, B. (2018). The neuroscience of growth mindset and intrinsic motivation. Brain sciences, 8(2), 20.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 54-67.