The Science of Motivating Others

How do we motivate those under our care to do what’s in their best interest? This is a question many of us – we who are supervisors, parents, teachers, coaches, or other kinds of care providers – regularly ask ourselves. So often individuals could do so much if they could just find the needed motivation.

For example, I teach Psychology courses to first and second year college students at a large, diverse community college. Although I suspect many of my students have the potential to thrive in school and in their future professional lives, a substantial number fail to follow through with their intended plans. At the classroom level, many don’t attend class, complete their homework, or study sufficiently well for exams. As a result, their grades suffer, and many withdraw. This occurs more frequently among students of color.

Beginning with my involvement in an intrinsic motivation research lab at the University of Wisconsin about 30 years ago, and later continuing with my dissertation research on goals at the University of Minnesota, I’ve long been fascinated by the science of motivation. As some scholars have recently described, much of what is known about motivation can be summarized in the following way:  

M = E + V – C

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Three Updates to Psychology Courses for Fall, 2020

According to the most recent data available, approximately 30% of American high school students take a course in Psychology. In addition, approximately 1.2-1.6 million American students take an Introductory Psychology course in college every year.

To the extent we have control over our curriculum, we who teach Psychology courses have a unique opportunity and responsibility during the fall of 2020: we can help educate a significant slice of American youth about some of the behavioral and psychological aspects of the great challenges defining this time. We can encourage greater insight and inspire prosocial change.

Below are three topics we can integrate into our fall courses that are particularly timely and important, with some suggestions for how to do so.

1. The psychology of group behavior.

COVID-19 spreads through droplets, yes, but those droplets spread from person to person through specific behaviors. Racial inequality is systemic, yes, but systems stem from, and are maintained, by specific behaviors. Climate change is a widely considered a “threat multiplier,” a meta-problem that increases the likelihood of pandemics and many other social problems; it also is caused by specific behaviors.

We teachers of Psychology can focus on individual differences in behavior and why individuals do what they do, and each of the above problems can be fruitfully explored from this level of analysis. However, if there ever was a time to explore the psychology of group behavior, this is it, as each of the above current problems also demonstrates how behavior is powerfully determined by the norms of individuals’ groups.

Psychological Factors in School Success

“What enables a student to be a successful learner in school, while others struggle?,” I recently asked. As I said in a previous post, part of the answer may have to do with trusting that a student can learn independently, just as kids typically learn independently before formal schooling begins. Teachers and parents can encourage students to reconnect with their “lost instincts” to learn on their own, particularly at this time when students must learn at home without as much direct supervision.

The student experience is complex, however, and often neglected. As education theorist, John Dewey, wrote in the early 20th century: “the center of gravity is outside the child. It is the teacher, the textbook, anywhere and everywhere you please except in the immediate instincts and activities of the child.”

As I have tried to understand what enables some students to thrive in school during my past 20 years of college teaching, I have returned again and again to three interrelated domains that may be most fruitful to explore: (1) mindset, (2) self-discipline, and (3) motivation. Psychological research has found these domains to be most critical in student success.

Mindset

One of the primary psychological determinants of a student’s performance concerns how they explain success and failure to themselves. In over 30 years of research, Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, consistently has found that individuals with a “fixed mindset” – who believe that success and failure reflects a certain level of ability unlikely to change no matter what is done – often show lower levels of performance over time. Dweck finds this may be due, in part, to the fact that people with fixed mindsets are less likely to seek challenge at the outset and less likely to persevere when challenges arise. In contrast, individuals with a “growth mindset” – who believe that ability can be developed through hard work or effort or trying out different strategies until one works – often show higher levels of performance over time. People with a growth mindset are more likely to seek challenge and believe they can overcome challenges with perseverance when they arise.

Successful Learning at Home

What enables a student to be a successful learner in school, while others struggle? This question is being asked with renewed urgency, as many students work from home without as much face-to-face involvement from teachers, and with many parents trying to help their children in this new environment.

The pandemic is excruciating for many reasons, but it also contains great potential for new growth as well. In this time, we may gain an opportunity for insight into the dynamics of education and to better understand factors that help students thrive.

It may be helpful to start by considering the basic structure of our modern education system. Most schools, Paulo Freire classically observed, apply a “banking model” of education. In this system, the teacher plays the central role in what happens in the classroom. We might add that teachers are often controlled by administrators and authorities beyond them as well. In this system, Jerry Farber suggested that students are socialized to be timid, depending on the teacher’s direction more than themselves.

To the extent this is true, teachers, parents, and students may be experiencing “withdrawal symptoms” at this time. Well-intentioned teachers may be trying to perform a “virtual miracle” as they try their best to continue instructing and guiding students while at a distance. Likewise, well-intentioned parents may feel like they need to take on the full supervisory role of the teacher at home amidst many other competing demands and concerns.

The Quest for Better Education

In June of 2015, my wife, two daughters, and I travelled to Vancouver, British Columbia, where I attended a 3-day international teaching conference. Remarkably, the most pivotal professional development event of this trip wasn’t the conference, however; it was a half-day whitewater rafting excursion that led me to reconceptualize much of my work with students.

On the day of our rafting adventure, we rented a car and drove about an hour north via the Sea-to-Sky Highway to the mountain community of Squamish. We registered with the outfitter and then met Shane – our witty, bearded, abundantly enthusiastic, twenty-something guide. After a short bus ride, brief portage, and successful launch, we spent a few minutes learning how to navigate the rapids of the Cheakamus River. Shane clearly was a gifted rafting guide, but this was only a class II tour, allowing for him to have plentiful opportunities to turn his attention to the local ecology. Shane enlightened us on the glaciers observable in the stunning peaks of the nearby Coast Mountains; the frigid and moody blue characteristics of the pristine, glacier-fed river; and the rare wildlife and “bearded” moss pervasive in the old growth forests surrounding us. We were awestruck – not only by some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen – but also by the extraordinarily detailed knowledge and heartfelt passion of our guide. I couldn’t help myself from asking Shane: “how do you know all this?”

Unsheltered

When I look backward into my youth – forward all the way to today – I observe an undeniable, constant strand: Part of my identity is that of being a learner and a teacher.

Of course, there are many ways to be a learner and a teacher (two sides of the same coin for me, anyway). Right now, in my life, for example, I a professional teacher, a college professor. However, I also learn and teach at church (as I did recently in leading a group on gays and the church), as a parent, and even sometimes as a friend. This blog post, in fact, is also an act of learning and teaching for me, as it involved reading, thinking, and now sharing. Others learn and teach in their roles as managers, coaches, crew leaders, volunteer leaders, mentors, and pastors. Learning and teaching are roles many of us play in everyday life.

Improving the Experience of Online Education

Despite their surge in popularity, many harbor deep reservations about the quality of online courses. There are several possible reasons for this, but perhaps most fundamentally are serious concerns about the experience of online students. In particular, many ask: can online courses provide the kind of experience crucial for students to develop critical thinking, curiosity, and creativity, consistent with the highest ideals of liberal arts education?

I have taught online for several years, and I have struggled with this question as well. However, new thinking and research convinces me that all courses – including those online – have the potential to elicit powerful emotions that can inspire long-term knowledge creation.