Tips and tricks for motivation are popular, and may work with some students, but the best way to motivate students is to start the year with a plan that works and apply principles of motivation throughout the year. Motivation is not about gimmicks.
Understand that what Motivates one Person may not Motivate All
There is a tendency to apply systems of rewards to motivate students. Ample research casts doubt on the practice of overuse of extrinsic rewards. The most important finding is that extrinsic rewards have a tendency to divert attention away from learning and toward the reward.
This can result in students who work for things rather than learning. Students may come to class having been raised by parents who taught them to simply enjoy learning. These students will be ready and eager. They are intrinsically motivated. They do not need material rewards although they will be perfectly willing to accept them. These children, too, may come to work for extrinsic rewards.
Student Apathy and Motivation
Perhaps no challenge is more frustrating to teachers than the apathetic student. Such students seem disinterested, disengaged, and distracted. They may have been raised by parents who had unpleasant experiences in schools and who have transferred a negative attitude to their children.
Apathetic children may have unmet emotional or personal security needs stemming from a dysfunctional family — remember Maslow’s hierarchy? Humans have difficulty focusing on learning while they are concerned about problems with self-worth or cruel or uncaring parents. Blaming parents does little to solve the problem and talking to the parents may cause additional frustration since they may be part of the problem.
Teachers may find themselves alone in devising plans for the apathetic student. Fortunately there are techniques that can help re-engage them.
The Keys to Motivation Involve an Understanding of the Problem
There is a general tendency for achievement scores to drop as students get older — especially in middle school. Why? Part of this trend might be due changes in the classroom atmospheres and teaching styles in middle schools. Elementary teachers tend to be more nurturing and maintain classrooms that are attractive and organized. There are lots of different books and children are encouraged to read often. Students receive lots of recognition for academic achievement, but also receive acknowledgement for non-academic behaviors like helping, being polite, etc.
Beginning learners have not yet had opportunities to fail in academics and may do well initially. Many schools do not give grades in the early grades. Grades can have negative impacts on students that can reinforce feelings that they lack ability. A kind of “learned helplessness” can develop and be firmly entrenched by middle school.
A basic understanding of attribution theory is helpful in recognizing learned helplessness. Basically, the term refers to students who have come to believe that whatever success that might come their way is the result of external factors like luck, help from others, or destiny.
Attempts to encourage such children to try may fail completely, as they do not believe that their efforts will make a difference. Events and people beyond their control are seen as responsible for what happens to them.
Hints that Help the Apathetic Student
The following hints and ideas assume that the teacher is trying to help motivate students who are apathetic and/or at-risk for failure due to apathy or learned helplessness.
- Bad grades do not serve as motivation for students who already believe that they cannot achieve better grades. Teachers should emphasize learning, not grades or performance. Discussions of “failure” in class may only discourage apathetic students.
- Nurturing in an age-appropriate way is helpful. Humans have a need to be validated as worthy of attention. If positive attention is not forthcoming, negative attention is perceived as better than being ignored.
- Learning tasks should be made relevant to the students’ lives and things that are of importance and interesting.
- Students benefit from having choices of assignments. This gives them some control of events that they may feel they have lost. They become empowered.
- Teachers should make an extra effort to know and understand the apathetic student and realize that there are fundamental differences that separate them from most of their classmates.
- Teachers should find positive traits and accomplishments to reinforce. These might include basic things like a single correct idea, good handwriting, a clever observation, etc.
- Use a team effort of other teachers and professionals in the school to arrive at a plan for apathetic students.
Student apathy is one of a teacher’s most frustrating problems. An understanding of what is happening is essential to helping these students. Motivation is not a simple matter of rewarding achievement. Teachers should develop a plan that recognizes how students get to be apathetic.
Sources:
“Overview: Attribution Theory,”engr.psu.edu. (Accessed: February 7, 2012)
“Motivating Students,” serc.carleton.edu. (Accessed: February 7, 2012)
Harvey Craft - I am a retired educator with diverse experience. I read anything science, education, and history. I write to share what I learn.
