People live their lives every day based on the motivation that they will get something out of doing that particular action. For example, you order a package consisting of a PS2 game and the guide to that game. Normally, getting out of bed to wait for the 9:30am mail call would be out of the question for you. However, you are motivated to do so because you know this is the day that the mail carrier will bring both items to the house. Motivation, whether it is internal or external, it comes in different forms and it is a practice that most people submit to everyday whether they are paying attention to it or not. Given Drew’s scenario about his lack of motivation, I would explain to my friend that Drew’s lack of motivation is based on the Incentive Theory of Motivation. The reason is pretty clear; Drew is unmotivated to learn biology because he feels there is nothing good to learn about it, and since he lacks incentive then that gives Drew more of a reason to turn his back to the subject. The suggestions that I would give my friend on how to better motivate Drew is to engage in a one on one with him, and ask him if there is a particular part of biology that he would like to learn. Sometimes, you can motivate someone to do something like learn something if you associated it with something that interests them. Case in point, you encounter a student who is more infatuated with learning health and safety instead of biology; which can be bad when they need to apply that knowledge later. You can better motivate the student by telling them how the two go hand in hand; this will more than likely motivate the student to learn more about the biology aspect of health, and safety because of how biology ties into it. Another way I would tell my friend how to motivate Drew based on incentive of learning biology is to tell him that I would give a 100% for just paying attention in class, and I will forgive three of his most failed tests. Case in point, if Drew messes up on 3 of the 6 class tests then they will be forgiven. Doing this, Drew will become motivated to learn biology and he will pass because he gave it his all in the class. Another way I would tell my friend on how she can motivate Drew to learn biology is to make a game out of the class periods. For example, Drew comes to class, and makes an effort to learn the subject; for each correct or near correct answer he gets right during discussion then give him a piece of candy like a Blow Pop or a Starlight Mint (green preferably). The final suggestion that I would give my friend on how to motivate Drew on learning biology is to give him a chance to teach the class on any biology subject he chooses, and this will get him more into the subject so he will be able to appreciate learning about it as well as teaching others about it. I have come to the conclusion that Drew would be more motivated to learn biology if he had some first-hand knowledge of the subject, and proceeded to bond with the subject. Knowledge of attributions helped me come to this conclusion based on Drew’s lack of knowledge about the subject because of his chosen indirect learning about the subject, and when Drew got a chance to lead a discussion about biology then his knowledge of the subject improved. In the Incremental vs. Entity views of ability, with Drew being more of an Incremental learner, he learned to put forth the effort to learn the subject because of the different options that he had to learn the subject. Based on Drew’s performance in learning biology, he became a task involved learner instead of an ego involved learner because being an ego learner just demotivated Drew to learn biology. When Drew became a task involved learner, he learned how to go all out to learn biology because he discovered or was suggested more than one way to learn it based on the incentives that was issued to him. Task involved vs. ego involved learning brought me to my conclusion because of the way that it speaks to the incentives that Drew had been given in order to learn biology, and because he had incentives then he was more than motivated to learn biology. Interesting enough, offering an incentive is often the best way to motivate a student to learn that or any subject that they do not think will be of any use to them just because they have to take it.
References
Macvean, A. (2011, March 26). Task-involved versus ego-involved: motivating children to exercise in a pervasive exergame. Retrieved from http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~apm8/files/p646-macvean.pdf
Karin, K. (2013, December 07). Student motivations and attitudes: The role of the affective domain in geoscience learning. Retrieved from http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/motivation.html
Cherry, K. (2014). Theories of motivation a closer look at some important theories of motivation. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologytopics/tp/theories-of-motivation.htm
