Student Motivation

Students encompass a range of learners. We acknowledge that students at different grade bands have unique needs and recommend visiting the Learner Variability Navigator to better understand factors and strategies for successful learning.
How to unlock students’ internal drive for learning (article)
The Mindset of a Champion | Carson Byblow | TEDxYouth@AASSofia (video)
How to motivate older kids without using rewards, punishment or fear. (No, really.) (article)
ChallengeSuccess (website with resources and strategies directed toward students)
Fostering Student Motivation
Educators are key influencers when it comes to student motivation.
Teachers and parents can indirectly influence motivation by satisfying psychological needs, including competency, belonging, and autonomy. Research finds that teachers are more influential than parents in motivating students to learn due in part to the number of tools and ways teachers can work with for student motivation, including the ability for teachers to explain why a particular topic is important for students, facilitating the perceived meaningfulness of certain tasks, and providing high-quality feedback. While family involvement and support are necessary, they alone are not enough. Peers can also play a role in engagement and disengagement as students get older and experience developmental and social changes.
Educators can provide opportunities for student autonomy to increase motivation and self-regulated learning.
Opportunities for autonomy can increase motivation and self-regulated learning. Because of its connection to intrinsic motivation and mastery goals, student autonomy can help build motivation and self-regulated learning skills. Giving students choices, such as what work to prioritize during open study time or the option to pick a novel to read for an assignment, fosters a sense of control and self-driven learning. Educators can support students’ autonomy and self-regulation by guiding them in establishing and making progress toward project goals. They can use scaffolding methods, such as sample assignments or curriculum maps, to provide students with structure and support while encouraging them to progress toward more independent learning.
Educator feedback is more effective when geared toward the learning process, not the student as a person.
Praise can enhance motivation when it is sincere, specific, and encourages autonomy and self-efficacy; however, it also has the potential to undermine intrinsic motivation. Process praise focuses on the strategies and effort involved in learning effectively. It helps students understand that their learning successes and failures are shaped by the choices they make, rather than who they are. This type of feedback often increases feelings of competence, the confidence that the student can learn the skill, and is more effective than person praise, which focuses on the individual, such as calling someone “smart” or a “good student.” Person praise leads children to see intelligence as fixed, rather than something they can work on improving (a growth mindset) and can undermine self-worth, self-efficacy, and diligence in completing tasks. False praise, when one is praised even when the effort is not effective, can also be damaging to motivation since students know when praise is false as they are aware when they don’t make progress on a task. Supporting students’ learning strategies and showing how those strategies lead to success are effective ways to promote motivation—when students feel stuck on a particular task they understand it’s not just about more effort, but considering new strategies as well.