Building motivation in children and young people
Building motivation in children and young people
Misbehaviour is basically a function of poor motivation, and motivation is a two-way process between the teacher and the student. McLean (2009) describes motivation as ‘the ability to cope with setbacks, adversity, pressure and power’. He describes engaged students as expressing their voice and taking the initiative, and trying to produce changes in their environment. They have a sense of being in control of their learning and the learning context. Disengaged students, on the other hand, allow external forces to control their level of engagement and motivation. In order to really understand what motivates young people, and how to maintain motivation in the classroom, there needs to be a shift away from behaviour modification and punishment towards actually understanding the individual’s needs, goals, aspirations and feelings.
Emotional intelligence
We know that there is a direct link between emotional intelligence and achievement. According to McLean (2009), emotional intelligence seems to come into play when the demands of the situation outweigh a student’s intellectual resources. Teachers need to be sure that they can and do influence a students’ ability to make use of their emotional intelligence in order to avoid future setbacks. Young people who have a fixed view of their own intelligence and abilities are particularly sensitive to failure. They tend to react defensively by withdrawing themselves from learning or not putting any effort in. They need to be reminded that their brain is actually a muscle and that it gets stronger the more it is used.
Similarly, while making sense of their progress they tend to focus on their fixed ability, and therefore don’t develop the motivational resilience that they need in order to make further progress. Optimistic students, by contrast, are more likely to think of things in terms of effort: for example, ‘I did well because I worked hard’. When they are faced with failure they will tend to look for ways to improve through more work or effort.
For the pessimistic, low emotional- intelligence level students, however, there will be a tendency to regard poor performance as being directly linked to low levels of ability. For example, ‘I can’t do this because I’m thick/stupid’ as
opposed to ‘I can do this if I ask for support and I am taught in a way that suits me’ and ‘I can also do better by putting more effort in.’
Categorising students According to McLean (2009), it is possible to categorise the majority of students as follows:
- Resilient students who are conscientious, high in emotional stability and open to experience
- Impulsive, under-controlled students who tend to be disagreeable extroverts who lack conscientiousness and emotional stability
- Cautious, over-controlled students who can show levels of emotional stability and extroversion but tend to be conscientious and agreeable introverts.
What is important in the learning context is that all such students have their basic needs of affiliation, agency and autonomy met. Self-esteem is key here as it energises, and is energised, through a sense of affiliation in the classroom. Self-belief is something that comes from a sense of agency, and self-determination is built on a positive exercising of autonomy. Simply speaking, students need to feel that they belong, that they are part of the learning context and that they have some control over it. There is a direct link between the level of control that students experience, and therefore the level of involvement they have in planning their own learning programmes, and the motivation and engagement they display.
The motivational teacher is basically someone who is dynamic and flexible and energises the student regardless of their personality or learning styles. Key to this is the ability to be flexible and not hold the reins so tightly that it takes away a student’s sense of responsibility and autonomy. Motivational teaching shares responsibility with the students and involves motivating feedback. For example, students should be praised for their effort and the way they tackle work as this makes them feel responsible for, and in charge of, their own success. Also helpful is encouraging students to become aware of the manner in which they have been clever or smart as opposed to simply pointing out that they are – this is essential as it allows for the downplaying of teacher evaluation. For example, a motivating teacher would say ‘How original is that thought, you really have worked on this and in a way that is quite unique and shows just how clever you are in your approach’ as opposed to ‘Aren’t you a clever person, look at you - you are so intelligent.’ The idea here is to encourage students to rate themselves as much as possible.
Download our free guide: The key rules for motivating students
Included in this free guide:
- 17 tips for motivating your students
- The motivational teacher is someone who is never frightened to seek feedback from the students, and to act upon it, in order to ensure that the learning context is truly inclusive and engaging. We've formulated 19 questions to illicit student views on what makes a teacher motivational