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The Dean of Learning Design at Ambition Institute shines some light on the Science of Motivation and what it might teach us about behaviour and learning... M otivation is a big part of school life. As teachers, we’re constantly attempting to cajole, encourage and orient our pupils towards, or away from certain behaviours. Sit down, look this way, this is important, come on, you can do this – you get the drift. Motivation is a central part of what we do, day in, day out. But how effective are our efforts? Have we got it down to a fine art? Or could we do even better? The answer to these questions lies partly in the nature of motivation itself. Motivation is highly complex and largely invisible, which makes it difficult to evaluate the impact of our efforts to influence it. As a result, becoming better at motivating our pupils isn’t necessarily something we can figure out through trial and error, by relying on our intuition or by copying others. Motivation in schools therefore remains something of a mystery. A dark art that some teachers have and others don’t. But what if science could shed some light on motivation? Help define what it is and how it works? Would that help us do a better job of motivating and helping our pupils to learn? It just might. Although the research around behaviour and motivation is nowhere near as strong as that of cognitive science – it suffers from multiple fields trying to do similar things, with overlapping theories and terms, and a lack of coherence and replication – there’s just about enough there to give us some footholds. And the problem is just too important and urgent to wait on. So what can the Science of Motivation teach us? Insights from the Science ofMotivation The first thing the evidence can tell us is that lack of motivation is a real issue in schools. It’s something we should expect to encounter, and not just a symptom of poor teaching or a wonky school environment. For reasons most likely associated with the way our brains have evolved over deep history, pupils have a generally low predilection for learning the things we strive to teach in school. Motivation is as much a responsibility of schools as instruction. It’s only when we get both these things right that we’re giving our pupils the best in terms of their learning and future life chances. The second thing the evidence tells us is that motivation is much more localised than we tend to assume. We often think about a pupil ‘being apply across most situations for most people. Exactly what they’ll look like in each situation is up to individual schools and teachers. 1 MAKE IT VALUABLE We are motivated towards experiences that will bring us benefits in some form or other. As teachers, we constantly leverage this principle by making learning activities enjoyable, providing signals of approval and helping our pupils become more proficient. Of these three strategies, developing proficiency is our best long-term bet in terms of building motivation. If we stop making activities enjoyable or providing approval, pupil motivation will return to its original value (or less). We should only use these approaches as temporary scaffolds towards fostering proficiency and remove them as soon as we can. 2 MAKE IT EXPECTED We are motivated towards doing those things that give us the best odds of success. These odds tend to be unconsciously calculated from our past experiences. If we want our pupils to be motivated to learn maths, we’ve got to ensure the majority of their experiences are successful. We can do motivated’ or not, seeing motivation as a fixed personality trait that applies consistently across all situations. However, it seems that the reality of motivation is much more fluid, and that it differs depending on opportunity, prior experience and circumstance. Instead of thinking about our pupils as being simply motivated or not, we should think about them being motivated towards or away from something, by something. Lastly, the evidence is clear that motivation is a far more emotionally powered force than we tend to assume. Too often we’ll attribute pupil behaviour to conscious, deliberate choice, when it’s more likely the result of an unconscious response based on prior experiences and local conditions. So where do these insights leave us? What kinds of experiences and conditions have an influence? How might we leverage them to increase motivation for learning? Six principles for boostingmotivation When we join the dots across multiple fields, six broad principles emerge. These are general enough that they can 60 “Motivation in schools remains a mystery” teachwire.net/secondary 6 strategies for SUPERCHARGING classroommotivation