Motivation. What is Motivation Students' Motivation - Essay Example

Introduction Motivation is that drive that is responsible for initiating, guiding and maintaining a goal oriented behavior in an individual. It can also be termed as the internal condition or state that activates behavior as well as giving it direction. Motivation is what compels an individual to wake up every morning and go to work or do what they do daily. It also drives them to study new things regularly – it best explains the reason behind individuals devoting a lot of time doing something, at times going to the extent of spending a lot of money and energy to achieve the result (Cherry, 2011).

In most cases, rewards and reinforcement are used in motivating people and consequently influencing their behavior so that they can get an assurance of the future. Students who are motivated for instance will always take their studies seriously and excel over and above completing their course in the required time. This does not mean that each of these students is fully interested in the study but it means that they have an inner persuasion that they must complete their assignments and courses in time even when the task seems uninteresting.

According to Tilestone (2010), learning begins in the self-system with or without input and the students usually get motivated when they are directly involved in the process of learning. Students who work on the goal, which they have set for themselves, are usually more motivated, efficient and they achieve better results as opposed to when their tutors have set goals for them. At times students derive their motivation from a tangible promise and due to their great hope of attaining the promise, they work harder.

This type of reward is known as the extrinsic motivation and it involves influencing a person’s behavior either by rewarding or by punishing them (Tilestone, 2010). Intrinsic motivation on the other hand refers to the motivation that students achieve from within themselves due to either persuasion to excel or their self-determination to attaining goals. In other words, a student’s willingness to do something is not due to pressure from their teachers and parents but owing to the fact that they really want to.

The reward for this is the interest and the enjoyment they get as they do the work. When the task is judged to have a probability of successes, student will be motivated to do the task. On the contrary, if the task has a low probability of success, students will not engage in the task. For a student to be successful, they must not only have a positive attitude toward learning but also must believe that there are enough resources to make them successful. It is important to take note of an invaluable factor in motivating students, that is, feedback.

Students ought to receive feedback from the concerned parties often – it is crucial that they know where they do well and where they need to put more efforts. Encouraging remarks as well as consistency makes students have high expectation and they remain aware of their goal. Students would prefer challenges that match to their current skill levels and especially if the reason is important to them; upon completion, the students will experience satisfaction. When the challenges are too demanding, students will prefer boredom and report low involvement in their work and eventually the flow will erode away (Brophy, 2010).

There is need for teachers to understand that students require from them all motivation they can possibly give in order to encourage them. They can do so by teaching enthusiastically and acting as role models; urging students to attain challenging but reasonable goals; and providing emotional support to students, which would help them to approach learning skills in confidence. Additionally, teachers should sustain students motivation in order for them to learn and find learning activities meaningful and worth trying, thereby getting the intended benefits from them (Brophy, 2010).

Conclusion Framing an incentive plan that allows needs and wants of an individual to be tackled means motivation to them. Among others, creating willingness within individual students to perform in the best of their abilities is one of the most important functions of teachers. Together with parents as well as other concerned bodies, teachers ought to embrace the role of arousing interest in performance of students in their studies. If the students strive to meet a strong urge from within for excellence, then they indeed excel, which it the ultimate goal.

References Brophy, J.E. (2010). Motivating Students to Learn. London: Taylor & Francis. Cherry, K. (2011). What Is Motivation? Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/mindex/g/motivation-definition.htm Tileston, D.W. (2010). What Every Teacher Should Know About Student Motivation. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press.