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Motivation Phase

It is a truism that in order for learning to occur, one must have a motivated individual. But there are many forms of motivation, some of which are relevant to learning and instruction, and others which are not. For the promotion of learning, we must deal primarily with incentive motivation, a type of motivation in which the individual strives to achieve some goal and is in some sense rewarded for reaching it. His action is proceeding toward an achievable goal. Incentive motivation is involved in many school and classroom situations. The student who has begun a project on Greek sculpture wants to achieve the goal of completing it. The student who has begun to solve simultaneous algebraic equations wants to be able to do all such problems correctly, that is, to attain an answer which will "check out." The youngster in the first grade wants to learn about the strange new shell his classmate is showing and describing, because he can then ask a "good" question about it or perhaps later tell his parents about it.

Establishing motivation. On other occasions, the learner may not be initially motivated by the incentive of achieving a goal. In these cases, the second alternative to action comes into play: one must establish the motivation, rather than simply verify that it is present. Motivation may be established by generating within the learner a process called expectancy, which is an anticipation of the "reward" he will obtain when he achieves some goal. In a human learner, an expectancy can be established by communicating to him the nature of the incentive or goal; that is, the expectancy is what he expects to happen as a consequence of his learning activity. For example, the learner may be told that when his learning is completed, he will be able to distinguish good art from bad, to appraise the value of a piece of real estate, or to repair a television set.

Alternatively, it may be necessary for the individual to acquire the desired expectancy by learning, rather than by simply being told. The younger the learner, the more likely it is that communicating the incentive will not be sufficiently effective to establish motivation. The expectancy may need to be learned in a more direct way. The learner acquires an expectancy when his attainment of a goal is rewarded. In order to generate such expectancies, situations can be arranged that permit learners to reach intended goals before they have actually acquired necessary skills. Thus, one can guide a student through the steps of a mathematics problem and then show him that he has "found the answer." This situation provides a reward, and consequently tends to generate an expectancy which will motivate the student to learn how to solve such problems. As another example, one can help a child to form the initial letter of his name by doing most of it for him and then allowing him to complete it. By this means, one rewards the child for an accomplishment, and this in turn help? to establish the expectancy of this accomplishment.

Establishing an appropriate expectancy for learning is sometimes a matter of "channeling" preexisting motivation in a new direction. A child, for example, may be motivated to become an adult, and therefore to engage in adult activities. An adult-like responsibility, such as tutoring another child, may be an activity in which he participates with enthusiasm. Obviously, he must learn something well before he can engage in tutoring. The teacher can make the tutoring contingent upon his demonstrated mastery of a lesson or subject (cf. Skinner, 1968). The likely result is that he will acquire newly invigorated expectancies for achievement through his own learning.

These and other means can be employed to generate expectancies in learners, and thus to establish new forms of motivation which are not initially present. Additional examples may be found in the book of this series by Baer. It should be emphasized, however, that the acquiring of an expectancy does not itself complete the learning; instead, it simply prepares the way for the learning that is to follow. Establishing motivation is a preparatory phase for an act of learning.