Some Not So New Ideas on Motivation By: Brian Pinney, Ph.D. Educational Specialist Motivation can be critical to the pursuit of life goals and while many talk about how important motivation is or at least can be, we should take some time to consider the fundamental aspects of motivation. This writing has selected some blasts from the past with three reasonably well known motivation theories to briefly discuss for consideration. These theories go from fundamental to the individual and into a more adaptive sense of motivation. First, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Maslow, 1943) describes the needs that individuals need to have met before they can become motivated to achieve higher level needs.
Second, Expectancy Theory (Vroom, 1964) looks at the outcomes one might expect because of their efforts. Put another way, the outcome we might expect can influence what we do or how much effort we put in. This could be students putting in longer hours in the expectation that this work might help them move from a B to an A or from a professional point working on higher level projects with the expectation that this lead to opportunities for advancement. This theory relies on these three elements:
Lastly, Three-Dimensional Theory of Attribution tries to look at how we attribute success and failures. This can be critically important as it can help explain how a student reacts to a failed exam or how someone might cope with a challenge.
One thing seems to be clear from many theories on motivation: how one perceives the situation plays into their current and/or future motivation. This is important to know not only from a personal standpoint but also an advising standpoint. Often, students will share that they performed poorly but are making changes to their practice to account for this performance. The challenge is that change can be hard and motivation might be suffering at the time change is needed. Support and guidance is likely critical at this juncture to help students see success and maintain motivation. References: A. H. Maslow (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Originally Published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396. Weiner, B. (1986). An Attributional Theory of Motivation and Emotion. Part of the series SSSP Springer Series in Social Psychology (159-190) Vroom, V. H. (1964) Work and motivation. New York: Wiley.
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May 2017
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