Pupil Motivation UFA Innovation Award In conjunction with the Cornwall UFA partnership (and the UFA Innovation

grants), it will develop materials for study support that utilise Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), to support students in developing a personal toolkit for managing and improving their own self-esteem, learning and motivation. Brain Wave piloted the NLP Motivation Survey . . .

Specific Study:

Topic Area: Educational NLP* Techniques and Approaches Pupil Motivation

One of the best things about receiving this award was the freedom it gave to explore a specific area of interest with colleagues. This obviously resulted in developing materials and approaches which could be used in a variety of contexts. The team approach and shared values of learner empowerment and enrichment enabled initiatives to be explored with honest, open, enthusiasm. The ideas behind Educational NLP* were introduced during one of the Fellowship Training Days and generated much interest. The Innovation Grant has allowed a group of UFA Fellows to explore the techniques in more detail and start to integrate them into their own practice. Without the grant we would not have been able to focus energies on one very specific area in the detail that we have, nor capitalise on the interest that was generated. For example the Local Educational Authorities statistician is very interested in using the data from the Motivational Survey in looking at pupil performance and value added measures. The possibilities of linking hard and soft measures of student performance are very exciting. The development (and possible future enhancement) of the on-line survey means that this pilot has been open to a wide range of users. The drive now is to explore the possibility of developing this resource and make it even more interactive, and from the users point of view, more immediate. As far as students are concerned, the pilot groups have benefited from the process. Although not always fully seeing the relevance of the survey (simply because it was not always possible to set the full context for the pilot groups), they have been able to question the way they approach learning and, perhaps more importantly, consider how they could value and improve their own performance. The materials that have been developed during the pilot phase have been used in both class and out of hours contexts with equally positive results. The Innovation Award will allow the materials to be shared with UFA Fellows in a form that is both practical and useable, even by those who have had no specific training in Educational NLP* - the techniques used being built into the materials and interactive presentation. Obviously were only scratching the surface here, there is much more on offer, but the grant has allowed us to focus on one area in some detail and look carefully at the what and how of learner motivation. At the very least it has made explicit, testable and replicable some valuable approaches to teaching and learning. In the context of motivation, the Innovation Grant was a resource that motivated me to pull together the various thoughts and experiences I had had about Educational NLP*, present them to others and benefit from their opinions, comments and criticisms. The UFA Fellows acting as critical friends during the process has been invaluable. It is hoped that because of this the resulting materials will be applicable in a wide range of contexts and for a range teaching styles.

The teaching and learning community best thrives and develops by the sharing of good practice. All too often that sharing is limited to colleagues in the same department, in the same school. Sharing on a local area level is often quite difficult and when in comes to considering sharing nationally the prospect is quite daunting. What the UFA are doing well and are empowering their partners to do is just this share practice at local and national levels. They provide the structure and support to do this. The Innovation Grant is one of the major ways of making this sharing happen. Without it the thoughts, material and strategies that are being shared within this project would not have been given form and substance; they would not have been developed across schools in a variety of contexts and they would not have been reproduced in a form that others could readily use. If just one of the ideas explored in this project makes a difference in terms of learner empowerment then the grant has been worthwhile. At the risk of sounding immodest, from the feedback that has been received we know that much of the thinking behind Educational NLP* and the sharing of approaches has already made a difference and weve only just begun. Alan Jones Project Mentor August 2002 *Educational NLP-refers to the ideas and techniques developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder as NLPTM (NeuroLinguistic Programming) applied in an Educational Context. Educational NLP is a term that I have coined for this project and for further developmental work in this area.

Synopsis This questionnaire attempts to provide a way of measuring pupil motivational towards learning. It has been developed from a set of questions used in an action research project at Pool School & Community College, Cornwall, and is intended to form part of a set of tools and approaches which will be developed through a UFA Innovation grant. The questionnaire focuses on eight distinct measures of pupil attitude and self-belief. These being Motivation, Internal Motivation, External Motivation, Internal Reference, External Reference, Interest/Value, Confidence and Competence. These measures have been derived and adapted from existing research and so bring together a range of ideas in order to produce a workable measure of learner motivation.

Overview It has been said that everything we do is motivated by something - fear, hunger, the desire for self-fulfilment. In very simple terms the need for survival (both personal and of the species) motivates us as individuals in very obvious ways; ways wed sometimes prefer to ignore perhaps. There are processes that operate a very basic level within the human animal. Evolutionary Psychology, a relatively new area of study, seeks to match basic behaviours to some evolutionary drive or motivation. Some very interesting work has been done on the nature of sexual attraction, male and female roles and so on. What interests us as educators is the degree to which a pupil participates in the learning process. Of course underlying this is a curiosity about the reasons or goals that underlie involvement (or non-involvement) in academic activities. Indeed whilst pupils may be equally motivated to perform a task or do well, the sources of their motivation may differ considerably. As Lepper (1988) noted some individuals are intrinsically motivated and undertake a particular activity for its own sake. In terms of learning this means that they become involved for the enjoyment it provides, the learning it permits, or the feelings of accomplishment it evokes. The converse of this being those students who are extrinsically motivated, and perform in order to obtain some reward or avoid some sort of punishment. Some writers have chosen to define the motivation to learn as being outside of this simple duality. Marshall (1987) defined the motivation to learn as the meanigfulness, value and benefits of academic tasks to the learner which implies that they (the tasks) need not be intrinsically interesting. In the questionnaire developed as part of this project it was important to consider the nature of

motivation as far as it concerned the individuals willingness to take an active role in educational activities. It is from this concern that a conscious decision was taken to explore the notions of internal motivation and external motivation (Mariani 1999 and others). There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that students who are internally motivated tend to employ strategies that demand more effort and that enable them to process information more deeply (Lepper 1988). J. Condry and J. Chambers (1978) found that when students were confronted with complex intellectual tasks, internally motivated pupils used more logical information-gathering and decision-making strategies than did students who were extrinsically oriented. According to Lepper (1988) students with an intrinsic orientation tend to prefer tasks that are moderately challenging, whereas extrinsically oriented students gravitate toward tasks that are low in degree of difficulty. Extrinsically oriented students are inclined to put forth the minimal amount of effort necessary to get the maximal reward. The implication here is that individuals with high internal motivation are the more persistent and effective learners. According to Brophy (1987), motivation to learn is a competence acquired "through general experience and stimulated most directly through modeling, communication of expectations, and direct instruction or socialization by significant others (especially parents and teachers)." Here Brophy notes the importance of effective role-models, clear learning objectives and expectations as well as teachers becoming what has been termed socializing agents of change. In conversations with pupils it is clear that they respond more favourably to teachers who not only appear to walk their talk but who also set clear guidelines. Much of this forming part, of what Hay-McBeer call, the classroom climate Banduras Self-efficacy Theory Bandura (1993) suggests that the ability to learn new skills and information is influenced by feelings of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is composed of at least two components: beliefs about whether one is capable of performing (or learning) some task; and beliefs about whether such performance will lead to desirable outcomes. The theory further suggests that the two most powerful sources of self-efficacy come from the learners own previous experiences with similar tasks, and from observing others experiences. In addition, verbal persuasion and physiological states can contribute to self-efficacy judgments. The difference between self-efficacy and self-esteem is the notion that the former can differ greatly between one task and another they reflect the individuals beliefs about performing a particular task. When students are given a sense of self-worth, competence, autonomy, and self-efficacy, they will be more apt to accept the risks inherent in learning. Conversely, when students do not view themselves as basically competent and able, their freedom to engage in academically challenging pursuits and capacity to tolerate and cope with failure are greatly diminished. Attribution Theory Attribution Theory offers another insight motivation. According to the theory our beliefs about the causes of our successes and failures influence our future motivation. We tend to attribute success and failure to factors that vary along three dimensions: internal-external, stableunstable, and controllable-uncontrollable. (DeGrada & Minetti 1988; Stipek 1993; Comoldi 1995)

Internal factors are those within the individual, while external factors come from others or the environment. Thus if a student performed very well in a maths test they might attribute their performance internally to the fact that they studied for eleven hours, or externally to the thought that it was a very easy test. They might attribute their good performance to a stable factor, such as an aptitude for maths, or to an unstable factor luck. Further they might attribute it to a controllable factorthe amount of effort they expended, or to an uncontrollable factor the examiner made a mistake in grading the test. These attributions will have a major effect upon a students ability to perform; their level of (general) motivation and their willingness to step outside of their own comfort zone.

The Questionnaire In constructing the questionnaire it was decided to create eight distinct sub-measures of motivation drawn from the ideas above. These sub-measures are:General Motivation questions related to a students approach to a learning task Internal Motivation an attempt to discover attitudes to self-directed goals External Motivation the extent to which the student feels they are driven by others Internal Causality (Reasons) representing ownership of success External Causality (Excuses) the degree to which the student disowns task outcomes Interest/Value (Whats In It For Me) intrinsic value of education/learning Competence attempting to explore student perception of self (efficacy) Confidence attempting to explore students active participation in learning

It will be obvious to the reader that these eight measures seek to explore various elements that have been identified by previous authors. It will also be obvious that important factors like self-belief (often experienced as self-talk by the learner) are encompassed within the defined measures. What has been omitted from this version of the questionnaire are certain elements of the attribution theory; specifically the notion of stable-unstable pairings. The other pairings (namely internal/external and controllable/uncontrollable) are reflected in the Causality and Motivation measures. It is worth noting that the notion of an excuses person and a reasons person arose from focus group discussions with pupils who had been part of the initial action research project. They (the pupils) were able to see how an excuse need not be the same as a reason. In their words one could easily be a cop out and not necessarily lead to dealing with the root cause of undesired outcomes. Responses to the questionnaire are defined according to a seven-point Likert Scale, seven points being seen as of more value for later statistical analysis. Variables on the scale are ordinal variables. Although integer values are used it does not follow that each step in the scale is in any sense equal.

Since standard analyses are based on the assumption that the residuals are normally distributed they may not really work on a 5 point scale. In the case of T tests, the assumption is that the original variable conforms to a normal distribution within each of the groups that are being compared. So data coming from a 5-point Likert scale can never be normally distributed, because a variable that has only 5 integer values simply can't be. A normally distributed variable has to be effectively a continuous variable. Also the distribution of a normal variable is symmetrical, and that is unlikely form a 5-point scale unless the mean is on the middle of the scale. (Hopkins 2001)

In terms of Integer Labeling for the sake of the respondent the associations are as follows:1 Not like me Disagree I never do this 2 3 4 Somewhat Like Me No strong feelings I Sometimes do this 5 6 7 Exactly Like Me Agree I always do this

Respondents will need to be encouraged to think carefully about awarding the marks across the seven-point scale. Habituation and lack of time spent considering personal responses will clearly affect the measures. Scoring Measure Motivation Internal Motivation External Motivation Internal Causality External Causality Interest/Value Competence Confidence Score Range 5 35 -3 27 -3 27 5 35 5 35 -16 - 32 -18 - 18 -11 - 19 Assumed Mean 20 12 12 20 20 8 6 4

There are some interesting hypotheses that can be stated prior to the publication and use of this questionnaire and it will be these that will inform the next stage of the developmental process. Hypothesis 1: Pupils scoring over 50 on the measures Motivation, Internal Motivation & External Motivation, will be those pupils who generally strive to achieve. School reports will show that they are able to apply themselves in lessons, have developed good study skills and respond positively to new learning challenges. They may well be the self-starters with regards school-work and will tend to prefer working on their own. Comparisons between the Internal and External motivational scores will have a bearing upon the learning environment that is created in lessons and fostered in the home. Hypothesis 2:

Pupils scoring between 26 & 35 on the External Causality scale, and have a correspondingly low Confidence (<3) and Competence (<5) score, will be those pupils for whom school is a chore. (The suggestion is that these pupils will also score low on the Motivational sub-measures). They may have difficulty in receiving feedback and thus find themselves being stuck when it comes to application of learning. They may find it difficult to accept their role in creating and sustaining a learning environment. They may not necessarily be considered to be a problem in terms of behaviour, but may well be switched off and almost certainly underachieving. Hypothesis 3: Pupils with a score of over 28 on the Interest/Value measure will tend to be involved in many aspects of school life, probably actively contributing to it. They will find a way to express their specific talents within the curriculum although and will be the enthusiastic (not necessarily effective) learner.

Hypothesis 4: There will be a strong positive correlation between academic achievement and high scores on the Motivational, Interest/Value, Competence & Confidence scores. Hypothesis 5: Pupils scoring less than 8 on the Competence and Confidence sub-measures will have corresponding low scores on the Motivational attributes. (Perhaps External Causality will be above the mean). They will find transfer of skills and learning difficult and may well be identified within the school as having low self-esteem or even as being disruptive; especially if the main motivating factor is external.

Using the Questionnaire Initially it has been designed as a tool to accompany a programme of educational coaching and support. Each of the measures will form a point of discussion and debate within the context of mentoring and raising achievement. It is hoped that the teachers who use this tool will have the necessary skills to guide the pupil through the analysis of results and subsequent personal reflection. In the longer term, once data as been collected and analysed, it will be possible to link these measures to real-life descriptors, which in turn will enable it to be used as a self-diagnostic tool. In terms of the eventual web-version of this questionnaire it is hoped that there will be meaningful online support and a range of links so that the user can not only explore aspects of their learning, but also seek to challenge some of their own limiting beliefs. It is envisaged that this will be part of a suit of packages that will encourage the individual (student, teacher, parent) to become actively involved in discovering their own learning potential. It is hoped that, in terms of the educational coaching this questionnaire will promote, some link will be explored between the identified measures, aspects of Self-Determination Theory, NLP, and Learning & Thinking Styles. Alan Jones April 2002

www.educationalcoach.co.uk References Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational Psychologist, 28(2), 117-148. Bandura, A. (1971). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press. Bandura, A. & Walters, R. (1963). Social Learning and Personality Development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Biggs, J.B.(1987). Student Approaches to Learning and Studying. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research. Biggs, J. B., and Rihn, B. A. (1984). The effects of intervention on deep and surface approaches to learning. In J. R. Kirby (ed.), Cognitive Strategies and Educational Performance (pp. 279-293). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Brophy, Jere. (1986) ON MOTIVATING STUDENTS. Occasional Paper No. 101. East Lansing, Michigan: Institute for Research on Teaching, Michigan State University, October 1986. Condry, J., and J. Chambers. (1978) "Intrinsic Motivation and the Process of Learning. In THE HIDDEN COSTS OF REWARD, edited by M.R. Lepper and D. Greene. 61-84. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 1978 Deci, E. L., Eghrari, H., Patrick, B. C., & Leone, D. (1994). Facilitating internalization: The selfdetermination theory perspective. Journal of Personality, 62, 119-142. Eizenberg, N. (1986). Applying student learning research to practice. In J. A. Bowden (ed.), Student Learning: Research into Practice. The Marysville Symposium (pp. 21-60). Parkville: Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne. Fleming, W. G. (1986). The interview: a neglected issue in research on student learning. Higher Education, 15, 547-563. Hopkins, W. (2001). The New Statistics: http/sportsci.org/stats/ Lepper, Mark R. "Motivational Considerations in the Study of Instruction." COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION 5, 4 (1988): 289-309. Mariani, L. (1999). Reshaping the Curriculum: The Role of Motivation. Perspectives, a Journal of TESOL Italy Vol XXV, Nos 1-2 3999 Maehr, Martin L., and Carol Midgley. "Enhancing Student Motivation: A Schoolwide Approach." EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST 26, 3 & 4 (1991): 399-427. Plant, R. W., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and the effects of self-consciousness, self-awareness, and ego-involvement: An investigation of internally-controlling styles. Journal of Personality, 53, 435-449. Richardson, J. T. E. (1990). Reliability and replicability of the Approaches to Studying Questionnaire. Studies in Higher Education, 15,155-168. Richardson, J. T. E. (1992). A critical evaluation of a short form of the Approaches to Studying Inventory. Psychology Teaching Review, 1, 34-45. Schmeck, R. R., Geisler-Brenstein, E., and Cercy, 5. P. (1991). Self-concept and learning: The Revised Inventory of Learning Processes. Educational Psychology, 11, 343-362. Stipek, D. (1988). Motivation to learn: From theory to practice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Question 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 It is important to me to do well in school I understand my school work because I put a lot of effort in I often do extra work because I enjoy learning new things To get on in life you don't have to be good at school work I have some clear ideas about what I want to do when I leave school If I do badly inschool my parents will be angry (upset) I work hard because I like getting praised for my efforts I work much harder in the lessons when the teacher is strict I often feel that I have to do work when I don't want to I don't really care about what people think about my school work If I get a bad mark in a test it's because I haven't studied hard enough I get good marks in the subjects I work hardest at When I get told off in class it's mostly because I'm not doing as I am asked I feel I get the marks I deserve It's down to me to do well in school - I get out what I put in! It's difficult to work in some lessons because the teacher can't control the class When I get told off in class it's because my friends distract me Teachers seem to pick on me and blame me for everything when the class is naughty If I get a good mark in a test its because I've been lucky If I don't understand my work it's because the teacher can't explain things well I enjoy school very much I think school is mosty boring I enjoy most of my lessons I think most of my lessons are boring School is important What I learn in school will help me in later life Most of my lessons in school have nothing to do with real life I tend to listen to my teachers instructions When I get stuck then first thing I do is ask for help I can generally see connections between different subjects in school I think I do pretty well compared to others in my class I am satisfied with my level of effort in school When I make a mistake I get upset and feel that I can't do it I find most school work difficult 2 3 4 5 6 7

Attribute Internal Motivation Internal Motivation Internal Motivation Internal Motivation Internal Motivation External Motivation External Motivation External Motivation External Motivation External Motivation Internal Cause Internal Cause Internal Cause Internal Cause Internal Cause External Cause External Cause External Cause External Cause External Cause Interest/Value Interest/Value Interest/Vaule Interest/Ivalue Value/Interest Value/Interest Value/Interest Value/Interest Competence Competence Competence Competence Competence Competence

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

I hand my work in on time I generally start a task as soon as I am given it I find it easy to focus on my work I like to work out problems on my own I will often read books or watch TV programmes at home about the things I do in school I often answer questions in class I have no problem in asking for help when I am really having difficulty I often feel bad about my work If given a choice I will tend to try something difficult or more challenging I'm not as clever as most of the people in my class

Motivation Motivation Motivation Motivation Motivation Confidence Confidence Confidence Confidence Confidence

Alan Jones: www.educationalcoach.co.uk All rights reserved - developed as part of UFA Innovation Grant 2002 This material is copyright and for use only by those persons involved in the pilot stage of development.