Running head: MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER

Motivation Project Paper

Group Number: 5 Members: Nadine Dare Rebecca Diener Daniel Jackson Haley Dillon

EPS 390 sec3, 11:00am

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER Part II

Our research on motivation started by designing a group of interview questions to ask the two chosen high school students. The focus for the interviews was the idea of the arts classes, such as music and art, affecting a students motivation during the school day. Because we were planning to interview a junior male from a public school and a sophomore female from a private school, we also wanted to look at the difference between the genders, as well as the schooling style and size. We chose this as our focus because the four of us have a passion for the arts within the schools. We hope to use this as valuable research when we are teachers to combat the decline in arts classes in schools. As a group, we considered many questions that could help us learn more about our focus. We consolidated a few of our questions, then put them in an order that would seem logical to our interviewees. At the beginning of the interview, we focused on questions that do not force student responses to be about the arts. According to an article about interviewing, forced questioning can make the interviewees nervous, and therefore answer falsely (Gilstrap, 2004). Consequently, we asked questions that would give us basic background information about the students school day. For example, we wanted to know about their class size and the start/end of the school day. We also asked questions about general hobbies and how the student is motivated during and after school. We asked the students how they are motivated to do homework, if teachers help with motivation, and how motivated they compared to other students in their classes. To see if they felt motivated in an arts class, we asked the students what class they look forward to each day and how concentrated they were in that particular class. To dig even further into our focus, we specifically asked questions about music or art classes. These questions asked the students if they were in an arts class, if they would like to be in an arts class if they do not

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER already, when they have their arts class, and whether they have opportunities for the arts outside of school. If they had an art class, we inquired about how motivated they were because of the class and how an arts class affected their overall attitude towards learning. We also asked them

about whether the arts class used cross-curricula and if other content teachers used the arts in the classroom and how it affected the students motivation. At the end of the interview we closed with questions about how much the students enjoyed the arts and how they would feel if schools dropped all art programs. These questions combined well to form solid interviews packed full of information about motivation and the arts. Our group asked a variety of different questions pertaining to motivation in general, and motivation within the fine arts. The goal was to link fine arts and motivation in a positive way. The questions started very general, with information about the school and class sizes and information about the interviewee. Later we moved onto questions dealing with general motivation. Finally, we moved onto questions dealing with fine arts and motivation. Questions about whether or not they are in fine arts, if they enjoyed them, and if they feel more motivated to attend school with the option to do the fine arts. Because of the order and subject matter of the questions, we got a good idea of what the student is interested in and what motivates them first, and then we asked them about the fine arts (Cherryman et al., 2011). Due to the order of the questions we saw that the students respond with more motivation when there is some integration of fine arts in other subject areas. There were drastic differences in some aspects of the students answers. The quality of the answers differed greatly. Marias answers were detailed and well thought out. Her answers led us to believe that the arts are an important part of her motivation, as well as other intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Rexs answers were very concise. It was easy to see his personality in the

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER kind of answers he was giving. He used many one or two word sentence answers, and we had to

ask more narrow questions to get the kind of detail that Maria freely gave. From the answers Rex gave, we get a picture of someone whose main motivation is extrinsic. Inclusion of the arts is nice, but not essential in his eyes. Maria and Rex are understandably very different in what motivates them. Rex is interested primarily in sports: soccer and basketball. Maria has a broader range of interests: biology, English, choir, and soccer. This means Maria is more apt to be motivated in art related subjects because of her very right-brained activities. In his answers, Rex displays that behaviorism has greatly impacted his schooling. His motivation for school is derived from the reward he receives and he finds little other reason to participate in any of his classes. Behaviorisms theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior (Watson, 1994). As a result of this behavioristic reaction to school, Rex maintains motivated in completing his school work. In contrast, Maria most closely embodies the Social Cognitive model of In the social cognitive model, two implicit theories of ability... the two implicit theories are entity theory and incremental theory: Entity theory characterizes ability as stable and immutable, whereas incremental theory characterizes ability as amenable to change (Cury, 2006). In response to Marias heightened motivation and her positive reports of teacher interaction, she has been heavily influenced by teachers who instruct in a humanistic manner. This is evident in that her humanistic teachers were, focusing upon the growth and development of the person himself (Buhler, 1996). Maria is a living example of the resultant high intrinsic motivation to do her best as a student. While Rex maintains a predominantly humanistic view of his education he also gives evidence that his extrinsic motivation to do his homework is the result of a social construct. He

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER made this clear when he was joking about doing his homework only to keep his parents from

beating him. The social interaction with his parents inspired Rex to perform a certain behavior as, a sociocultural approach must account for the emergence of motivation from social and cultural practices (Walker 2004). Maria admits that her parents and peers strongly influence her motivation through constructive criticism. Others support is important because, Sociocultural views of motivation focus on participation in a learning community... this suggests that a learning environment can provide a form of motivational scaffolding that results in learners engaging in activities that they would not do on their own (Eggen, 2010). In Marias learning community her parents and peers continue to share not only what they find excellent about her work, but they also gently inform her of what she needs to improve. Rexs personal factors seem to relate mostly to extrinsic causes. He is quoted as saying he feels satisfaction when he gets good grades. Contextually, he jokingly says that he wants goods grades because he likes not getting beaten by my parents. Clearly, hes not serious but we can guess that he is also contextually motivated by his parents approval. From the artistic aspect, hes hardly motivated by them at all, but he states that he was contextually motivated towards history because he had a teacher that brought in his guitar to teach them about the labor conflicts Maria took her interview much more seriously. Personally, she says that her grades motivate her, but she also cites that she actually is interested in English. Her personal motivation for the arts is also much higher; she cites a heavy interest in choir both in and out of school. Contextually, she says that her parents expect her to do well. Other than that, she says her friends also motivate her by giving her good criticism. Personal and contextual motivation differ because of their sources. For contextual motivation, it has been proposed that individuals interact with the environment in order to feel

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER competent and to achieve unique accomplishments. (Deci, 1975) For instance, some students may learn the subject matter being presented in class, while others may be more interested in obtaining good grades, outperforming classmates, pleasing their instructors and parents, or simply completing assignments as quickly and painlessly as possible (Ormrod, 2008). Personal factors have more to do with interests and an intrinsic predilection towards the subjects we are asking about. Personal factors are based in intrinsic motivation. Intrinsically motivated individuals are more likely to pursue an academic task on their own initiative, without having to be coerced or forced to. (Lei, 2010) Simply put, personal factors are the motivators that come from within the student.

As teachers, we are interested in both, but can only influence one. Our responsibilities lie with the contextual. We must take careful note of Rexs history teacher that influenced his focus and motivation by crossing curriculum and using music. He also mentions that his Spanish teacher does it as well. Maria cites that she feels her best teachers have a variety of different activities to get them moving. This desire for diversity is also shown when she states that she would like various art classes to develop a variety of skills.

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER References Buhler, C. (1996). Humanistic psychology as an educational program. American Psychologist, 24(8), 736-742. Cherryman, J., Griffiths A., & Milne B. (2011). A Question of Control? The Formulation of Supect and Witness Interview Question Strategies by Advanced Interviewers. International Journal of Police Science & Management, 13(3), 255-267. Cury, F., Elliot, A.J., Da Fonseca, D., & Moller, A. C. (2006). The social-cognitive model of achievement motivation and the 2 x 2 achievement goal framework. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 90(4), 666-679. Deci, E. L. (1975). Intrinsic motivation. New York: Plenum. Eggen, P. D., & Kauchak, D. P. (2009-2010). Educational psychology: windows on classrooms (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill/Prentice Hall. Gilstrap, Livia L. (2004). The Missing Link in Suggestibility Research. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 10 (1), 13-24. Lei, S. A. (2010). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: Evaluating Benefits and Drawbacks from College Instructors' Perspectives. Journal Of Instructional Psychology, 37(2), 153-160.

Ormrod, J.E. (2008). Human learning (6th ed.).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Walker, R.A., Pressick-Kilborn, K., Arnold, L.S., & Sainsbury, E.J. (2004). Investigating Motivation in Context: Developing Sociocultural Perspectives. European Psychologist, 9(4), 245-256. Watson, J.B. (1994). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 101(2), 248-253.

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER Part III Summary and Reflection Because we had a very arts heavy group, we decided that it would be helpful to pursue how the arts can motivate a students and whether or not students miss having it when it is not available or they no longer take it. We asked them a series of questions about both how they felt

about their arts (which involved Haley, Rebecca, and Daniels subject matter) and how the other subjects used the arts to motivate their students as well. We made sure to also ask them about extracurricular activities and how that affected their performance. Our female interviewee, Maria, was definitely more entrenched than her male counterpart. She was highly interested in choir and music in general, and generally pursued it as an extracurricular activity. Outside of this, she was a fairly motivated student, and had much to say on how teachers affected her motivation. Most of what she said was closely related to the strategies we had already studied. Rex was not particularly interested in the arts, but had more to say about how teachers outside of the electives used them. He spoke about how his history and Spanish teachers both used music, and had much to say about how this affected his motivation. He had much to say about how the history teacher in particular used his talents on a guitar to both teach and entertain. He remembered the content very well, and retained a very positive impression. From what we saw, the students had only positive things to say about how the arts affected them. In this paper, we analyzed how this reflected on their exhibited motivation. Using various sources, we also tried to read deeper into it based on what we were told, and theorized somewhat on what we may not have been told. Through our research, we were able to see better what we needed to be looking for in all students; we were able to pick apart what we would need to include in our own teaching to better engage our students.

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER The procedure that we followed was extremely effective. In each interview we had one main person who asked the questions, and one person who transcribed the conversation. Within the two interviews we performed every group member contributed equally. Two group members were the interviewers while the other two each transcribed one conversation. This method of

collecting information was effective due to equal division of the work. Throughout the interview process, we encountered no problems with calming the students being questioned because we chose their older sibling to physically asc each question. The familial bond encouraged the interviewees to relax and share their opinions more honestly than they may have if speaking only to strangers. In the process of applying the theories of motivation to the data we learned that most of the six main theories of motivation can be attributed to either one interviewee or the other. The main difference lay in which way we chose to approach the data. We found this interesting as the two students whom we chose were different enough for one to embody the theories that excluded the other. Though many theories were applicable to each child interviewed, we found that humanist theory was most closely related to Maria, while Rex fit within the confines of behaviorist theory. Rex completed his assignments to avoid a presentation punishment through the classical conditioning of behaviorism. Maria responded strongly to teachers who viewed her as a real human being and who genuinely cared about here, these traits are strongly associated with Humanist motivation. We also learned that the arts need to be integrated within courses other than simply music and art class. Students seem to learn better when they incorporate the arts as Rex illustrated when speaking of his history teacher using the guitar in class one day. Rex recalled most of what he had learned that day simply because music was involved.

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER The issues that deserve the most attention of teachers and parents are the diversity in

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what motivates students. Like a lot of problems in the world, the answer is not in black and white. Many different things can contribute to the motivation of students, and its up to the teacher to try a variety of things to motivate the greatest number of students. Fine arts are a way to motivate a greater number of students. Both when fine arts are added to other curriculum and when they are offered by themselves, it can be a motivation tool for students. Fine arts can make more mundane tasks in classes fun. Know that this will not work for all students. Every student is different and the teacher must find a way to reach all their students. It is incredibly important to take our research and find strategies for ourselves as we enter the field, as well as our colleagues. These strategies are meant to activate, sustain, and enhance students motivation within the classroom in relation to arts programs. First, there will always be students with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in arts classes. Maria, one of our interviewees, was highly intrinsically motivated in her arts classes due to strong teacher/ student interaction. Keeping a positive teacher/ student relationship will help the intrinsically and extrinsically students enjoy the classes, and receive support in any area of struggle. Rex, our other interviewee, was more extrinsically motivated. For these students, explaining the big picture to them is important because they need to recognize how the arts will consistently affect their lives. This is the second strategy for enhancing motivation. Third, more parent/ teacher conferences or letters home to the parents would greatly help the students motivation. Letting the parents know what their child is up to helps them be supportive, especially of the arts. Finally, teachers should work together within their school to teach cross-curricular lessons. Both students we interviewed talked about how their teachers used art or music in their class to enhance their lessons. This

MOTIVATION PROJECT PAPER helped the students get more involved in the arts, and will hopefully help them activate motivation within all areas of study.

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