Motivation strategies for students
SCHOOLS offer different programs to learners with varied interest and levels of learning. Academic performance and interest are considerations in identifying the program, specialization or section of students during enrollment. In Baguio City National High School, enrollees in special programs must not have a grade lower than 80 percent. Another consideration is the interest of the students. Those students who want to get engineering course in college go to the Science Technology and Engineering program while students who are inclined in sports go to the Special Program in Sports program after qualifying in a series of tests designed to gauge their aptitude. For a student to be in the star section, students must not get a predetermined grade while other students who do not meet the requirement in terms of grade and interest are in the regular sections.
Students have varied motivation strategies and interest towards learning which then result to different level of academic achievement and behavior in the classroom. Research showed that students’ motivations and strategy have impact on student performance.
Spector (2000) defined motivation as an internal state that induces a person to engage in a particular behavior. From one perspective, motivation has to do with the direction, intensity and persistence of behavior over time. Accordingly, direction refers to the choice of specific behavior from a large number of possible behaviors. Intensity refers to the amount of effort a person expends at doing a task and persistence refers to the continuing engagement in a behavior over time.
Motivation plays an important role in learning because it greatly defines academic performance. Students are expected to process and sustain information to perform better in the class; however, that is not always the case.
Zimmerman et al. (1992) stated that students’ belief in their efficacy for self-regulated learning affected their perceived self-efficacy for academic achievement, which in turn influenced the academic goals they set for themselves and their final academic achievement.
Based on my observation as stated in my research study, most students who are in the star sections perform well in written and performance tasks while in the regular sections only few perform well. In terms of attendance and tardiness, students in the star sections have better record. On the other hand, some students in the regular sections are having problem on attendance and tardiness. In submitting outputs or projects, most students in the star sections submit on time with a better quality. On the other hand, only few students in the regular classes are submitting on time with a better quality. Seemingly, students who get better grades and those who have low have different levels of motivation.
Middleton, et.al. (2005) have presented the following model of intrinsic academic motivation. First, given the opportunity to engage in a learning activity, a student determines if the activity is one that is known to be interesting. If so, the student engages in the activity. If not, then the student evaluates the activity on two factors - the stimulation (e.g. challenge, curiosity, fantasy) it provides and the personal control (e.g. free choice, not too difficult) it affords. If the student perceives the activity as stimulating and controllable, then the student tentatively labels the activity as interesting and engages in it. If either condition becomes insufficient, then the student disengages from the activity unless some extrinsic motivator influences the student to continue. If the activity is repeatedly deemed stimulating and controllable, then the student may deem the activity interesting. Then the student will be more likely to engage in the activity in the future. If over time activities that are deemed interesting provide little stimulation or control, then the student will remove the activity from his or her mental list of interesting activities. The challenge, then, is to provide teaching and learning activities that are both stimulating and offer students a degree of personal control.
Considering the significant role of motivation in learning, teachers focus on motivating their students with varied teaching strategies to promote their self-efficacies and encourage their students to believe in their abilities to do well. If learners are motivated, it enables them to believe in themselves. It could also influence their outlook for lifelong learning and their capacities to succeed in various difficult life situations. Teachers must then be trained to integrate the essence of motivational beliefs and the need for students to use all kinds of motivation strategies during the teaching-learning process.