HOW TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS

Carmen Delurintu
C.N.V. Nicolae Titulescu
Influencing another person's motivation is not a simple task. For one thing the person is
already a tangle of different and perhaps conflicting motives. Some of these motives are innate.
Among these are need for security, avoidance of hunger, dread of pain, need for activity, craving
for stimulation, and sex. Other motives are learned. Learned motives include desire for certainty,
need to achieve, craving for companionship, desire to reduce anxiety, requirement for
independence or dependence, and many more. Innate motives are very powerful comprising, as
they do, basic human needs. When innate motives are aroused they are likely to take over. Then
the higher learned needs must usually stay on the back burner until the innate motives have been
quieted. The learned motives themselves vary in intensity. Some may be very strong and some
very weak. However, the strength of these motives may change, for circumstances do alter cases.
Motives, both basic and otherwise, tend to compete with each other. For another thing, when
students walk into your classroom, each one brings a hierarchy of motives that range from very
strong to very weak. These hierarchies are personal; they differ from individual to individual.
One girl's need to achieve may be much stronger than her need for peer approval, whereas her
sister may be much more influenced by peer pressure than by a desire to achieve. Further, the
priorities within an individual's hierarchy of motives change with time and circumstances. At
times everyone suppresses certain desires; at other times circumstances make certain motives
almost uncontrollably powerful. Still, on the whole, most motives retain their relative positions
within one's hierarchy of motives even though circumstances modify motives and alter their
importance.
How, then, does one motivate students? Unfortunately it is not easy. Techniques that work
well in one situation may be useless in another. Incentives that create enthusiasm in some
individuals in a class leave others completely indifferent. However, general approaches that seem
to apply to the development of positive motivation toward school learning include,
*Try to build up students' feelings of self-esteem.
*Take advantage of the students' present motives.
*Make the potential learning seem worthwhile.
*Help students establish suitable tasks and objectives.
*Keep up the pace.
*Develop a receptive mood in the learners.

*Provide a pleasant environment.

*Cultivate in the learners ideals and attitudes conducive to learning.
*Utilize reinforcement theory as much as feasible.
*Provide good models for students to fashion themselves after.
The best motivational devices and techniques are positive in nature. In the past teachers have
placed too much emphasis on negative, aversive punishment measures in attempting to motivate
and discipline. It is time for us to turn from negative motivation to positive motivation. Success
breeds success.
Motivation is too important in the teaching-learning process to be left to chance. It is the key
both to good learning and to good discipline. Only students who are well motivated learn well.
When students fail to learn, the chances are great that the basic cause of the trouble has to do
with motivation. The fault lies with the teacher and the school as often as it does with the
students, for they have not taken steps necessary to motivate students to work and study.
Fortunately all kids can be motivated.
Since each of us has a valuable commodity to sell to sometimes unwilling clients, it is important
that we find a way to motivate them. If we can do so by positive means, the chances of
successfully teaching our students will be greatly enhanced. Unfortunately, positive motivation
does not always come naturally. More frequently than not, we must convince reluctant students
of the value of our wares and create in students an inclination to buy. Fortunately for this
purpose, we have many tools and techniques at our command. One of them is to harness as far as
possible students' natural motives, such as curiosity, attitudes and ideals, desire for success, selfesteem and security, love of fun, adventure and action, and need for friendship. Another method
is to try to make the subject matter seem valuable to the student. Perhaps the best way to do this
is to really believe in the material's importance yourself. In this connection one should remember
that students are more likely to be moved by immediate rather than deferred and intrinsic rather
than extrinsic values. Because people respond differently to things, individual motivation may be
fostered by making adequate provisions for individual differences. Marks have not proved to be
adequate motivating devices for most boys and girls; teacher-student planning has been somewhat more successful.
New ammunition for the development of techniques and strategies that can be helpful in the
motivating of students can be found in reinforcement theory. Basically this theory holds that one
should reward students when they behave in the way one desires, but not when they behave in
undesirable ways. Unfortunately many of our present disciplinary procedures tend to reward
untoward behavior. As we develop and use teaching methods that utilize reinforcement
techniques properly, we should find our students becoming better motivated and better behaved.
Among the techniques recommended are judicious use of rewards and the use of contingency
contracts, reinforcement menus, and modeling.