Shelley Ross, PhDDepartment of Family Medicine

Faculty Development January 13, 2011

MOTIVATING YOUR LEARNER

OVERVIEW

Motivation theory: what makes people want to learn?

Findings from motivation research

Feedback:

What doesn’t work

What does work

Applying research findings to the clinical teaching setting

WHAT IS MOTIVATION?

“Motivation is the process whereby goal-directed activity is instigated and sustained”

Pintrich & Schunk, 2004

MOTIVATION: A HISTORY

Initial work : psychology researchers

Focus: What drives behaviour?

Basic needs = main motivators

Stimulus-response

Hull (1943) moved motivation theory beyond basic needs and into the domain of drive to succeed

ACHIEVEMENT THEORY

Growing out of Hull’s work, educational psychologists began to study what drives students in classrooms

Cognitive theories of motivation are the most researched

These are loosely termed as “achievement theories”

ACHIEVEMENT THEORY

Five main theories of motivation in education

Much overlap between theories

Certain components will resonate for people

Instructional recommendations from research around each theory are applicable to most students

SELF-EFFICACY

Bandura (1997) & Schunk (1991)

Self-perception of “I can do it” leads to motivation

Future-oriented; situation-specific; unstable – varies with situation;

Expectancies and goals required to determine self-efficacy

SELF-WORTH

Covington (1984; 1992) People are motivated by the need to feel

competent; “to be worthy is to be able” (Graham & Weiner, 1996)

Need is to protect a sense of one’s own ability in order to preserve self-worth success = high self-worth,

failure = low self-worth

want to maximize rewards and minimize punishment.

EXPECTANCY-VALUE

Eccles (1987, 2005), Eccles & Wigfield (2000)

Choice, persistence, direction of behaviour depend upon value of the task and its successful completion

expectancies based on learner’s self-perceptions of competence

4 dimensions for task-value: attainment value intrinsic value utility value cost

ATTRIBUTION THEORY

Weiner (1985)

Outcomes (particularly failure) lead to search for reasons for outcome;

causal attribution impacts future expectancies

Causal search; focus on outcome (past-oriented); attributions can be

internal/external (locus),

stable/unstable (stability),

and within or beyond the learner’s control (controllability)

ACHIEVEMENT GOAL THEORY

Ames (1984), Dweck & Leggett (1988), Nicholls, 1984)

Implicit goals exist for all tasks: do it to learn/do it for yourself,

OR do it to look good/be better than others (OR both)

Implicit goal orientations are adopted for a task: mastery/learning/task orientation = doing task to

learn/improve skill

performance-avoid = do not do task to avoid looking bad

performance-approach = do task to look good

LEARNING AND MOTIVATION

Self-efficacy and goal orientation are predictive of, or positively correlated with, the use of cognitive strategies and self-regulated learning (Bandalos et al., 2003; Patrick et al., 2001; Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990; Schraw et al., 1995; Zimmerman & Martinez-Pons 1990)

Self-worth predicts the use of self-handicapping (Covington, 2000), which interferes with student learning

LEARNING AND MOTIVATION

Task value predicts whether students plan to enroll, & whether they actually enroll in courses; expectancies predict achievement once students actually enroll (Wigfield & Eccles, 2002), which suggests that expectancies are impacting student learning during the course.

Attributions indirectly affect student learning through their impact on self-efficacy and self-worth (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002; Pintrich, 2003).

MOTIVATION AND INSTRUCTION

Achievement motivation constructs interact

Planning instruction around one motivational variable will likely have an influence on other motivational constructs. Improving self-efficacy can encourage adoption of a learning

goal;

Creating an environment that protects self-worth while allowing mistakes can lead to adaptive attributions, higher self-efficacy, and eventually the adoption of a learning goal.

Creating a learning environment that encourages and fosters motivation can lead to improvements in learning outcomes.

FEEDBACK

Effects of feedback have been examined in all areas of achievement motivation, but are particularly important in the impact

feedback has on attributions, self-worth, and intrinsic motivation.

In the case of attributions, the feedback given by teachers after either success or failure will influence the attributions that students make for the outcome (Pintrich, 2003; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002).

FEEDBACK

Accuracy of feedback regarding the causes of failure – was the failure due to lack of effort? poor strategy use? – should be both adaptive and honest.

The best evidence for the impact of feedback on attributions can be found in research on attributional retraining, where students are systematically given feedback to encourage them to make adaptive attributions (for example, Hall et al., 2004).

FEEDBACK

Finally, feedback as a course progresses was found to have an influence on students’ self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1993, as cited in Tollefson, 2000, p. 68).

Performance-focused feedback, as opposed to effort or strategy-focused feedback, may lead to the development of high outcome expectancies paired with low self-efficacy, which can lead to the choice not to exert effort.

FEEDBACK

So what IS feedback?

Evaluative information in response to an activity or behaviour

Key elements: Informative

There is always an evaluation component to feedback in education

FEEDBACK & ASSESSMENT

In our context:

In both undergraduate and graduate programs

Feedback is part of assessment

FEEDBACK & ASSESSMENT

Feedback on performance can be one of two kinds:

Feedback to further learning

Feedback that is a judgment of learning

FEEDBACK & ASSESSMENT

Five kinds of evaluative feedback

Confirmation (No, you’re wrong)

Corrective (No, you’re wrong. The answer is Alberta)

Explanatory (Your answer was wrong because Edmonton is not in B.C.; it is in Alberta)

Diagnostic (Your answer suggests that some extra study of Canadian geography would be helpful)

Elaborative (You will find as you study further that Edmonton is home to the University of Alberta, home of a terrific Family Medicine Residency program).

FEEDBACK & RESIDENTS

Best feedback to Residents is INFORMATIVE

Residents enjoy compliments But will learn better from constructive

feedback

FEEDBACK & RESIDENTS

Boehler et al., 2006

RCT: students given informative feedback on their performance after instruction in two-handed surgical knot-tying VS. students given compliments on how well they did the technique

Informative feedback group performed the skill better

BUT: compliments group reported significantly higher satisfaction with the instruction

FEEDBACK & RESIDENTS

Feedback should be about specific behaviours

“You handled that encounter well” does not give as much information as “You communicated well with Mrs. Smith. She really responded to the way you made an effort to keep eye contact with her and talked to her at eye level instead of standing and looking down at her”

FEEDBACK & RESIDENTS

All feedback should give the opportunity for further learning

“You seemed to have some trouble explaining those medication instructions to Mr. Smith. Would it be helpful if we reviewed asthma management?”

FEEDBACK & RESIDENTS

Feedback should be about actions or decisions, not about how you interpret the Resident's reasons behind those actions

FEEDBACK & RESIDENTS

If you do give subjective feedback, be sure to indicate that you are doing so

FEEDBACK & RESIDENTS

Frame feedback in a way that allows Residents to self-evaluate first

“How do you think that went?”

FEEDBACK & RESIDENTS

Feedback should be clear

Resist the temptation to address multiple issues at once

Provide specific feedback about a specific behaviour or action

If a larger issue must be addressed, make sure the feedback session includes the opportunity for the resident to make a plan to rectify the problem

Questions?