What motivates people to learn?

by Jay Cross

 

On October 24, 2001, the Fellows of The Meta-Learning Lab met for several hours with IBM’s Jim Spohrer to discuss the future direction of learning. As the session wrapped up, we took up a question to which no one had a ready answer, “What motivates people to learn?”

 

Five Meta-Learning Lab Fellows, Claudia L'Amoreaux, Clark Quinn, Claudia Welss, Lente-Louise Louw, and I independently jotted down factors that motivated each of us personally.  I also read several sources listed in the Meta-Learning Lab Knowledgebase. This thought paper is the result of these inputs and forty-five minutes of reflection in the bathtub this morning.

 

Dimensions of motivation to learn

This section is drawn from the literature.

 

As with just about everything, there is no absolute answer to the motivation question. What motivates the learner depends on the individual’s past experience, the subject matter, the goal, the setting, the culture, and myriad other factors. Motivation is always relative.

 

Motivation is also a matter of degree. It’s not that one is motivated or not. Motivation may be strong or weak or somewhere in between.  

 

Inside and outside

Motivation may come from within or be imposed from outside, or of course, be somewhere in between:

 

Intrinsic     Extrinsic

(inside)                                                        (outside)

 

Curiosity, sense of fun, and longing for “truth” are intrinsic motivators. One does these things for their own sake. The intrinsic learner is often more committed than the extrinsic. On the down side, this high level of commitment can obscure one’s balance.

 

A pay increase, a certificate, and not looking stupid in front of others are extrinsic motivators. One does these things for another reason. Extrinsic motivation often leads to cooperation. Negatively, an external standard may make the learner anxious or encourage shortcuts such as “studying to the test.”

 

Making the honor roll in junior high is both a boost to self esteem (intrinsic) and a status symbol (extrinsic).

 

In advertising, intrinsic is called “pull” and extrinsic is called “push.” A subliminal voice that tells me I should be driving a Porsche is pull. The direct mail that announces a special price on Boxsters this month is push.

 

Tangible and intangible

The incentive to learn may be real or imagined, physical or emotional, tangible or intangible.

 

Tangible Intangible

(physical)                                                    (emotional)

 

Playing the tangible/intangible dimension against the intrinsic/extrinsic one pigeonholes four categories (Atherton) that may be useful descriptively:

 

 

	Tangible	Intangible
Extrinsic	Instrumental	Social
Intrinsic	Achievement	Expressive

 

Deep and surface learning

Learning to win at Monopoly is a different approach to learning than memorizing the names of the continents. The former is “deep learning;” the latter, “surface learning.”

 

Deep Surface

Learning                                              Learning

 

Deep Learning involves building on previous knowledge, putting things in context, and generalizing from theory to everyday experience: making meaning. Surface Learning often deals with memorization, unrelated parts of a task, and symbol manipulation in lieu of reflection: facts.

 

Deep learning is closely correlated with intrinsic motivation; surface learning, with extrinsic. Caution: the relationship does not always hold. Furthermore, subject matter impacts the approach to learning. Remember the television show and movie, The Paper Chase? John Houseman, as Professor Kingsfield, would humiliate law students who couldn’t regurgitate case facts. Deep learning didn’t have much to do with it. Law is like that.

 

Why bring this up? Because deep learning is where the joy, ecstasy, and challenge come in. Fear, depression, and a sense of struggle are associated with surface learning.

 

Maturity

Babies don’t get bored. They are always curious. Then they go to school. When school provides relevant, achievable challenge, students learn. When the curriculum offers silos of unassailable factoids, students turn off. Students carry bad habits and attitudes into adulthood; school leaves a bad taste in their mouth. Graduates have learned to be helpless learners. Many adults are unaware that they can take control of their own learning and “self-empower” themselves.

 

“When learners perceive learning to be interesting, fun, personally meaningful, and relevant and the context supports and encourages personal control, motivation to learn and self-regulation of the learning process occur naturally. That is, in situations the learner perceives as interesting or related to personal goals that can be pursued in self-determining ways, the learner is caught up in the activity and directs attention to accomplishing the personal goal.” (McCombs)

 

“From the learner's perspective, then, motivation to learn and self-regulation are natural. The problem is that students many times do not understand the role of their thinking in learning and do not see current educational content and practices as intrinsically interesting and engaging or relevant to their desired goals and personal interests. They also do not see the context as one that supports basic personal and social needs, such as to be self-determining, competent, and connected to others” (McCombs)

 

 

Self analyses

These observations are drawn from the input of the Fellows of Meta-Learning Lab. We are hardly a typical sample of learners but for the moment it’s all we got.

 

Learner 1 concisely describes the intrinsic/extrinsic dimension, asking, “Why am I learning? Is it my initiative or imposed? Am I learning to benefit myself or to benefit others?” The feeling underneath all was fear or love or both.

Learner 2 writes, “Open and earnest attention provide the learner with the fuel to start a fire, but the fire is seldom lasting when it is fueled by fear or pleasure gratification,” which I interpret as a put-down of surface learning.

Learner 3 brings up a mix of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.

Learner 4 brings up avoiding negative consequences, e.g. the fear of failure, fear of ridicule, or guilt.

Learner 5 follows her passions, clearing obstacles from her path and then seeking experts as guides and later as collaborators.

 

Thoughts for exploration

Learning is a journey. What are these the right directions? In what cases? Is the Meta-Learning Lab to provide guides?

“Onion model” of learning motivation

 

 

 

The key to self-motivation is to put people in charge of their own learning and to empower them to succeed. As Henry Ford said, “If a man says he can do something, or that he can’t, he’s right.” Or as Virgil wrote two thousand years earlier, “They are able because they think they are able.”

 

 

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Footnotes:

Atherton, James. DeMontfort Univesity. Learning & Teaching.

Barbara L. McCombs, Understanding the Keys to Motivation to Learn