The effects of motivation in education

Abstract

Definition of motivation is the following “Powering people to achieve high levels of performance and overcoming barriers in
order to change”. Motivation is the driver of guidance, control and persistence in human behavior. What strengthens a person's
behavior? What guides such behaviors or conducts then in a certain direction? What enhanced or maintained the behavior? It is
called motivation. On the importance of motivation, researches have shown that employees with high job motivation show,
greater commitment to their job; on the other hand Workers who feel more commitment even when things are not moving
forward according to the procedure , minimize the impact of this problem.

Full text

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 31 (2012) 820 – 824
1877-0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of Prof. Hüseyin Uzunboylu.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.12.148
Procedia
Social and
Behavioral
Sciences
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
WCLTA 2011
The effects of motivation in education
Hamid Tohidi*, Mohammad Mehdi Jabbari
Department of Industrial Engineering, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Department of Electrical Engineering, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Definition of motivation is the following “Powering people to achieve high levels of performance and overcoming barriers in
order to change”. Motivation is the driver of guidance, control and persistence in human behavior. What strengthens a person's
behavior? What guides such behaviors or conducts then in a certain direction? What enhanced or maintained the behavior? It is
called motivation. On the importance of motivation, researches have shown that employees with high job motivation show,
greater commitment to their job; on the other hand Workers who feel more commitment even when things are not moving
forward according to the procedure , minimize the impact of this problem.
Keywords: Motivation;Education ; performance.
1. Introduction
One of the most important topics in the industrial and organizational management, in recent decades is the
motivation [2]. Though one can hardly pass a research journal, in the field of organizational behavior, industrial
psychology or public area of management without devoting at least some of it to the issues of work motivation.
1-1.Motivation
According to the PMBOK definition, motivation is "Powering people to achieve high levels of performance and
overcoming barriers in order to change."Psychologists have provided different definitions according to attitude to
the motivation phenomenon which are briefly mentioned below [4,7,8]:
Motivation was inspired of the Latin term "Move" For the first time, means movement and it is an English word.
Motivation is a force which cause people to behavior particularly and according to management point of view, the
aim of creating motivation in employees is to have a behavior in which brings the highest benefits for the
organization .Although motivation researchers study this issue based on how behavior strengthens and how it leads
to specific goals, consequently study of motivation is a research for “Event condition” which gives power and
direction to behavior. Whenever, if we consider an event condition, for powerful and guided behavior, wet enter to
the territory of motivation. Motivation is the force that causes movement in human. In fact, any agent that causes
(internal or external) activity in living creature is considered as a kind of motivation [1,9,16].
What is certain and must be acceptable to the marked individual differences is that people have different motives,
so before acting on the motivation they need to be known the Personal characteristics in their driving forces which-
* Hamid Tohidi
E-mail address: H_Tohidi@azad.ac.ir
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

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can be more easily identified. Generally motivation is the driver of guidance, control and persistence in human
behavior[17].
In other words; 1 - what strengthens a person's behavior? 2 - What guides such behaviors or conducts them in a
certain direction? 3 – What enhanced or maintained the behavior? It is called motivation. The perennial questions in
which human forced with in the study of motivation are: Why does one begin a treatment, continue it and end it?
And which forces determine the severity of behavior over time?
On the importance of motivation, researches have shown that employees with high job motivation show, greater
commitment to their job; on the other hand Workers who feel more commitment even when things are not moving
forward according to the procedure , minimize the impact of this problem.
2. Motivation concepts
2-1. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself, and exists within
the individual rather than relying on any external pressure. Intrinsic motivation has been studied by social and
educational psychologists since the early 1970s. Research has found that it is usually associated with high
educational achievement and enjoyment by student‟s evaluation theory. Students are likely to be intrinsically
motivated if they: Attribute their educational results to factors under their own control (e.g., the effort
expended),Believe they can be effective agents in reaching desired goals (i.e. the results are not determined by
luck),are interested in mastering a topic, rather than just rote-learning to achieve good grades. Extrinsic motivation
comes from outside of the individual. Common extrinsic motivations are rewards like money and grades, coercion
and threat of punishment. Competition is in general extrinsic because it encourages the performer to win and beat
others, not to enjoy the intrinsic rewards of the activity. A crowd cheering on the individual and trophies are also
extrinsic incentives.
Social psychological research has indicated that extrinsic rewards can lead to over justification and a subsequent
reduction in intrinsic motivation. In one study demonstrating this effect, children who expected to be (and were)
rewarded with a ribbon and a gold star for drawing pictures spent less time playing with the drawing materials in
subsequent observations than children who were assigned to an unexpected reward condition and to children who
received no extrinsic reward Self-determination theory proposes that extrinsic motivation can be internalized by the
individual if the task fits with their values and beliefs and therefore helps to fulfill their basic psychological needs.
2-2.Self-control
The self-control of motivation is increasingly understood as a subset of emotional intelligence; a person may be
highly intelligent according to a more conservative definition (as measured by many intelligence tests), yet
unmotivated to dedicate this intelligence to certain tasks. Yale School of Management Professor Victor Vroom's
"expectancy theory" provides an account of when people will decide whether to exert self-control to pursue a
particular goal.
Drives and desires can be described as a deficiency or need that activates behavior that is aimed at a goal or an
incentive. These are thought to originate within the individual and may not require external stimuli to encourage the
behavior. Basic drives could be sparked by deficiencies such as hunger, which motivates a person to seek food;
whereas more subtle drives might be the desire for praise and approval, which motivates a person to behave in a
manner pleasing to others. By contrast, the role of extrinsic rewards and stimuli can be seen in the example of
training animals by giving them treats when they perform a trick correctly. The treat motivates the animals to
perform the trick consistently, even later when the treat is removed from the process.
3.History of motivation

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Question about the behavior and reasons of that are generally discussed as old as human life and it can be traced
since Aristotle era. Plato (Socrates pupil) believed that spirit of the three components of physical, emotional and
logical links and has a hierarchical order.
Aristotle, Plato's student confirmed this view, by changing in Appling terms related to motivation. According to
Aristotle's view physical and emotional parts related to the body and nature, were motivational and provided
motivation for growth and physical relaxation and sensory experience; such as pleasure and pain (emotional) .These
two parts together, were the basis of irrational and impulsive forces of motivation. The logical part includes all
rational aspects of soul and related thought that was intellectual and had willed‟s feature.
Ancient Greeks supposed obvious that with these three components (Spiritually that is hierarchically arranged)
First theoretical justification for the proposed activity has been motivated .Desire of body, pleasure and pain
sensation and voluntary efforts. Hundreds of years later, Greeks spirit of the tripartite soul fell to the two
components; were included passion and intelligence of the mind and body. Thomas Aquinas suggested irrational
impulses motivating the body provides and based on enjoyments. The mind, provide incentives that are reasonable
and are based on the will; the dichotomy here is to be emphasized [13, 15].
After the Renaissance, Rene Descartes, with the distinction between active and non-active aspects of motivation, the
body is not operating as motivation, and the desire would be the active agent. From his perspective, the body
completely is in physical nature and the food was motivated and through the senses, his reflections and physiology
will respond to the external environment and used physiological analysis to understand the physical motivation.
Nature of mind, mental, spiritual and mental benefits that will be targeted.
If they want understand the targeted incentives. They will analyze the desire. Like his predecessors, he believed that
the motivation can be induced by body or desire. For example, on keeping the fire provokes physical passion,
cravings, but does not stimulate determination. Therefore determination always is the motivational force that
determination begins operation and he was directing it. Descartes allocate impulse exclusive power of the will of
man, the first high theory impulse for preparing philosophy.
Putting aside the question of where the motivation are came from, philosophy initially had to determine where they
determination come. And the complex situation created for the philosophers. Therefore new science of psychology,
motivational principles found in search is less confusing and more machine. After of that were not performed
attempts at philosophy and in the field of physiology and biology began.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Hobbes said the reasons people give for their behavior is the behavior of
his desire to gain pleasure and avoid pain. Opinion of “hedonism” still plays a major role in motivating certain
assumptions.
4. Controlling motivation
4-1. Employee motivation
Workers in any organization need something to keep them working. Most times the salary of the employee is
enough to keep him or her working for an organization. However, sometimes just working for salary is not enough
for employees to stay at an organization. An employee must be motivated to work for a company or organization. If
no motivation is present in an employee, then that employee‟s quality of work or all work in general will deteriorate.
When motivating an audience, you can use general motivational strategies or specific motivational appeals. General
motivational strategies include soft sell versus hard sell and personality type. Soft sell strategies have logical
appeals, emotional appeals, advice and praise. Hard sell strategies have barter, outnumbering, pressure and rank.
Also, you can consider basing your strategy on your audience personality. Specific motivational appeals focus on
provable facts, feelings, right and wrong, audience rewards and audience threats.
4-2. Education

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Motivation is of particular interest to educational psychologists because of the crucial role it plays in student
learning. However, the specific kind of motivation that is studied in the specialized setting of education differs
qualitatively from the more general forms of motivation studied by psychologists in other fields [5,10].
Motivation in education can have several effects on how students learn and how they behave towards subject matter.
It can: Direct behavior toward particular goals, Lead to increased effort and energy, Increase initiation of, and
persistence in, activities, Enhance cognitive processing, determine what consequences are reinforcing, Lead to
improved performance. Because students are not always internally motivated, they sometimes need situated
motivation, which is found in environmental conditions that the teacher creates [6,11].
The majority of new student orientation leaders at colleges and universities recognize that distinctive needs of
students should be considered in regard to orientation information provided at the be ginning of the higher education
experience. Research done by Whyte in 1986 raised the awareness of counselors and educators in this regard. In
2007, the National Orientation Directors Association reprinted Cassandra B. Whyte's research report allowing
readers to ascertain improvements made in addressing specific needs of students over a quarter of a century later to
help with academic success. There are two kinds of motivation:
Intrinsic motivation occurs when people are internally motivated to do something because it either brings them
pleasure, they think it is important, or they feel that what they are learning is significant. It has been shown that
intrinsic motivation for education drops from grades 3-9 though the exact cause cannot be ascertained. Also, in
younger students it has been shown that contextualizing material that would otherwise be presented in an abstract
manner increases the intrinsic motivation of these students [3,12].
Extrinsic motivation comes into play when a student is compelled to d o something or act a certain way because of
factors external to him or her (like money or good grades).Cassandra B. Whyte researched and reported about the
importance of locus of control and academic achievement. Students tending toward a more internal locus of control
are more academically successful, thus encouraging curriculum and activity development with consideration of
motivation theories.
Motivation has been found to be an important element in the concept of Andragogy (what motivates the adult
learner), and in treating Autism Spectrum Disorders, as in Pivotal Response Therapy.
5. Conclusion
Motivation is the cause and manner of the organization to force people to do certain behaviors. Stimulus needs may
be considered as attempts to deal of competence are getting involved. Rather, a combination that made certain
aspects of behavior is describing.
Motivation is not the behavior, one thing or a specific event it can be directly observed.
Two aspects of behavior are described with the concept of motivation include: Explained that the target behavior
or behavior that is learned behavior in which fitness and energy is spent.
In other words, when we can get that behavior is motivated When behavior is motivated to pursue a certain goal or
When the incidence or severity and the surface energy is different from the previous situation , Thus, the term
motivation refers to two different problems. What activate people? And the other thing, what similar activities on
other activities will dominate?
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