“Motivation
enhances orientations such as willingness to master tasks; goals,
interests, and attitudes; and various beliefs about oneself. Each
of these fosters investment of effort or task
avoidance.”
Corno et al.
(2002)
Motivational Orientation: The Social
Cognitive Model
There is little doubt that the constructs of
cognitive ability (intelligence) and motivation are the most
commonly mentioned and researched determinants of school learning
(Gagne & StPere, 2002; Linnenbrink & Pintrich,
2002b). The “common belief within the general
population is that both factors exert approximately equal causal
influences on talent development” (Gagne & StPere, 2002,
p. 71). Research generally supports the importance of
motivation in academic achievement (DiPerna & Elliott, 2000;
Stinnett, Oehler- Stinnet, & Stout, 1991). Although
meta-analysis research has not supported the equal stature of both
constructs, an average correlation of 0.34 has been reported
between various indices of motivation and school learning
(Parkerson, Lomax, Schiller, & Walberg, 1984). Thus,
although not as powerful a predictor as cognitive ability (IQ),
motivation is an important causal contributor to academic
success.
Most contemporary research regarding the construct
of motivation is based on a social cognitive model (Covington,
2000; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002). Contemporary motivation
models differ from the traditional and layperson view of motivation
where students are classified as either motivated or not, or where
motivation is viewed as a single continuum. Motivation is
currently viewed as a multifaceted dynamic phenomenon where
“learners can be motivated in multiple ways and that it is
important to understand the how and why of learner motivation. This
change in focus implies that educators should not label learners as
‘motivated’ or ‘not motivated’ in some
global fashion” (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002b, p.
313).
According to the social cognitive model,
motivation is not necessarily a stable trait of an individual and
may vary as a function of the setting (e.g., prevailing classroom
reward structures) (Covington, 2000) and specific subject matter
domain (Bong, 2001). Also, understanding a student’s
motivation requires knowing more than descriptive characteristics
of the student (e.g., personality characteristics or cultural
demographics) or the student’s specific contextual
environments. Understanding an individual’s motivation
requires a recognition and understanding of “the
individual's active regulation of his or her motivation, thinking,
and behavior that mediates the relationships between the person,
context, and eventual achievement” (Linnenbrink
&Pintrich, 2002b, p. 314). In other words, understanding
a student’s motivation requires an attempt to peer into the
“black box” of a student’s mind to understand
their “thinking” about the what, where, why, and how of
goal attainment. The interaction of social and
academic motivation goals is addressed in the orientations
towards others section of this paper. Clearly,
contemporary social cognitive motivation models differ dramatically
from earlier models of motivation that focused on drives and
reinforcement (Covington, 2000; Wigfield & Eccles,
2002).
The Multiplicity of
Goals
Contemporary motivation research suggests that
students often try to achieve multiple goals that can be
differentiated by content, or, the “cognitive representation
of what it is that an individual is trying to achieve in a given
situation” (Wentzel, 1999, p. 77). Ford (1992)
delineated 3 general categories of individual goals—task
goals, self-assertive social relationship goals, and integrative
social relationship goals. According to Ford (1992), task
goals are of five major types:
•
Mastery – trying to meet a challenging standard of
achievement or improvement.
• Task
creativity – engaging in activities that invoke artistic
expression or creativity.
•
Management – maintaining a productive and organized
structure and order in daily life tasks.
• Material
gain – increasing the amount of material/tangible goods
(or money) one has.
•
Safety – seeking an environment where one is secure,
free from risk, and free from harm.
Goal Hierarchies
Not only may students have multiple goals,
different students may have different implicit or explicit goal
hierarchies (Bandura & Schunk, 1981; Wentzel,
1999). Bandura and Schunk (1981) suggested that, in the
academic domain, the setting and linking of explicit near-term
(proximal) sub-goals to larger long-term (distal) goals can produce
greater task persistence, enhanced self- efficacy, and increased
intrinsic interest in learning. It is hypothesized that students
who perceive their present academic-related behavior as linked to
long-term goals and objectives (indicating a linked hierarchical
goal structure) tend to display more positive motivational and
academic outcomes than students who do not maintain a positive
future- oriented goal perspective (Wentzel, 1999).
Hierarchical belief and goal systems appear important for
sustaining (or undermining if not present) academic performance
over time.
Key Families of Motivational
Beliefs
No less than 13 different types of
achievement-oriented beliefs, values, and characteristics are
listed collectively under the 3 subdomains of Motivational
Orientation, Interests and Attitudes, and Self-Beliefs. A
variety of theorists have proposed similar, yet different, models
of achievement motivation. For example, Linnenbrink and
Pintrich (2002a) suggest that there are 4 key families of
motivational beliefs—self-efficacy, attributions, intrinsic
motivation, and goal orientations. According to Wigfield and
Eccles (2002), the proliferation of slightly different models has
resulted in a “proliferation of terms for constructs that on
the surface are relatively similar. The clearest examples of this
are the variety of related-to perceptions of ability and self-
efficacy, and the variety of terms for different goal
orientations” (Wigfield and Eccles, 2002, p. 4). The
constructs listed under the broad umbrella of orientations
towards self (motivations) represent my best (and acknowledged
imperfect) attempt to provide a reasonable summary of this broad
MACM domain.
