100w Final Project: Failure to motivate College Students

Feeling too lazy for school? You’re not the only one!

Colleges in California, and perhaps the rest of the United States, have failed to successfully motivate students to perform to their full potential according to Dr. Roxana Marachi, an educational psychologist.

“When students get a tangible reward, like good grades or a top spot in a class, it actually makes them less motivated,” says Marachi.

The college system is based on grades and students are rewarded and valued by rank. This is not the way to motivate students to succeed.

Marachi, San Jose State’s assistant professor of the college of education, led a workshop for teachers and staff about how to better motivate students. The session took place at San Jose State in the Instructional Resource Center room 101 on March 3 at 1:00 p.m.

It was a smaller classroom that seemed to be at full capacity with only 12 participants there. The seating was meeting room styled with everyone in a circle, a setting that encourages equality between teachers and students.

The basis of the meeting focused on healthy learning versus unhealthy learning. Marachi explained that, Behaviorism, one of the oldest learning theories, actually has nothing to do with learning.

For students, grades become the prize at the end. Students learn to work solely for a reward. This works for a short period of time, but is detrimental to their work ethic in the long run.

SJSU e-Campus blackboard.com administrator, Mark Adams said that the top performers in their field “spent an enormous amount of time in practice; they also enjoyed practice.”

The best way to learn is to learn for the sake of learning, and not to pass the class.

Marachi reminded us that it is the teachers responsibility to make the subject matter seem interesting and useful to the students. Engineering professor, Jacob Tsao, Ph.D., brought up a discussion on what student, Justin Riray, likes to call, “the cemetery syndrome,” in which the entire class seems dead. Tsao said that on a regular basis, he would ask the class a question and not a single hand would raise.

By incorporating students’ personal knowledge with the learning material, it comforts and invites students to learn and accept school.

The function of schools, according to reproduction theorists, is to reproduce the ideology of dominant groups by passing down knowledge and wisdom. In order to consume long-term information, students should feel comfortable and accepted.

Marachi explained the expectancy - value theory of motivation. Multiply what the learner expects to learn by how much he values the material to calculate their motivation level.

“This is a multiplicative model, it is not additive,” Marachi said.

“If one of them is zero, then they are all zero,” she concluded.

It was discussed that if a student believes they will do well, but is not at all interested in the subject, or visa versa, then they will have zero motivation.

Constable Todd Chadwick of the Miramichi Police Force wrote an article on how parents can communicate better with their teens. You will find that much of the advice given can be used by teachers in a classroom as well.

"Spending relaxed time with teens sets the scene for communication, but it is usually not enough. Parents also need to learn how to be good questioners to get conversations started. To do this it is important to know something about what is happening in their lives," said Chadwick.

Students are more able to learn in an environment where they are comfortable and have a relaxed connection with their teachers.

It is healthy for teachers to spend a good amount of time getting to know students and just having normal conversation about their lives. Educators will always be more capable of successful teaching if they have developed a bond with students that goes beyond just teaching.

Chadwick continues, "Another aspect of the listening process is avoiding actions that block communication. Primary among these actions is interrupting. Even if you are sure you know what the teen is talking about and have a brilliant answer for the problem, do not interrupt. Teens hate this and will not continue the conversation."

Many times, teachers will interrupt students and try to finish their answers or stop students when their response

Cutting students off mid-response usually drastically decreases their will to speak up in class, added to the fact that it takes a lot of courage for most students to even raise their hand in class. To disrespect students while they are speaking by interrupting them does no good for their learning experience.

Educational psychologist, James Sanders says that beliefs about educational psychology from half a century ago put education in danger by being based upon the notion that there are only either true or false ideas. On the contrary, educational psychology is more about rationalizing.

There is more to learning than correct and incorrect ideas. Students need to learn how to think critically instead of creating clones of their teachers’ lectures and photo copying pages of books into their minds.

American students are all taught to work hard to get good grades so they can get a good job. What happened to learning? Oh yea, doing anything to become successful took its place.
Many teachers teach facts. They teach by the books.

Dennis Hungridge, M.A., a human resources workforce planning manager reminded people how the U.S. has built itself on opposite values from the rest of the world.

“The cultural myth of the United States is working hard; not education,” claimed Hungridge.

While Europe and most of Asia founded their worth on knowledge and learning in order to succeed, the United States has founded it’s values on working hard.

Since society has taught this generation to work for short term goals, they have developed short term motivation. People give up to easily. Failing just one class could completely hinder a student’s full potential, because they are likely label themselves a failure from then on.

Marachi advised that students have to learn to love school for the sake of increasing our knowledge and preparing themselves for life using the tools offered to us by teachers. People also need to be optimistic about difficult trials and failures.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

Jordan once observed, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life.”

“That is why I succeed.”

-Justin Riray, SJSU Journalism Major






(Sidebar)

Educational Theories and What Works Best for Students

Behaviorism (Incentive Theory):
Rewards and punishments can be used to condition a person.
People are motivated to obtain pleasant consequences and to avoid unpleasant ones.
This is when people are motivated by external factors such as money or good grades.
Instead of being intrinsically motivated, in which they enjoy doing a task and find it satisfying in itself.
For example, in favor of Behaviorism, a student will try hard in school in order to be rewarded with good grades or praise.
Whereas, students who are intrinsically motivated just do well in school because they enjoy learning and achieving.

Behaviorism, which was once viewed as the best way to teach, is actually a very wrong teaching system.
By relying on rewarding or punishing students, teachers would actually diminish their self-efficiency and inner motivation.

Expectancy and Value Theory:
Expectancy X Value = Motivation Level.
The learning ability of a student on a certain subject relies on what, and how much they expect to learn multiplied by how much they value the information or skill they are being taught.
For instance, if a student loves music and is confident that she will learn a lot in a piano class, then she will do well.
Where as a student who doesn’t really care much for English class nor does he think he can do well, will do very poorly in an English class.

This works for students who are interested in a subject and have a high self-expectancy.
Teachers must do their best to make students feel like the class material is exciting and important to their lives.
As far as expectancy, teachers must also provide students with clear opportunities for success and communicate a climate of support for learning.

Achievement Goal Theories - Mastery goal vs. Performance goal:
The Mastery Achievement Goal Theory focuses on improvement and understanding. Intelligence is viewed as changeable and mistakes are viewed as opportunities to learn and perfect things.
The Performance Achievement Goal Theory focuses on ability and ranking relative to others.
The climate is more competitive, rather than improvement of oneself. The students are outcome oriented and view intelligence as fixed. Ex. All the smart kids always get A’s, but not me, I’m not that smart.
Mistakes are viewed as failures.

The Mastery Goal approach is good for average students. They will feel more comfortable making mistakes and speaking up in class, and actually try to learn the material that is difficult to them because they are focused on learning.
Therefore, they are not stressed out about getting an A, they just want to do their best.

The Performance Goal approach works great for the higher-tier students.
The “A” students will thrive in a performance goal climate.
They work hard in order to get A’s and be at the top of the class.
If they feel like they are awarded with good grades and ranked highly then they will be more motivated to learn.

The secret for a teachers to help motivate their students is to know them individually.
Teachers must know the strengths, weaknesses, and motives within each student, like a coach knows his players.
Of course, for the bigger classes, it would be hard for a teacher to remember every single student.
In order for most students to be successful in a class, they must feel like the information is relevant to their lives and they must feel supported by their instructor.




Broadcast Script:

Anchor lead-in:

Feeling too lazy for school?
You’re not the only one!
Justin Riray reports from an Educational Psychology workshop at San Jose State.


Live:

COLLEGES IN CALIFORNIA HAVE PROBLEMS SUCCESSFULLY MOTIVATING STUDENTS TO PERFORM TO THEIR FULL POTENTIAL ACCORDING TO DOCTOR ROXANA MARACHI.

THE EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST SAYS WHEN STUDENTS GET A TANGIBLE REWARD LIKE GOOD GRADES, IT ACTUALLY MAKES THEM LESS MOTIVATED.

TEACHERS SHOULD FOCUS ON HELPING STUDENTS TO VALUE THE INFORMATION THEY ARE LEARNING INSTEAD OF VALUING THEIR CLASS RANK AND GOOD GRADES.

BY BASING SUCCESS ON MATERIAL RESULTS RATHER THAN IMPROVING UNDERSTANDING AND OVERALL KNOWLEDGE, STUDENTS LIMIT THEMSELVES AS LEARNERS.

SCHOOL SHOULD BE ABOUT PREPARING PEOPLE TO ACHIEVE GREAT THINGS IN LIFE, NOT TEACHING THEM HOW TO ACHIEVE GOOD GRADES.

FROM SAN JOSE, JUSTIN RIRAY, UPDATE NEWS.