Hi! Here's a situation that most of us, educators, may be familiar with.
Pepe has been restless and jittery today. He has been begging Ms. Cruz not to send their exam papers home, a routine intended to update parents of students' progress in school. Pepe's mother, an active member of the parents' association in his school, is popularly known to be a perfectionist.
When I was a young student like Pepe, I never really felt any anxiety about showing my grades to my parents. I can’t say I was a high achiever, but I got pretty good grades. In fact, when I was in sixth grade, I happened to rank 3rd among 120 students in academic performance. I just enjoyed learning, not necessarily studying. My parents would never force us to study. In fact, my parents would even cajoled me to skip a school day so we could go out of town! They always underscore the importance of doing something by heart. It took many years for me to understand that such behavior in which one does something because of the self-motivation is called intrinsic learning.
When I was in college though and on to graduate school, I may have consciously or unconsciously displayed a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation when it comes to learning. I suppose that an intervening factor would be motivation based on how the teacher conducts the classes. I detested professors who would give a lot of requirements but never provided immediate feedback. If ever I would get a good grade, that was because of extrinsic motivation. On the other hand, I loved professors who would have a simple outline of topics to discuss, with a reasonable number of requirements, and with clear expectations on students’ outcome, and focus on the more meaningful aspects of the lesson. If I get a good grade, that would be because I was motivated enough to enjoy the lessons, specially intrinsic motivation.
Understanding the case of Pepe can shed some light on the struggles of majority of students who feel anxiety due to many reasons and factors. In the above vignette, Pepe seems to be anxious about his parents finding about his presumably poor academic performance. In fact, the vignette did not mention that he’s got poor performance i.e., low grades. Pepe’s grades might actually be in the middle to upper range level. But because his parents are perfectionists, his motivation seems to have been overshadowed by anxiety.
Now, as an educator myself, I also adhere to the widely-accepted notion that student motivation is “an important influencing factor on student learning, participation, and academic outcomes, inspiration, self-direction, energization to achieve goals, and effort to learn” (Bruinsma, 2004; Ryan and Deci, 2000; Schuetz, 2008; Sternberg, 2005; Zepke et al., 2010). Lack of motivation or even low level of it often leads to poor academic performance. However, this may significantly depend on the learning context (Sternberg, 2005).In such case, extrinsic motivation might be an initial support response in that strategies associated with this kind of motivation somehow encourage and stimulate learning. Rewards, recognitions, incentives, prizes, free time, punishment, and other strategies might initially work until such time that the students is expected to have been conditioned to enjoy learning and develop in himself a sense of accomplishment and reward when self-motivated.
Pepe’s situation may be an example of a problem rooted in constant extrinsic motivation, but not sustained enough to evolve into intrinsic motivation. Perhaps, Pepe would only do what he could to please his parents who have high expectations of him. If these expectations are not met, Pepe himself runs out of motivation. This could lead to other forms of anxiety, or worse, mental anxiety struggles.
As a resolve, the homeroom adviser or the subject teacher, perhaps in collaboration with a guidance counselor, could speak with Pepe and explain how to deal with the problem in the most appropriate manner — that is, no intimidation at all, but constructive feedback and a lot of encouragement to boost up his motivation and self-esteem. The teachers might also want to request a PTA meeting with Pepe’s parents to explain in a professional manner about Pepe’s situation.
When I was both homeroom teacher and subject teacher, I had students like Pepe. And the above resolve was exactly what I would sometimes do. It takes courage, consent, respect, care, trust, integrity, and compassion to build motivation.
References
Bruinsma, M. (2004). Motivation, cognitive processing and achievement in higher education. Learning and instruction, 14(6), 549-568.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 61, 101860
Schuetz, P. (2008). A theory-driven model of community college student engagement. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 32(4-6), 305-324.
Sternberg, R. J. (2005). Intelligence, competence, and expertise. Handbook of competence and motivation, 15-30.
Zepke, N., Leach, L., & Butler, P. (2010). Student Engagement: What is it and what Influences It?. Teaching & Learning Research Initiatives
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