1. Cognitive Factors in Motivation
Chapter Twelve
Educational Psychology: Developing Learners
6th edition
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod

2. Cognition & Motivation: Intricately Related
Cognitive aspects of motivation are closely connected with what students know and learn.
Ask yourself:
Why did I do well on that exam (or paper, homework assignment, etc.)?
Why did I do poorly on that exam?
Now examine:
Are you the one in control? Our beliefs about our control of a situation positively or negatively impacts our motivation!
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

3. Student Interest
Students who are interested in what they study show high academic achievement and are more likely to remember what they have learned.
Situational interest: Evoked temporarily by something in the environment
Things that are new, emotionally charged, unexpected, easy to relate to, etc.
Personal interest: Long-term, relatively stable interest in a particular topic or activity
May have started from situational interest
Often things student can do well, appropriate for gender and SES
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

4. Promoting Student Interest in Classroom Subject Matter
Include occasional novelty, variety, and mystery in materials and procedures
Relate information to students’ own lives
Provide opportunities to respond actively to subject matter
Encourage occasional fantasy and make-believe
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

5. Expectancies & Values Motivation may depend on two variables:
Student must believe he/she will be successful (expectancy).
Student must believe there are benefits in performing the task (value).
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

6. Internalizing the Values of Others
Internalized motivation: As children grow older, they tend to adopt many of the priorities and values of people around them. Internalized motivation develops in the following sequence:
External regulation: Learners are motivated by the possibility of external rewards.
Introjection: Learners are motivated by the approval of others; some internal motivation developing.
Identification: Some activities begin to be important and valuable.
Integration: Learners have accepted the desirability of certain behaviors and integrated them into an overall system of motives and values.
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

7. What Influences Internal Motivation?
Three conditions promote the development of internal motivation:
Students need a warm, responsive, and supportive environment.
Students must have enough autonomy to have a sense of self-determination.
Students need guidance and structure, including information about expected behaviors, why they’re important, and consequences for not engaging in them.
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

8. Fostering Expectancies & Values in the Classroom
Identify the specific knowledge and skills that students will acquire
Embed the use of basic skills within the context of authentic tasks
Show them how classroom content relates to the external world
Demonstrate our own value of academic activities
Refrain from requiring that students engage in activities that have no long-term value
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

9. Goals
Some goals are short-term and transitory while others are long-term and enduring.
Core goal: Long-term goal that drives much of what a student does
“I want to be a geologist.” “I want to finish this book before I start the new Harry Potter.”
Mastery goal: Desire to acquire and/or master new skills
These students pay attention in class and have high metacognition.
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

10. Goals
Performance goal: Desire to make a good impression and perform well
May experience anxiety and shy away from tasks that are overly challenging
Performance-approach: Desire to “look good” in front of others
Has some positive outcomes, but may encourage students to use shallow learning strategies and exert only minimal effort (especially detrimental in the younger grades)
Performance-avoidance: Desire not to look bad or receive unfavorable judgments from others
Fearful of trying things that may actually help them in the long run
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

11. Fostering Productive Achievement Goals
Steer classroom environment toward mastery goals
Different kinds of mastery goals are more useful at different times in learning.
Initially students may want to focus on a process goal.
Desire to perfect a procedure that a skill involves
As the desired procedure becomes more automatic, students shift to a product goal.
Desire to attain a certain standard of excellence
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

12. Unproductive Goals Work-Avoidance Goals
Students often use a variety of strategies to help them avoid work, including:
Engaging in off-task behavior
Selecting easiest tasks when given the choice
Why might students do this?
They may have low self-efficacy.
They may not see relevance or long-term payoff of work.
What can you do?
Use a variety of motivational strategies, including students committed to mastering subject matter
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

13. Attributions
Attributions are personally constructed causal explanation for success or failure.
I failed the exam because….
I passed the exam because…
I got an A on the paper because…
I got a D on the paper because…
Attributions can be internal or external; controllable or uncontrollable; stable or unstable.
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

14. Attributions
We all have a tendency to attribute our successes to internal factors but attribute our failures to external forces.
The most optimistic (and the most successful students) tend to make attributions that are internal, controllable, and stable.
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

15. How Attributions Influence Affect
Students are more likely to feel happy, proud, and satisfied with a success if they believe that the cause of the success was internal.
If a student believes a failure is the result of an internal force, they may feel sadness, shame, and guilt.
If the cause of a failure is external, students are likely to be angry.
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

16. How Attributions Influence Cognition
If students attribute success to stable factors, they believe they will always be successful.
If failure is attributed to internal factors, students will believe they will always fail.
Success and failures attributed to unstable factors may not really impact expectations for future performance.
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

17. How Attributions Influence Behavior
Effort and persistence
If attribution of failure is lack of effort, students are more likely to try harder next time.
If attribution of failure is innate, uncontrollable, and unstable (such as lack of intelligence) students are not likely to put in more effort and will give up easily.
Classroom performance
Students who make internal attributions are more likely to use effective study strategies.
Future choices
When students expect success in a particular area, they are more likely to engage in that activity.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

18. How Attributions Develop
Factors influencing development are:
Past successes and failures
Situational cues such as the success or failure of others
Reinforcement or punishment
Messages from others
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

19. Mastery Orientation vs. Learned Helplessness
Students exhibit mastery orientation when they attribute their accomplishments to their own capabilities and effort and have an “I can do it!” attitude.
Students with learned helplessness believe that all effort will be met with failure (“I can’t do it”).
The students may feel as if they have no control.
This is often the result of repeated attempts at a task that have failed.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

20. Teacher Expectations & Attributions
Teachers often form expectations of students’ potential for academic success early in the school year.
Teachers tend to underestimate the abilities of:
Physically unattractive students
Immigrant students
Minority students
Low-income students
Students who speak a different dialect
Students with behavioral problems
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

21. Teacher Expectations & Attributions
Teachers with high expectations for students create a warmer classroom, have more interaction with students, and provide more positive feedback.
Teachers with low expectations offer less interaction, less encouragement, and less challenging assignments
The self-fulfilling prophecy: Teacher expectations for either student success or failure either directly or indirectly lead to the expected result.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

22. Forming Productive Expectations & Attributions for Student Performance
Look for strengths in every student
Consider multiple possible explanations for students’ low achievement and misbehavior
Communicate optimistic and controllable attribution
Learn more about students’ backgrounds and home environments
Assess students’ progress regularly and objectively
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Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

23. Considering Diversity in the Cognitive Aspects of Motivation
Ethnic Differences
Some members of minority groups may have lower expectations for success.
This may be the result of experiences with discrimination.
There may be different definitions of academic success, and therefore different goals may be set.
There may be an emphasis on group over individual achievement so that the focus is on everyone doing well, not individual success.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

24. Considering Diversity in the Cognitive Aspects of Motivation
Gender Differences
Girls tend to underestimate their competence.
Boys tend to overestimate their competence.
Girls are more easily discouraged by failure than boys.
Boys tend to attribute their success to stable ability and their failures to lack of effort.
Girls tend to attribute their successes to effort and failures to lack of ability.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

25. Considering Diversity in the Cognitive Aspects of Motivation
Socioeconomic Differences
Students from low-income families flourish when teachers:
Have high expectations
Engage students in high-interest activities
Emphasize mastery over performance goals
Make students feel they are members of the classroom community
When working with students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, remember:
Self-efficacy and self-determination are essential for intrinsic motivation.
We can increase the perceived value of school activities by making them engaging and relevant to their own lives.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition

26. Accommodating Students with Special Needs
Students with special needs are more likely to show signs of learned helplessness.
Students with behavioral problems may attribute their social failures to factors outside of their control.
Teachers must help students with special needs develop a sense of self-determination.
Copyright © by Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey All rights reserved.
Jeanne Ellis Ormrod Educational Psychology: Developing Learners, sixth edition