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Extrinsic Motivation: A Case Study

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I went to primary school in the early 1980’s; I had a very typical education for the time, Maths, English, Science, with hefty doses of fear, in the form of the threat of corporal punishment. We sat in rows, no talking, no sharing of ideas just copying from the black board into our books; these days it would be termed a behaviorist model of teaching. My classmates, those who didn’t fit the norm, had a very lonely, isolated experience; in some cases I know the experience frightened them off learning forever. When I began my study I knew that there must be a better way to teach all students, and I am very glad to say there is; Groundwater –Smith, Ewing and Le Cornu (2007) state, “ for education to transcend mere schooling it requires that …show more content…

Motivation is an extremely important element of proactive and positive classroom management, used properly effective teachers minimise the need for authoritarian behaviour management, while still achieving quality-learning outcomes. There are a number of motivational categories, intrinsic and extrinsic, achievement and achievement and attribution theory. Intrinsic motivation relates to a student’s motivation that has no ‘external reward’, the student is simply motivated by “needs, interests, curiosity and enjoyment”; using extrinsic motivation a student would receive some type of reward or benefit for achievement, such a being able to have lunch early (Marsh, 2008, p.34). Achievement motivation relates to the cultural and family motives that influence, “high or low levels of achievement motivation” (Marsh, p.37). Attribution and social motivation are used to explain the achievement motivation.

Marsh (2008) states, “motivation is a very important force that affects and directs our behaviour. As a consequence it is a vital factor for teachers to understand and to apply in their teaching” (p.46). The question however is which motivation will you use and how? It would be nice to think that your classes will all be intrinsically motivated, but this may not always be the case; how will extrinsic rewards fit with my future classroom model? (Groundwater-Smith et al, 2006). As an answer to this, Marsh states that teachers need to employ a trial and error approach to

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