OVERVIEW

The goal of Motivation at a Glance is to document theories of motivation, particularly those theories which address learning, education, and information processing, in an effort to identify common threads and concepts which together provide a robust picture and insight into the factors which arouse our desires and influence our behaviors.

Edward L. Deci addresses these factors in his book, Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Motivation (1995). Daniel Pink tackles the question in, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2009). The insights shared by Pink are based on the work of Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory

Rosemary Luckin, in Re-designing Learning Contexts (2010), notes that: the term 'motivation' is subject to a variety of definitions and approaches:

• Bergin et al, (1993), for example, define the term 'motivation' as: 'The physiological process involved in the direction, vigor, and persistence of behavior'.

• Ryan and Deci (2000) define motivation as 'reason for action' and suggest two aspects of motivation: one is quantitative and underpins the way we talk about the strength of a learner’s motivation; the other is qualitative and describes the orientation of the process."

Theories approach motivation from different viewpoints. "There are theories that draw the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Ryan & Deci, 2000), theories that are concerned with sociocognitive constructs, such as expectancy-value theory (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000) and self-efficacy (Zimmerman, 2000), and there are achievement goal theories that identify the influence of person's learning goals on the way that they manage their learning interactions." (Ames, 1992; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Meece, 1991).

An effort to find common threads among theories of motivation, is addressed by Piers Steel, in Integrating Theories of Motivation (2006), "...our understanding of behavior has been hindered by the very extent of our efforts. There is a superabundance of motivational theories. Not only does each field have its particular interpretation, but there are ample subdivisions within each discipline." (2006: 789) Steel offers a case for the integration of theories and suggests that, "A common theme across the disparate disciplines of decision making and motivation is the desire for more comprehensive and integrated theories." (2006: 890)

Identifying, documenting, and compiling key references for a comprehensive list of theories, has proven to be a monumental task. Documenting each theory is insufficient if we wish to make relationships among theories explicit. To achieve this goal, we are creating mind maps to show these relationships. Maps will certainly undergo significant revisions as we address each theory. We share our under-construction maps here: