What Is Extrinsic Motivation?

Extrinsic motivation involves a student being influenced mostly through extrinsic, or outside, means. This type of motivation relies on an external locus of control in the student and academic achievement is dependent on the expectations set by parents, teachers, or other members of society. In extrinsic motivation, the satisfaction of others is considered more important than that of the self, especially in school achievement and performance as rules and expectations are outlined by the teacher.

This type of motivation is highly critical when the student lacks the internal desire to complete an activity or improve personal performance for the sake of improvement. Extrinsic motivation provides external rewards that entice student engagement and further performance.

Why Is This Important For Us as Educators?

Gaining the knowledge of what someone wants from you based on a provided guideline and past experiences is a skill that translates from school to work and even social situations amongst peers. Extrinsic motivation is a large deciding factor on student participation in school and their academic performance, and understanding the expectations outlined for their work is necessary to keep students driven to complete work efficiently and in a timely manner (Tyner, 2018; Sprouts School, 2021).

Introducing the concept to students that we as educators have high expectations for them and setting those expectations early on is important in schools so that our students not only understand what they must do to be successful on a grade basis, but also so they begin to create an internal locus of control seen through intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation go hand-in-hand and should be fostered in a balance of the two to ensure a higher academic achievement in the classroom and prevent the potential event of “gifted kid burnout” (Sprouts School, 2021). According to Tyner's (2018) article, students find that they are not responsible for their assignments being completed as there are no negative (or positive) consequences for late and missing work. It is important for our students to understand that there will be consequences, negative or positive, regarding the work they submit in the classroom and that they should adhere to the expectations laid out for them.

How to Extrinsically Motivate Your Students

The gamification of tasks in the classroom as well as offering different types of rewards depending on the desired outcome can help to extrinsically motivate students. Offering rewards towards the beginning of the school year and dwindling the frequency and amount of these rewards as time goes on can help to use extrinsic motivation to increase intrinsic motivation.

Setting realistic grade goals with the input of the student is an example of extrinsic motivation as there is pressure to attain these goals through hard work but also pressure to not let down the teacher involved as well as parents who are invested in their child’s education. The key phrase here is ‘the input of the student’ because this process places the student in an active role in their education and fosters the idea of an internal locus of control.

2) Mr. Dominion wants his students' academic performance to increase this school year. He believes some kind of external motivator will help increase achievement and internal motivation and decides to create a point chart for his students in the classroom. Each point denotes a satisfactory grade for an assignment submitted. For every point made, the student will receive a gold star on the chart under their name. Points are not taken away after being received. What could be a negative outcome for this method of motivation that could be avoided by considering other potential methods?

a) Mr. Dominion is a harsh grader and doesn't award points when he should.

b) Students feel anxiety about having good grades/gold stars, and as a result, avoid submitting work.

c) Mr. Dominion's students develop an internal locus of control because they want more gold stars.

d) Students will steal gold stars from each other and place them under their names.