Motivation

Motivation is the system by which individuals and groups choose to engage in a behavior and continue with it (McInery, 2019). It begins with a psychological or physiological deficiency, creating a need that activates goal-driven behavior (Luthans, 2012). 

Motivation was operationalized using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Pintrich et al., 1991). The MSLQ is a self-report scale designed to measure motivational orientation and learning strategies in college students. The motivation subscale examines the following five aspects of motivation: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, task value expectancy (both control of learning beliefs and self-efficacy for learning and performance), and test anxiety. For the purposes of reducing participant fatigue, only 1 item from 4 of the 5 motivation subcategories were used. 

Sample Questions include: 

• “I choose course assignments that I can learn from even if they don't guarantee a good grade.” (Intrinsic motivation)

• “Getting a good grade in this class is the most satisfying thing for me right now.” (Extrinsic motivation)

• “If I study in appropriate ways, then I will be able to learn the material in this course.” (Expectancy Component: Control of Learning Beliefs)

• “I believe I will receive an excellent grade in this class.” (Expectancy Component: Self-Efficacy)

• “When I take a test, I think about how poorly I am doing compared with other students.” (Test Anxiety)

The MSLQ is a well-established and widely used motivation scale. It has high internal consistency, with a Cronbach's alpha ranging between .52-.93. It also has high construct and predictive validity (Pintrich et al., 1991). It was coded on a scale of 0-100 to two decimal places, with 0-33 representing "not true at all of me," 34-66 representing "moderately true of me," and 67-100 representing "very true of me." 

Selected Student Writings

Check out the literature search below that students of the Spring 2023 PSYC 300 class have conducted on this topic!

Self-Efficacy: The Key to Motivation

Rebecca Friedlander

A majority of Americans lack motivation in their everyday lives (Naylor, 2014). Finding the best way to increase motivation is vital. Motivation is "an internal drive one has to satisfy their needs" (Higgins, 1994). It is the "process that gives one's behavior purpose and direction" (Kreitner, 1995). Examining psychological well-being is important because it is the basis for understanding how processes can influence the way people think, feel, and act. Studying motivation specifically is useful because it is a key to many people's accomplishments. Motivation affects every aspect of life. Without motivated people, our society cannot function properly (Uichol et al., 1994). Motivation is what initiates competition, affects our survival, and sparks social connections with others. A solution to individuals having increased motivation is to get them to believe that they can succeed (Margolis & Macbee, 2003). 

One technique that is positively correlated with an increase in motivation is focusing on high self-efficacy (Pajares, 1996). Self-efficacy refers to "one's belief about being able to accomplish something and implement action which affects one's ability to produce their desired results" (Bandura, 1997). Self-efficacy has a self-enhancing effect on increasing motivation through cognitive strategies (Zimmerman, 1995). When individuals focus on their self-efficacy and gain information about how well they are doing, individuals will be able to increase their motivation because they internally believe that they have the potential to be successful and achieve their goals (Schunk, 1995). This internal belief is the key.

Transformational Professor Leadership and Motivation in College Students

Hannah Collier

Innately, a leader's role, among other things, is to motivate its members towards a common goal (Aamir et al., 2012). In the context of this paper, a teacher is a leader in which their teaching style may affect students' motivation to varying degrees. Among a range of leadership styles, transformational leadership is an emerging style used by professionals in a wide variety of areas. Educationally, teachers use transformational leadership, which aims to inspire students by fostering creativity, improving engagement, enhancing self-efficacy, and emphasizing innovation (Noland & Richards, 2014).

Moreover, motivation drives human action and is the reason in which an individual behaves a certain way (Aguilar-Parra et al., 2020). Within motivation, there are several types that include extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, and demotivation (Aamir et al., 2012). Extrinsic motivation refers to the fact that there are outside forces/factors driving motivation. Intrinsic motivation pertains to having an internal commitment to activity because it is perceived as enjoyable. Finally, demotivation is a lack of motivation (Aguilar-Parra et al., 2020). With that being said, extrinsic motivation will be the focus of the study because transformational leadership is the external factor impacting motivation in students. 

Several studies have shown the relationship between transformational leadership and motivation. Noland & Richards (2014) operationalized transformational leadership using a Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) given to college students to provide insight on their teacher’s degree of transformational leadership style. Motivation was operationalized using a motivation scale of bipolar adjectives: “motivated/unmotivated, excited/bored, interested/uninterested, involved/uninvolved, dreading it/looking forward to it”. From this, researchers were able to determine, using a Pearson’s R correlation, that transformational leadership is positively related to student motivation.

Another study by Aguilar-Parra et al. (2020) also used questionnaires to determine the relationship between transformational leadership and motivation. Students completed the Transformative Teaching Questionnaire (TTQ) to evaluate their teacher’s leadership in the classroom, and then completed another questionnaire assessing demotivation, extrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation. The results showed that teacher transformational leadership positively impacted student motivation. Furthermore, from these findings, researchers measured other factors such as burnout and academic performance because of the influence motivation can have on them. They found that academic motivation positively predicted performance and negatively predicted burnout.