Just like a horse with water, a new Center on Education Policy report argues that educators can lead students to knowledge, but they can’t make them learn unless the students are motivated.
The report from the Washington-based CEP describes four foundations of student motivation: competence, in which students think they have the ability to do what is being asked; control, or students believing they have choice in what to do and can affect the outcome; interest, in which students perceive value in the task or learning; and relatedness, or believing that doing the task or gaining the knowledge will gain them social approval.
“Rewarding specific actions that students can control, such as completing homework, yields better results than rewarding accomplishments that may seem beyond their reach or out of their control, such as whether they earn an A grade,” the report says.
