motivation: a psychological construct designed to explain why people vary in the amount of time, energy, and talent they invest in the tasks they confront

we recognize motivation by observing behavior

• choice of behavior / direction

• willingness or eagerness to engage

• effort and persistence (grit)

• quality of cognitive engagement

  • depth of processing

Sample and Methodology

Terms to Understand

• attributions: how people explain the causes of their stress and failure

  • influence self-efficacy

  • people naturally look for understanding of why events occur

  • effort and ability are the most common attributions

  • causal dimensions:

    • locus of control

      • internal: attribute factors to qualities about you

      • external: attribute factors to something outside yourself

    • stability: how will these factors change over time?

      • personality is stable

      • luck is unstable

    • controllability: effort is controllable, personality isn’t

• achievement goals: focus on competence

  • performance-approach: demonstrating high competence to self and others

    • focus on looking good

    • tend to have self-efficacy

    • prefer tasks easy for self, hard for others

    • avoid personally difficult tasks

    • expend effort when it indicates high ability

    • avoid effort when it indicates low ability

    • when efficacy is in doubt students may shift to performance-avoidance

  • performance-avoidance: avoiding demonstrating incompetence to self or others

    • with high efficacy

      • fear of failure

      • exert high effort to avoid failure

      • success brings relief but not satisfaction

    • with low efficacy

      • fear of failure

      • self-handicapping: failing on purpose to avoid feeling bad

      • avoid internal attributions for behavior

  • learning goals: improving or increasing competence

    • self-efficacy compared to others is not an issue

    • prefer personally moderate challenge

    • exert effort and persist

    • use deep processing and self-regulation