Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation in Schools

LITERATURE REVIEW

Overview

Many schools have stated that one of their goals of education is to develop students' interest in life-long learning. The people who continue to learn throughout their lives must actively make decisions and take actions to develop their education. In other words, they have no teacher giving deadlines or grades to oversee their performances. The autonomic learning habits should be cultivated from young, and therefore, elementary school education should take the responsibility to create an environment in which students can enjoy learning and see learning as a life-long process. It is believed by researchers that intrinsic motivation plays an important part in a person's desire to study, and his/her willing to take on new challenges and keep working on them. In order to equip students with these characteristics, elementary school teachers need to understand how intrinsic motivation can be effective in facilitating students' learning and ultimately lead to their interest in life-long learning. Throughout the life of an average student, thousands of academic objectives are faced and need to be completed. When an objective is given, the student must become motivated in order to begin working. There are two types of motivation which the student can use in any academic situation. The student can complete an objective with the mindset of receiving an incentive when finished or they can use their inner feelings of competence to help drive to academic completion. These two types of motivation are called intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. There are several factors which affect these types of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and a student's achievement in an academic setting. These factors are: the surrounding environment, parenting styles, and ethnicity. Before being able to study the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on students in an academic setting, each term must be researched to truly gain their complete understanding.

Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is internal motivation derived from inside the body for reasons that do not involve external rewards. Activities the students complete are wanted to be complex, challenging, and pleasurable (Sternberg & Williams, 2002; Pittman, Emery, & Boggiano, 1982). Intrinsic motivation in students is increased by receiving internal competence and by giving verbal rewards which show proficiency and mastery of the activity or skill being completed (Pittman, Emery, & Boggiano, 1982; Boggiano, Main, & Katz, 1991).

Extrinsic motivation is the desire to do something based upon the gain of external rewards or incentives. It has been proven to have positive and negative effects on students and their academic outcomes. The person is driven by the knowledge of receiving an outside incentive and when adding an incentive in the form of a reward, personal interest level of the activity decreases because the reward is considered the reason to complete the activity. Even though personal interest levels decrease, desire to complete the activity increases due to the incentive offered (Pittman, Emery, & Boggiano, 1982). Activities completed by extrinsic motivation are preferred to be simple and predictable, only being completed to finish and ...