Week 7

Motivating our Students

Through Curriculum & Instructional Design
Intended Learning Outcomes
• 1. Understand key motivation principles in the context of teaching and
learning

• 2. Apply key motivation principles into your own teaching practice

• 3. Evaluate different teaching and educational practices in light of

motivation theories
Activity 1: Entry Ticket
Think of teacher behaviours that increased or decreased your
motivation for learning?
Think of teacher behaviours that increased or
decreased your motivation for learning?
 Motivation
• The term motivation is derived from the Latin verb
movere, which means to move
 Motivation
• Comes from the Latin word “movere” , which means to move

• Motivational theories attempt to answer questions about what gets

individuals moving (energization) and toward what activities or tasks
(direction)(Pintrich & Schunk, 2002)

• Not just about quantity but also quality

Motivation is complex and multidimensional
Self-Determination Theory
Self-determination Theory
What do students want?
Self-determination theory says….
Autonomy

Competence

Relatedness
Three Basic Psychological Needs
• The need for competence refers to the desire to master and
be competent in interactions with the environment.

• The need for autonomy reflects a desire to be in control or

to feel autonomous or self-determining in terms of one’s
own behavior.

• The need for relatedness reflects a wanting to belong or be

attached to a group (Baumeister & Leary, 1995)
Activity 2: Work on the worksheet with your
groupmate
• Classify these teacher behaviours in terms of the following:

• Competence support (+)

• Competence thwarting (-)

• Autonomy support (+)

• Autonomy thwarting (-)

• Relatedness support (+)

• Relatedness thwarting (-)
Different teacher behaviours that support or
thwart competence
Competence Support Competence Thwarting
Providing optimal challenge Publicly present critical
feedback
Providing specific feedback Criticize a fixed quality
Praise improvement or effort Criticize losing via peer
comparison
Provide feedback aimed at Chaotic or absentee teaching
improvement or effort
Different teacher behaviours that support or
thwart autonomy
Autonomy support Autonomy thwarting
Allow for student input/choice Use of pressuring language
Teach in students’ preferred ways Set up activities that exclude some students
Provide rationales Set pressuring deadlines
Ask students about their experiences of the Use praise as a contingent reward
lesson
Provide a variety of activities
Provoke curiosity
Provide extra resources for independent
learning
Rely on invitational language
 Different teacher behaviours that support or
thwart relatedness
Relatedness support Relatedness thwarting
Show unconditional positive regard Ignoring students
Ask about students’ welfare, progress, and/or Use abusive language
feelings
Expressing affection Provide punishments unfairly
Promote cooperation Yell/use a harsh tone
Teacher enthusiasm Provide rewards unfairly
Show understanding of the students’ point of Be sarcastic
view
Other considerations
• 1. It is possible to support students’ basic psychological needs even in
a very minimalist setting.

• 2. It is possible to do it even in online teaching and learning

activities/contexts
Practical example of how to promote basic
needs with simple instructions
• This task is called a C-test. A C- • “About this task: (1) This task can assess and
can also help improve your language
test is a task where you fill in proficiency in English. (2) You are more likely
the blanks to make a meaningful to do well by reading carefully and putting
effort into the task. (3) You may find some
sentence. In a given text, parts parts of the task to be more challenging than
of some words have missing others, and that is normal. What’s important
letters. [A blank C-test is shown is that you do your best.” After the default
task instructions, the following is also added:
here as an example] Your task is “You can consider re-reading the words,
to complete the words to make taking down notes, or using other strategies
the words and the sentences that you find suitable for you. I trust you can
do this task well. If you find some parts of the
meaningful, as below: [a tasks confusing or if you want to clarify
completed C-test example something, please do not hesitate to message
me in Zoom.
The Study
 How they supported these needs

• Autonomy: offer and recommend various digital resources for the same learning unit while indicating
their relevance to students, e.g., videos, text-based notes, slides, and URLs (Chiu, 2021a) •

• Relatedness: use personal and emotional designs for LMS design and communications to promote a
positive atmosphere (Chiu, 2021a; Chiu et al., 2020), e.g., uploaded pictures of class members, face-
shaped designs

• Competence: offer five level-up exercises and well-designed interactive learning materials in a cognitively
demanding technological learning environment, e.g., levels 1 and 5 indicate basic and most advanced
exercises (Hong Kong public examination results use five levels); apply multimedia learning principles to
the design of digital materials (Chiu et al., 2020; Chiu & & Churchill, 2015; Chiu & Chai, 2020)
What the study looks like
• The students learned a mathematics topic in the blended mode for 10
consecutive school days. Every school day, they completed pre-lesson
activities and resources provided in the Learning Management System
(LMS) at home, then discussed what they had learned using both
physical and digital communication in 1-h face-to-face lessons. After
the lessons, they extended their learning through post-lesson
activities in the LMS. In the last lesson, they completed a self-reported
questionnaire on their perceived teacher and digital support and
engagement in blended learning.
Building students’ sense of
competence: Example of a
curricular intervention
This paper is about a curricular intervention
in science classes
The Typical Way We Learn about Scientists’ Lives in
Science Textbooks
Highlight scientists’ struggles: Einstein, Curie, and
Faraday
Highlight scientists’ struggles: Einstein, Curie, and
Faraday
Experimental versus control condition
Experimental condition: Control condition:
• “I felt connected to Curie. Yes, I also • “There is nothing to connect to
went through an ordeal, when I first because it was all about his
moved to U.S. There was only me and
my mom in the country. We lived in a [Einstein’s] achievements and
no heat apartment for one winter, what places he [Einstein] went
everything in the room was frozen.” to, which I have not done.”

• Einstein’s curiosity and how he never • “No, not really because the
gives up on what he believes are chemistry behind her work
what I feel connected to.”
doesn’t interest or concern me.”
Activity 3 (Think-Pair-Share)
• Think of some educational practices that are common in Hong
Kong/Greater China/other parts of Asia. Evaluate these practices in
light of self-determination theory. Discuss your answer with your
seatmate
ARCS
ARCS
• ARCS is an instructional model developed by John Keller, and focuses
on motivation. It is important to motivate the learners, and ensure
the continuity of the motivation during the instruction. This model is
particularly important for e-learning, since motivating learners in an
online course more difficult than in face-to-face courses.
Attention-Relevance-Confidence-Satisfaction
• 1. Attention: It refers to the learners’ interest. It is critical to get and hold the
learners’ interests and attention.

• 2. Relevance: The learning process should show the usefulness of the content so
that learners can bridge the gap between content and the real world.

• 3. Confidence: This component focuses on developing success expectation among

learners, and success expectation allow learners to control their learning processes.

• 4. Satisfaction: There is direct relation between motivation and satisfaction.

Learners should be satisfied of what they achieved during the learning process.
Attention
Relevance
Confidence
Satisfaction
What motivates students in
classrooms?
Activity
• Think about your group project. Think of how you can incorporate
ARCS principles into your group project.
1. Adaptive attributions and control beliefs
motivate students.
• The basic construct refers to beliefs about the causes of success and failure and
how much perceived control one has to bring about outcomes or to control ones’
behavior (Skinner, 1996)

• Students who believe they have more personal control of their own learning and
behavior are more likely to do well and achieve at higher levels than students
who do not feel in control, such as those who are often labeled as learned helpless
(Pintrich & Schunk, 2002; Skinner, Zimmer-Gembeck, & Connell, 1998).
Let’s think about the following scenario
• When a student gets an A? How does he/she explain this result?

• When a student fails in class, how does he/she explain this result?
Curriculum & instructional design principle
• Provide feedback that stresses process nature of learning, including importance
of effort, strategies, and potential self-control of learning.

• Provide opportunities to exercise some choice and control.

• Build supportive and caring personal relationships in the community of learners

in the classroom
2. Higher levels of interest and intrinsic
motivation motivate students
• Interest

• Cost beliefs refer to the perceptions of the costs or negative

consequences of engaging in the task, although it has not been
empirically investigated as much as the other three components of
task value (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002).
Curriculum and Instructional Design
Principles
• Provide stimulating and interesting tasks, activities, and materials, including some
novelty and variety in tasks and activities.

• Provide content material and tasks that are personally meaningful and interesting
to students.

• Display and model interest and involvement in the content and activities.
3. Goals motivate students
Ability grouping makes performance goals
salient
Posting students’ grades in public makes
performance goals salient
How to promote mastery over performance
 Curriculum and Instructional design
principles

• Use organizational and management structures that encourage

personal and social responsibility and provide a safe, comfortable,
and predictable environment.

• Use cooperative and collaborative groups to allow for

opportunities to attain both social and academic goals.
Curriculum and Instructional Design
Principles
• Classroom discourse should focus on mastery, learning, and understanding course
and lesson content.

• Use task, reward, and evaluation structures that promote mastery, learning,
effort, progress, and self-improvement standards and less reliance on social
comparison or norm-referenced standards.
Let’s do a practical example
Activity
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWOt2HyjCno
What do you think of the goal of doing your
best? Is this be effective?
What the research shows
• Specific goals are more effective than generic “do your best” goals
Goal-setting theory by Locke and Latham
1.Clarity
2.Challenge
3.Commitment
4.Feedback
5.Task complexity
Clarity
• To be motivating goals need to be clear. When a goal is clear it’s easy to
understand exactly what you need to achieve. It’s not open to debate or
interpretation.

• When a goal is vague and imprecise, it’s difficult to know if you’ve achieved it .
SMART Goals
Challenge
• To be motivating goals need to be challenging, but not too challenging.

• A goal that is too easy to achieve won’t motivate you to up your game and
increase your performance. Similarly, a goal that you perceive as way beyond
your capability won’t motivate you either. It may actually demotivate you.

• For a goal to motivate it must hit the sweet spot between challenging you but not
over challenging you.
Beware the planning fallacy
Key findings of a study
Buehler, Griffin and Ross, 1994, Journal and Personality and Social psychology

• #1 Over 70% of students finished their assignment later than they

had predicted they would, with the average time taken being over
55 days compared to the average prediction of 34 days.
• #2 In the second study, the researchers found a similar number of
people underestimated the time it would take to complete a task,
regardless of it if was an academic piece of work or an everyday
activity, such as cleaning their apartment or fixing their bike.
Key findings of the study
• #3 60% of students who spent time actively recalling similar previous tasks were
more likely to accurately predict how long the next task would take. Students who
did not use this technique were only right 29% of the time.
• #4 When making future predictions, students were more likely to think about
future progress instead of potential future obstacles.
• #5 Students were more likely to finish a task on time if the deadline was set for
them, rather than setting one themselves.
Commitment
• For a goal to be motivating you must be committed to it. Likewise, if your setting
goals for others you need to ensure that they bought into the goal.

• Students need to ‘own’ the goals that they set for themselves and they should
not feel ‘forced’ to engage in these goals.
Feedback
• In order for a goal continue to motivate you as you work towards it, you must
receive feedback.

• For feedback to be effective:

• There must be a goal.
• Feedback must be received regularly.

• For teachers, it might be about engaging in formative assessment

Task complexity
• In order for a goal to be motivating it must not be too complex. Highly
complicated goals can be overwhelming and demotivating.

• Tip: Break down into subgoals.

• Good Target Setting: Break down complex targets into sub-targets.

Bad Target Setting: Set a complicated target and simply expect students to get on
with it.
Sample paper (setting personal best goals)
Setting goals
• “Last year you scored xx/40 in your mathematics test. Can we encourage you to set a
personal best (PB) target for this year's mathematics test that is higher than last year's test?”

• Then, treatment group participants were asked to enter a PB target score as follows: “My
personal best (PB) target for this year's test is zz/40.” They were also instructed: “Make
sure this PB target score is higher than last year's score.” Students' 2013 target scores were
then checked to ensure that this score exceeded their 2012 score. Having entered their PB
target score, they were informed: “It is important that you remember your PB target score
for the upcoming mathematics test. Now that you have set this PB target, can we encourage
you to remember this target as you do your preparation and the test?” To close the
treatment instruction session, treatment group students were instructed to print out a page
that contained the following details: “Last year I scored xx/40 in my mathematics test. My
personal best (PB) target for this year's mathematics test is: zz/40.”
Students were asked to print out their
personal best goals
• Leading up to the test, the treatment group was reminded (by e-mail
and/or SMS text) of their PB target score four times (one week prior, three
days prior, one day prior, and on test day), as follows: “Just a reminder
about your personal best (PB) target score. Last year, you scored xx/40 on
the mathematics test. This year, you set your PB Target at zz/40 for the
mathematics test. To help remind you of this PB Target, you will have
printed out your Target score zz/40 when you set it earlier this week. Try
to remember this PB Target leading up to the Mathematics test this week”.

“Last year I scored 28/40 in my mathematics test. My personal best (PB)

target for this year's mathematics test is: 35/40.”
Activity: Grade Goals and Personal Best
• 1. What is your grade goal for this course?

• 2. What do you think of the research on grade goals and personal

bests? Is there a way to integrate this into your own teaching practice?

• 3. Do you think students normally set goals for themselves? Do

teachers set goals for the students?
WOOP and Goal Setting
Two students, Zoe and Aylin, think about an upcoming class
presentation.
Who will get a better grade?

Zoe pictures herself how she delivers Aylin also vividly imagines how she delivers
an outstanding presentation. She an outstanding presentation. But directly
imagines that her teacher and after evoking the respective events in her
classmates will be impressed with her mind, she thinks about the obstacles she
astute and articulate speech and that needs to overcome to make her
she will finish her presentation with a presentation a success. She thinks about
big smile on her face, feeling confident the party that is forthcoming the week
and proud. before the presentation, how easily she
may get distracted, and how hard it can be
to find a good opening line for a
presentation
WOOP
The WOOP Process
Let’s watch this video
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mobxikaYgU (Gabriele
Oettingen)

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBaVSJ6zq4c (WOOP
Explanation)
Activity 4: WOOP Exercise
• Please refer to the class handouts
Let’s look at this experiment
4. Higher levels of value motivate students
• Although interest and intrinsic motivation can certainly motivate students to learn, it also
matters whether students care about or think the task is important in some way.

• In recent achievement motivation research, this has been operationalized most explicitly
in expectancy-value theory, with task value beliefs defined in terms of four components
—intrinsic interest, utility, importance, and cost (Eccles & Wigfield, 1995; Wigfield, 1994;
Wigfield & Eccles, 1992).
• Intrinsic interest - similar to personal interest,
• Utility - utility is defined in terms of individuals’ perceptions of the usefulness of the content or task
to them, a more extrinsic orientation to the task.
• Importance or attainment value - refers to how important it is to do well on the task for the
individual as well as how central the task is perceived to be to the individual’s personal identity
• Cost - cost beliefs refer to the perceptions of the costs or negative consequences of engaging in the
task
Curriculum and instructional design principle:
Make learning relevant by drawing connections between what
they are learning in a course and their lives
Control condition vs. relevance intervention
• Below is a list of the units covered • “In the space below, we would
in Course 101 so far. For each topic, like you to write 1-2 paragraphs
summarize what you know in about about how the material that you
1 or 2 sentences. We are not asking have been studying in Course 101
you to elaborate on the material, relates to your life. We are not
just to summarize the information asking you to summarize the
that you can recall.” Underneath material, just to elaborate on its
the prompt were four text boxes relevance to your life. So far, you
labeled for each class unit (i.e., have covered the following units
History, Careers, & Connections; in your class: History, Careers, &
Research; Biology & Behavior; and Connections; Research; Biology &
Memory).
Behavior; and Memory.”
Relevance intervention
• Context: Undergraduate students taught a mental math technique

• Type a short essay (1 – 3 paragraphs in length) briefly describing the

potential relevance of this technique to your own life. Of course,
you’ll probably need more practice with the technique to really
appreciate its personal relevance, but for purposes of this short essay,
please focus on how this technique could be useful to you in your
own life, and give examples.
Some examples
What the students wrote in their essays:
• “I am studying nursing and I feel that this technique will be helpful when
working with patients and getting them the best care as fast as possible.”
• “This [technique] is especially relevant if you were buying an item in bulk, for
example buying t-shirts or sweaters for a club or organization.”
• “Soon I’ll have to begin paying my own rent for an apartment, and techniques
like this one could help me with the calculations involved in paying monthly
fees.”
• Another example of finding the course information useful is understanding how
hormones and chemical messengers lead to mood and emotion change, this
helps me make sense of situations more and regulate my well being. Overall, i
have found most information on the course useful, and have been able to relate
it to everyday life.”
Relevance to one’s present life
• “Edible fungi such as mushrooms turn out to be packed with nutrients,
after watching this video and learning about the health benefits of eating
mushrooms, I will be more inclined to use mushrooms more when I am
cooking to create healthier dishes. Fungi can apparently take root in homes,
causing a significant amount of property damage as well as producing
possible allergens which bring about health problems in humans. Knowing
about how those fungi grow and what conditions lead them to grow well
will be vital in attempting to clean and remove those fungi from houses. I
personally feel that a little bit of general knowledge on fungi, which are all
around us in our everyday lives and hence at the very least slightly relevant
to us is important to have, because knowledge is good to have, relevant
knowledge, even more so.”
Relevance for one’s future career
• “To me, Fungi and knowledge of Fungi will be very useful in my future
everyday life. As a pre-pharmacy student, learning how fungi are
made in to drugs and learning how to deal with Fungal infections will
be extremely important. As a future Pharmacist, knowledge about
Fungi is very important. For example, one area in pharmacy that Fungi
are very crucial are antibiotics. Many different antibiotics come from
Fungi. Knowledge of antibiotics and knowledge of the structure of
Fungi will help me to understand how drugs affect people’s bodies
and help me to be a successful Pharmacist.”
These interventions might be especially useful for students
with lower self-confidence in raising interest and grades
Key Findings
• These interventions are short and easy to administer

• They improve performance, interest, and motivation in the course

• They are especially useful for students who are lower in confidence.

• They can be used to alleviate achievement gaps

• For students with more disadvantaged economic backgrounds
• For students from under-represented ethnic minority groups
Students dislike abstract theory unrelated to
their daily lived experiences(Kember, 2016)
Qualitative comments from HK college
students
Different ways to establish relevance
• Use writing prompts to let students generate their own connections
• Use real life examples
• Draw cases from current issues
• Give local examples
• Relate theory to practice
5. Self-efficacy and competence perceptions
motivate students
• When people expect to do well, they tend to try hard, persist, and perform better
(Pintrich & Schunk, 2002).

• Students who believe they are able and that they can and will do well are much
more likely to be motivated in terms of effort, persistence, and behavior than
students who believe they are less able and do not expect to succeed (Bandura,
1997; Eccles et al., 1998; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002).
Sources of self-efficacy
5. Self-efficacy and competence perceptions
motivate students
• It is important that these self-efficacy and competence beliefs are adaptive, in
terms of representing a fairly accurate perception of one’s capabilities.

• There are dangers associated with overly optimistic or pessimistic perceptions of

efficacy or competence (Bandura, 1997).
From the teachers’
perspective
How we as teachers can motivate or
demotivate our students
• Enacted curriculum – teachers

• Experienced curriculum – students

Take care of your own motivation and well-
being
Intrinsically motivated teachers teach in more
motivating ways
Let’s read this case study
Activity

• 1. Do you think stress contagion happens in your classroom? (YES/NO). How does
this look like?

OR

• 2. Can you give other examples that are contagious in the classroom?
Conclusions
Curriculum and Instructional Design
Principles
Practical Implications
• Help students connect what they are learning to their lives
• Writing prompts
• Assessment
• Group activities
• Lectures

• Help students set the right goals

• Encourage mastery over performance goals
• Make them more aware of the obstacles
• Use the principles of goal-setting theory
Practical Implications
• Help enhance sense of belonging by
• Writing exercises
• Normalizing struggles/difficulties
• Connecting with students

• Take care of your own motivation and well-being.

• You cannot give what you do not have!
Some closing thoughts
Before the class ends
• Give me a list of your groupmates for the Group Report
• For the group presentation, you will be pretending that you are applying for a
QEF project for your school. The focus will be on a curricular innovation (e.g.,
developing a new curriculum, innovating/changing the existing curriculum).
You will also need to touch upon instruction (how are you going to teach this
new curriculum) and assessment (how will you evaluate it). Each group is
comprised of 4-5 students. The presentations will be done via zoom on
March 27 and April 3.

• Please help do the exit ticket.

Exit Ticket

Option 1: The most important lesson I learned

was…..OR
Option 2: One question I have is….