THE SOCIAL COGNITIVE VIEW OF MOTIVATION

CJ StarnesKalisha FaganBrittany Vance

Lacey HeadJulia Nicholson

Sammantha Kennedy

Motivation

What is Social Motivation? The social cognitive view of motivation

consists of two factors:

1. Various models that people are exposed to.

2. The level of self-efficacy that a person has.

Factor One: Persuasive Models

Persuasive models include: Monkey see, monkey do observation.“By observing models, students acquire knowledge and strategies that they subsequently apply as they work on tasks. Modeled displays also convey to observers that they can succeed if they follow the same sequence of actions” (Juvonen and Wentzel, 163).

Factor One Continued… Vicarious reinforcement: a student expects the same

award after seeing someone else receive reinforcement for completing a certain behavior.

If a student sees a behavior being modeled by one of their peers and he or she receives an award for that behavior, the student expects the same award for performing the same behavior.

Example: If a child sees their older sibling get in trouble for talking back to their parents, the child will observe that if he talked back to his parents like his older sibling did, he would get into trouble and receive the same punishment.

Factor Two: Self Efficacy

When a person sees a model and succeeds consistently when following the model, it increases his or her self efficacy.

Self-efficacy can be defined as how capable one feels at performing a certain task.

There are three types of learning goals… Task Mastery Goals: This is most common with students

with high self-efficacy. Doing whatever it takes to master the concept or material being taught.

Performance-Approach Goals: For this type of student, the understanding of the concept and mastery of the material is not important, it is the ability to outperform everyone else in the class. This is most common with students who have a high sense of self-efficacy as well but might not necessarily understand the ideas.

Performance- Avoidance Goals: These students avoid the spotlight in order to avoid failure and not be considered any less intelligent than other students. They also take part in self-handicapping behavior such as procrastination so they can blame their failure on everything else other than their own ability. These type of students have low self-efficacy.

Outcome Expectations Self-efficacy can also influence motivation by

the outcome expectations of students. For a positive outcome: students will put more

time and effort into understanding the concept and the ideas surrounding it.

For a negative outcome: students will not make as much effort and use simpler learning skills.

The more effort put forth in preparing for a task, the higher self-efficacy that the student will have.

Attributions This is a third way in which self-efficacy

influences motivation. Attributions refer to the reasons why students fail or succeed at a task.

Students with high self-efficacy attribute the failure to not putting enough effort toward a task. They take the blame themselves.

Students with low self-efficacy attribute their failure to the lack of ability to do well. They will also say that success is because of luck or an easy task.

Observation of the Classroom Subject: Math Grade Level: Third Grade Number of Students: 15 students Student Demographics:

8 girls and 7 boys.12 white, two Hispanic, one African American. Most are low SES, a few high SES. At least half of the class attends church or has some belief

system enforced at home. There is one special education student, 2 diagnosed ADHD

students, one student has to attend speech classes twice a week.

Length of Observation: 45 Minutes.

Instructor and Student: Instructor: The instructor has been teaching for 26 years

and taught third grade for 16 years. Instructor rewards students when goals are accomplished and motivates children to learn with stations.

Instruction: Teacher gives clear instruction and directions to students concerning expectations of rules and work ethic. She is consistent in abiding by the classroom rules/procedures.

Students: Students observed are mostly well behaved as long as they have clear instructions. Students have a very wide range of intellectual ability.

Interactions in the Classroom Teacher-Student Interaction: Teacher gives directions to

whole group. If teacher sees a large group struggling with a certain concept, she will go over it again. Teacher gladly answers questions of students.

Student-student interaction: Students are paired according to their performance on the Star Math test. For example, a high lower level student will be paired with a higher high level student.

Classroom Management They are to ask their peers a question first and

after asking peers, then may ask the teacher. The teacher uses lights off, lights on to get their attention. If they do not choose to follow directions, the student goes back to his or her desk and completes work alone instead of being able to work with others.

Assessment and Curriculum Assessment: Students turn in work completed to

their own personal mailbox. Teacher has skill sheets that she checks off when she sees students accomplishing certain skills.

Curriculum: The classroom uses Harcourt Math

and uses Star Math to test the students’ mathematic skills.

Other Observations in the Classroom

The teacher says “Everyone get your books out” and she notices that a boy is getting his books out like she asks and she praises him for it. Then all of the other students quickly get their books out as well (modeling).

The teacher has assigned them math problems to show understanding of concepts they have gone over that day. Some students ask if they may do more problems because they feel very confident that they can do that skill (task mastery).

The teacher gives out math problems and a student speeds through the problems so that he can finish the problems before everyone else, although each problem might not be correct. (performance approach).

Similarities in Theory and Observation

We saw an example of outcome expectations in the classroom. A boy was very bright in the subject of math, has a high self-efficacy, and expects to do well. But a girl in the class struggles with math and if she receives a good grade she credits the success to luck.

Students either feel as if they have knowledge and are very good at a subject, or they think that they just got lucky because they received a good grade.

A student can have confidence in math, but can have low self-efficacy while doing fractions.

What Is Our Argument? After observing the classroom for 45 minutes

and reading up on social motivation, we have come to the conclusion that even though both factors that influence motivation are valid, we feel that the students in the classroom we observed and honestly most elementary students for that matter, are motivated more by seeing other students model a behavior and get certain consequences, whether they be good or bad.

Our Supporting Evidence When we observed the classroom, we noticed students were more

motivated when the teacher gave praise to another child for doing their work or being on task instead of being motivated by how they feel they could do on a task. We feel that at a younger age some children knew that they were not that good at certain topics, but mostly it felt to us, were not that self-aware. It is not that we do not believe that children are not motivated by how they feel they will do on a subject, we just observed that students would stay on task or do their work when another child was praised for doing such a great job.

One example of this is when the children were doing math problems and one of the students got off task and made the others get off task to look at him, the teacher praised another student for doing such a great job with doing their work quietly. When the students who were not doing their work realized that in order to get praise like that student did they would have to do their work, they immediately stopped and got back on task again.

How It Pertains to Psychology and Instruction It shows that we, as teachers, need to center our

classroom on model-based behaviors. At this age many things are done in groups and when a child is praised in the classroom, the other students will strive to get some sort of praise also. Of course we need to make sure our students have high self-efficacy and it is something we teachers need to continue to work on for our students, but at this time in a child’s life, they just want to be acknowledged for doing something good, so when they see an opportunity to get this praise they will do what needs to be done to receive it.

References: Snowman, Jack, Rick McCown, and

Robert Biehler. Psychology Applied to Teaching . 13th . Canada: Wadsworth, 2009. 370-372. Print.

Juvonen, Jaana, and Kathryn Wentzel. Social Motivation. Cambridge, New York: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1996. 163. Print.

QuizFill in the blank

1.Vicarious reinforcement: to receive the same reinforcement, that we see ____________get for exhibiting a particular behavior.   a. The teacher b. Ourselves c. someone else d. our parents

2. Consider this: If a child sees their older sibling get in trouble for talking back to their parents, the child will observe that if he talked back to his parents like his older sibling did, he would ___________________.

a. Get away with it b. get into trouble and receive the same punishment c. get into trouble, but not get punished d. None of the above

3. Choose one: The __________effort put forth in preparing for a task, the higher self-efficacy that the student will have.

a. More b. Lees c. All of the above

4-6. Self-efficacy can affect motivation to learn Match each learning goal with the correct definition:

1. Task Mastery Goals: 2. Performance-approach goals: 3. Performance-avoidance goals:   a. Reducing the possibility of failure so as not to appear less capable then

other students. They engage in self-handicapping behaviors (procrastinating) so they can blame the failure on the circumstances instead of one’s ability.

b. Doing what is necessary to learn meaningfully the information and skills that have been assigned. Most common with students who have high self-efficacy.

c. Demonstrating to teachers and peers one’s superior intellectual ability by outperforming most others in the class. Popular with students who have high self-efficacy but they often don’t understand the ideas or how they relate in the concept. Ex: Cram for the highest grade.

7. Someone with low self-efficacy will attribute their failure to just not having the ability but will say their success was_______________________. a. to an easy task or luck. b. because they were prepared c. because they did their best d. None of the above

True or False

8. Students with high self-efficacy attribute the failure to not putting enough effort toward a task._______ 9. When a person sees a model and succeeds consistently when following the model, it increases his or her self-efficacy._______ 10. The social cognitive view of motivation consists of how many factors?

1 2 3 4

The End!