"You may be able to maintain certain minimum standards by stressing duty. But the highest moral and spiritual achievements do not depend upon a push but a pull. People must be charmed into righteousness." -- Reinhold Niebuhr.
Hello friends.
How do you create intrinsic motivation? Let's explore this question together, shall we?
Students always seem to want some kind of tangible payoff for studying (a grade, a GPA, etc.). Schools (even grad schools) use a reward system just for doing the right thing at any given time. This is extrinsic motivation, and hardly ideal.
For years I've been asking myself, "How is it possible to generate intrinsic motivation?" My experience has been that students will become motivated by their own desire for a successful future if you can help them see the immediate connection between what they are learning today and how that fits into their big picture. It is no longer about making their teacher happy or just following the rules or avoiding a bad grade. They are working hard because they find the work inherently satisfying. (Think of the time you volunteered somewhere and you enjoyed it because you chose to do it.) So I think it's definitely possible to encourage intrinsic motivation. But once students have been in the American school system long enough, it is extremely difficult to do so. Their natural curiosity and sense of autonomy have been discouraged because they have become used to doing only whatever is needed for a good test score and tend to loathe open-ended evaluations.
Intrinsic motivation begins with proper pedagogy. Appeal to emotion. Appeal to creativity. Appeal to the beauty of the subject matter. Be Socratic. Surround your students with a meaningful and satisfying experience. Make them laugh. Model curiosity. Wonder about things out loud. "I wonder why Paul used this grammatical construction in this verse. Oh my gosh, now I have to know!" Let your students see you fail and try again. Talk about how silly it is that you once thought grammar was boring. "Can you believe I really thought that?" Mention interesting things without explaining them. The goal is to have students dying to know what that big word means. Or to beg for a chance to work with you in solving the exegetical problem you're working on.
External motivation, at least my perspective on it, is only doing something if the reward or punishment is present. Intrinsic motivation is finding some personal value in the activity.
My anecdotal experience is that most students are eager to be treated like grown up adults. Research shows that achieving goals is dependent on the type of motivation you use. Shifting from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation is essential for obtaining our goals. When we do something we love doing, we're like an automobile that doesn't require any fuel. For me, that is marathoning and mountaineering. For others, it's mastering a biblical language. Research has not yet identified a foolproof way to develop intrinsic motivation. What we do know is that extrinsic rewards often undermine intrinsic motivation (the so-called "undermining effect").
Typically, people are driven by a combination of motivational factors. Sometimes these factors are internally driven. At other times they are more externally driven. Our motivation is highest when both factors are present.
Thanks for putting up with this quirky philosophical dialogue!