In 2009, Daniel Pink wrote Drive – a book that interrogated what we know about motivation and challenged the world with a reframing of what makes us tick. In 1949, Harry Marlow explored what we knew (and didn’t know) about motivation. Dogma at the time proclaimed two motivational systems. The first system was intrinsic and biological (eating and drinking for survival) and the second was extrinsic and environmental (rewards and punishment). But neither of those explained why people (and, in his experiments, monkeys) solved puzzles.
It seems that we derive gratification merely through the performance of task. That is, the engaging part of the experience is the experience itself. Some people like jigsaw puzzles (or playing video games or writing poetry or volunteering at a library or picking up trash on the highway or contributing to Wikipedia or developing code for Linux). Humans have plenty of hobbies and interests that transcend monetary reward (and oftentimes notoriety). In fact, Pink asserts:
“When money is used as an external reward for some activity, the subjects lose intrinsic interest for the activity,” he wrote. Rewards can deliver a short-term boost—just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours. But the effect wears off—and, worse, can reduce a person’s longer-term motivation to continue the project.
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Pink claims that extrinsic motivation is actually damaging in the long run. He quotes Jonmarshall Reeve’s Understanding Motivation and Emotion:
“People use rewards expecting to gain the benefit of increasing another person’s motivation and behavior, but in so doing, they often incur the unintentional and hidden cost of undermining that person’s intrinsic motivation toward the activity.”
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One of the other pernicious byproducts of extrinsic motivation is that it just isn’t durable; the behavior change is temporary and the link to the external reward overtakes the internal drive.
Several studies show that paying people to exercise, stop smoking, or take their medicines produces terrific results at first—but the healthy behavior disappears once the incentives are removed. However, when contingent rewards aren’t involved, or when incentives are used with the proper deftness, performance improves and understanding deepens. Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one’s sights and pushing toward the horizon.
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One last quote from Drive – and this is a shout-out to Rochester. Edward Deci and Roger Ryan proposed self-determination theory (way to go, University of Rochester!) as an explanation for why we extract pleasure out of some of the things we do:
Self-determination theory begins with a notion of universal human needs. It argues that we have three innate psychological needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When those needs are satisfied, we’re motivated, productive, and happy. When they’re thwarted, our motivation, productivity, and happiness plummet.
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Note that this is not necessarily an indictment on grades. There are systemic issues that might prevent abolishing grades anyhow – though work from Jesse Stommel and Susan Blum are very promising and attractive. But the fact remains that as educators we need to be mindful to balance extrinsic motivation.
Another approach to designing learning experiences involves two relatively new theories of learning – heutagogy and generative learning. Both of these were discussed at the SUNY Online Summit (it was this week and had fascinating sessions with national and international speakers – you can watch. A fascinating presentation by Dr. Jeff Borden, Chief Academic Officer at D2L, focused on learning science. He discussed generative learning (you can watch the presentation here) and offered as an example an anatomy class. If you skip ahead to the 25 minute mark and watch for four minutes, you’ll see him talking about two different methods of teaching the anatomy of a human heart. One is a media-rich, three-dimensional model of the heart and the other is a low-fidelity method that asked students to draw a diagram of a human heart. Here’s what he said:
“and the students drew – before they even had any sort of text or reading or information given to them about a heart – she said, ‘Just draw one. Draw a heart as best as you can from what you know.’ Now that process is called generative learning. Super powerful to ask students to do things they can’t do yet. To ask them to do things that they are incapable of so that it motivates them, they understand they need the information, etc.”
Note that this dovetails perfectly with James Lang’s Small Teaching, specifically chapter 2 that deals with prediction as a method of learning.
Making predictions about material that you wish to learn increases your ability to understand that material and retrieve it later.
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The link between intrinsic motivation and generative learning starts to emerge as we consider that learning experiences can be intentionally designed as immersive, engaging experiences. They don’t need to be puzzles (although digital escape rooms are a thing – see the College of Charleston or BreakoutEDU), though they should take inspiration from heutagogy. Unlike pedagogy (children’s learning or andragogy (adults learning), heutagogy is self-directed learning. It’s not a prescribed teaching philosophy, but it does share exciting, energizing underpinnings.
A heutagogical learning experience is non-linear; the learner might view a few YouTube videos, then get some online tutoring from a provider, read some blogs, read a textbook, take a class, engage with a teacher or mentor, join an online community, and share their own work and get feedback. Higher education does play a role in this life-long learning journey and the nature of web 2.0 and web 3.0 help curate a constructivist playground.
The University of Illinois, Springfield has a tremendous matrix that clearly articulates the differences between these three. Consider this sample from the matrix that interrogates the different dimensions of motivation:
- PEDAGOGY: Motivation comes from external sources — usually parents, teachers, and a sense of competition.
- ANDRAGOGY: Motivation stems from internal sources — the increased self-esteem, confidence and recognition that come from successful performance.
- HEUTAGOGY: Self-efficacy, knowing how to learn, creativity, ability to use these qualities in novel as well as situations, and working with others.
What does all this mean? How can we construct a philosophy that is designed to invoke intrinsic motivation, engage students, address the diverse cravings of learners, and provide a meaningful experience? We don’t know the answers to that (yet), but it does seem like a brilliant thread to pull.
