How to motivate, engage and retain students is a commonly discussed topic in higher education. From one perspective, we seem to be further from finding the magic ingredient than ever before, especially after the huge technological and attitudinal shifts that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a motivation researcher, however, I see the problem a little differently.
We have known how to motivate our students for a long time – it’s acting on this knowledge that is difficult. People keep asking how to do it, in the hope that a different, easier solution will be created – but it’s not going to happen. But progress can be made. Here, want to highlight some issues that hinder our efforts to motivate students and offer some practical advice.
What is motivation?
The different scientific definitions of motivation can be boiled down to the psychological forces that drive behaviour. This definition is important because it distinguishes motivation from behaviour. For example, a student who attends lectures because they love the topic is motivated differently from a student who attends because they want good grades or to avoid their parents going crazy if they found out they weren’t attending.
This example has two important implications. First, student attendance is a poor indicator of motivation. Second, it is not just about the quantity of motivation, it is about the quality too.
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This leads to an important question: do educators want students with high-quality motivation, or do they want bums on seats? These are two very different outcomes.
Similarly, what do students want? To possess high-quality motivation (a concept I will discuss shortly) or to simply obtain a good grade? A focus on attendance and grades is understandable, given the educational challenges and the culture that we live in. Nonetheless, it is sure to develop poor-quality motivation and engagement.
In contrast, by focusing on high-quality motivation, high attendance and good grades are likely to follow. Poor-quality motivation can lead to attendance, but only high-quality motivation can lead to engagement.
So, what are some high-quality motives and how can educators shift the emphasis towards them? The most basic motivation principle is that humans repeat things that feel pleasant. In other words, students need to enjoy the learning experience. Sitting in a lecture theatre listening to someone for two hours is rarely an enjoyable experience. Some educators get scared at this prospect because they associate “pleasant” with “funny”. Comedy is a good way to enhance students’ experience but not the only way. Whether something simple such as including frequent rest breaks, employing technology or something more drastic like turning a lecture into a cinematic experience, the experience should feel pleasant.
But higher education learning can’t be fun all the time. Some content might be essential to learn but unlikely to send students wild with intrigue. The key in these instances is to demonstrate the value of learning the content. True value is not telling students that a boring but necessary topic will be covered in the exam so they should turn up to lectures. Rather, value is demonstrated by explaining why knowing the content is personally useful for them, what other insights it might lead to or how it explains something that students are familiar with. Educators should also acknowledge to students beforehand when content isn’t likely to inspire. This will encourage students to find their own value, rather than turning up expecting to be entertained. All these approaches take effort but will add value.
Value partly explains why class attendance has plummeted since the pandemic. The human brain is an incomprehensively complex organ, but one of its functions is to simplify information so decisions can be made. With that in mind, what is the added value of attending lectures, when students can watch it several weeks later when they need the content for an exam? If in-person class attendance is an important goal, then there needs to be added value.
Enjoyment and value are such powerful motivators partly because they are experienced immediately. All things equal, an immediate benefit is a better motivator than a delayed benefit. Unfortunately, students are almost entirely focused on the grade they receive at the end of a module or degree, which can be months or years in the future. Students aren’t to blame for selecting the wrong goal – it’s the culture that we live in. Good educators can, however, try to tip the balance the other way. Don’t get me wrong – obtaining good grades is important. But it shouldn’t be the primary motivator. If a student enjoys the course content, sees value in it and has a supportive learning environment, good grades are very likely to follow.
An often-ignored immediate outcome that has excellent motivational potential is social benefit. When I went to university, the Thursday morning lecture was always well attended because we wanted to laugh and talk about the Wednesday night party. There are many more suitable ways to make learning a social experience, such as integrating time and space for collaborative learning.
By understanding what motivation is (and what it’s not), educators can focus on developing high quality motivation by fostering enjoyment and value, and enabling students to learn with others. These ideas might not seem particularly worthy of headlines, but they work. Just because they are difficult to implement does not mean they are wrong.
Ian Taylor is reader in motivation science at Loughborough University and author of the book Time Hacks (Little, Brown).
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