Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Intrinsic Motivation Blog Post 2
Hannah could be exhibiting a form of work-avoidance goal motivation that many students get as they reach higher grades. Because the scenario never specifically tells us what grade Hannah is in, she could very well be any where from 5th grade and up. When children get older, they start to exhibit signs of putting forth less and less effort and trying anything they can to avoid doing their work. Some of the behaviors that they engage in are pretending they don't understand an assignment or taking the easiest path when given choices. The way that Hannah is acting like she doesn't understand the material except when the teacher is walking her through the problem exhibits both of these behaviors and suggests a work-avoidance goal motivation.
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I really enjoyed your post about Hannah. It seems like she wants to be spoon fed everything to her. She wants the teacher to do step by step with her in hoping the teacher will eventually just give her the answer. It also doesn't tell us what time of the school year it is. If she's in the 5th grade she just might be tired of school and already thinking about summer and being in junior high next year.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an interesting diagnosis and fits that theoretical description! It could very well be that she's avoiding work, depending on exactly how she behaves when she's helped by the teacher (we're not given very specific details, but you could imagine that if she is very productive in those interactions that hypothesis would not work).
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