Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Intrinsic Motivation Blog Prompt 2

Hannah has given herself a self-label that she will always do bad no matter what the subject.  This is shown when she refuses to try because she thinks she doesn't know the material.  She does know the material with just a little guidance with the teachers help, but when she has to do it on her own she says that she doesn’t know it.  This proves that she knows it however she will not do it by herself because she thinks she will never be able to get a correct answer.  One way to help her is to help her believe in herself.  One way a teacher can do this is by giving her positive feedback even if she can only do one step on her own.  This will hopefully motivate herself and have her realize that if she tries she can do the work and she isn’t the “dummy” of the class.  Also a teacher can give her an easy example to start and progressively get harder so she gets the problems correct to make her feel smarter rather than make her think she is dumb 

1 comment:

  1. I think you are right that Hannah may have given herself a self label--that's one explanation. What's another? How would you explain this through attribution theory, for example?

    I'd like a little more explanation of what you mean by 'know the material'. It seems simple, but this assumes that there is some collection of knowledge stored in her head that is just taken out at some point. If 'knowing' is displaying the behavior at a particular time, then you might take one approach, while if 'knowing' is having a particular schema encoded, you might take another. (This is pretty high level and just a side note on your point)

    I think your suggestion is very reasonable--intervene into her beliefs about competence and self worth. Starting with very small goals and getting feedback (seeing that she's succeeding) is a great intervention related to goal theory. What do the sections on competence and self worth recommend? (There are some alternative strategies such as using relevance and interest)

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