\n<\/p>\n
In Jarek Janio\u2019s Inside Higher Ed<\/em> opinion column, \u201cBeyond \u2018Grit\u2019 and \u2018Growth Mindsets,\u2019\u201d Janio argues that, to promote better student learning, college instructors should ignore questions about student motivation and focus solely on changing student behavior. He focuses on two ideas from the motivation field\u2014grit and growth mindset\u2014as examples of \u201ctraits\u201d that have weak associations with student learning. Instead of focusing on what goes on \u201cinside the student\u2019s head,\u201d he argues we should instead focus on \u201cwhat\u2019s happening in the environment and change that instead.\u201d<\/p>\n As educational psychology researchers, we are also interested in how to get students to engage in effective learning behaviors. We fully agree with\u2014and our research supports\u2014the idea that it is important for instructors to structure learning environments to support student learning, such as by offering opportunities for students to revise their work and providing clear, well-defined feedback. However, it is a mistake to ignore what is going on inside students\u2019 heads. In doing so, we miss a very crucial piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n As anyone who has taught a college class knows, students are not robots. There are vast differences between them. Take the example of offering your students an opportunity to revise and resubmit their work, after receiving feedback, for a higher grade. Just because you provide this opportunity does not mean that all your students will take it. Some students will enthusiastically revisit their work, dig into the feedback provided, seek additional feedback and deepen their learning. Others will half-heartedly look over the feedback and make shallow attempts to revise. Still others will not glance at the feedback at all and will not turn in a revision.<\/p>\n These differences are, in part, due to more stable traits that students may have, such as their conscientiousness, their perfectionism and\u2014yes\u2014their grit. However, these differences may also be a function of other individual differences that are less stable. Take growth mindset, for example. Those of us who study growth mindset tend to think about it as a belief rather than a trait. It is something that can change based on the context.<\/p>\n Imagine a student who has been told by their statistics instructor that statistics is something that anyone can learn\u2014you just need the right strategies. Their art professor, on the other hand, has told them that you need a special, innate talent to be good at art\u2014you either have it or you don\u2019t. These factors can shape students\u2019 beliefs, and in turn, their behaviors. For example, this student may be much more likely to engage in revising and resubmitting their work in their statistics class (where they have stronger growth-mindset beliefs) than their art class (where they have stronger fixed-mindset beliefs). This pattern is also true for when students feel confident about their abilities or have a desire for learning. Such students seek out help more proactively, and they engage with feedback more constructively.<\/p>\n Although grit and growth mindset are perhaps the most well-known (and have some legitimate weaknesses), researchers in the educational psychology and motivation fields study many other factors that impact student engagement and learning. These include students\u2019 interests, values, goals, needs, emotions, beliefs and perceptions of the instructor and their classroom\u2014all things that are going on inside the student\u2019s head but that are critically important to understanding their behavior. <\/p>\n Theories of motivation articulate the processes through which students\u2019 beliefs, values, needs and goals shape their engagement, behaviors and choices. Researchers have created and tested effective tools to observe, measure and assess these different factors. Decades of research have given us robust understandings of how these factors are both shaped by and interact with the environment to predict students\u2019 behavior and learning. These aspects of the individual student matter.<\/p>\n It is important to focus both on what is going on in students\u2019 heads and<\/em> what is going on in the environment. Instructors have the power to shape their classroom environment in different ways that can influence student behavior. <\/p>\n We do not disagree with the strategies Janio proposed instructors should focus on. Instead, we want to emphasize that these strategies are effective because<\/em> of how they are motivationally supportive. For instance, incorporating a revision process into course assignments is based on mastery goal structures, or the environments instructors can nurture so that students focus on their improvement and growth. Normalizing failure is a growth mindset\u2013teaching practice that helps students see the effort they put into the learning process as being something of value. Providing feedback is an important way to inform a student\u2019s self-confidence and show them how they can be more competent in the future.<\/p>\n Motivation is the central mechanism through which these strategies can help students persist through learning challenges. By understanding student motivation, these teaching strategies and approaches can be fine-tuned and adapted to differently motivated students to maximize student learning. That is exactly what motivation scientists in education have been investigating for decades. Simply discarding learner motivation is dismantling the science that undergirds motivationally supportive teaching.<\/p>\n A return to behaviorism essentially disregards the last 50 years of psychological research emphasizing the important role students\u2019 cognition, emotion and motivation plays in the classroom. It is critical to understand these psychological processes that have been rigorously tested across many studies. Students are also agentic and complex in their thinking and motivations, so a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works. By harnessing students\u2019 motivation, instructors can better adapt their teaching approaches to match students\u2019 interests and goals in addition to creating motivationally supportive environments that promote persistence and deeper learning. When instructors understand their students\u2019 motivation, it can unlock the type of engagement and behaviors meaningful for learning. <\/p>\n Katie Muenks is an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.<\/em> Carlton J. Fong is an associate professor of postsecondary student success at Texas State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Jarek Janio\u2019s Inside Higher Ed opinion column, \u201cBeyond \u2018Grit\u2019 and \u2018Growth Mindsets,\u2019\u201d Janio argues that, to promote better student learning, college instructors should ignore questions about student motivation and focus solely on changing student behavior. He focuses on two ideas from the motivation field\u2014grit and growth mindset\u2014as examples of \u201ctraits\u201d that have weak associations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[9090,9089,440,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-15530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-matters","9":"tag-motivation","10":"tag-opinion","11":"tag-student"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Students Are Unique Individuals<\/h2>\n
Beyond Grit and Growth Mindset<\/h2>\n
The Student and the Environment Are Both Important<\/h2>\n
Concluding Thoughts<\/h2>\n