Tuesday 28 October 2014

Literature update

I have been spending quite some time over the past few weeks  researching literature based on motivation. At the start of my researching process I wanted to find out about ''motivation'' in general to give me an idea of the subject before expanding my knowledge on it.

I found out that psychology has a lot to do with motivation, motivation is in us all but there are many factors in which affect a student's motivation. For example; it could be their previous achievement history or their attributions to success or failure what either motivates them or de-motivates them. This is just one minor example and I have looked deep into the factors affecting motivation. Why have I done this? I asked myself this question the other day as I read my inquiry title which is ''What are the different strategies dance teachers use to create motivation?'' Firstly, I realised why I had spent so much time looking at theories of motivation and what affects and enhances student motivation. It was because in order to move on and look for strategies used to stimulate motivation, I needed to know what affects it in first place, allowing me to find valid and reliable strategies to motivate students. Secondly,  create? can teacher's really create motivation? Paula commented on this and it made me think that, actually no one can create motivation. We can stimulate and sustain motivation in a student but I suppose create wasn't the best word to use

I found five theories that seemed compatible, but some theorists had expanded more on what they were proposing, whilst other's argued certain points. I didn't want my literature review to be based on just theories of motivation. It was a good starting point for me to thoroughly research these theories but after all I am looking for strategies.

I have now came up with a new idea for my literature which is based on all of the research I have done but not with the structure I had originally planned and had in mind. One theorist I spent some time researching was John Keller, he came up with the ARCS model. He suggests there are four categories teachers need to consider before trying to enhance motivation. These are: attention, relevance, confidence and satisfaction. These four categories represent conditions required for a person to feel fully motivated. I am now working on condensing my research on the theories of motivation and relating it to these four categories.


1 comment:

  1. Thanks Melanie - good to hear you are making progress with your literature - you mentioned ab it of debate in the literature - can you explain further - it sounds like Keller has been the most helpful to inform - but what are the points where the literature (experts) differ?

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