Research to Practice: Addressing Student Motivation in the Middle Grades

By: David C. Virtue and Melissa Unger

About a month into her student teaching semester, Melissa voiced frustration about one student who just would not engage in social studies class. Gregory seemed disinterested and apathetic, and he seldom completed his assignments. Melissa was determined to make a breakthrough, but how? How could she get Gregory engaged in social studies? How could she motivate him?

Motivation in school is a very complex construct grounded in different sets of beliefs and value orientations learners people hold (Henderson & Strahan, 2014). Psychology Today (n.d.) defines motivation as “the desire to act in service of a goal … [and] one of the driving forces behind human behavior” (paras. 1, 2). In the classroom, those goals might include achieving a high grade, pleasing a teacher, getting the attention of peers, or maintaining the social status quo. Like Melissa, many teachers struggle to influence or direct students’ goal-oriented behavior to enhance academic or behavioral outcomes.

Two recent studies published in Research in Middle Level Education Online address student motivation and offer some practical insights for middle level educators (Ilter, 2023; Kaynak et al., 2023). First, Kaynak et al. wanted to know how school motivation mediates the association between peer relationships and academic achievement. The authors defined school motivation as “students’ overall interest, participation, and enjoyment of learning” (p. 2). They found that perceptions of peer support influenced certain motivational beliefs, such as belief in the ability to achieve a task or belief in the importance of a task, and this boost in motivation was associated with higher academic achievement. The idea of motivation as a mediating variable means it’s not simply a question of how Melissa can motivate Gregory, but rather a question of which beliefs, values, or perceptions she might influence to give him a motivational boost.

The second study, by Ilter (2023), might offer some answers. Ilter was interested in the concept of amotivation—what Deci and Ryan (1985) defined as the lack or absence of willful drive to engage in any activity—and its relationship to absenteeism and academic performance. In Melissa’s class, Gregory was exhibiting amotivation. Ilter described four causes of amotivation that are based on a student’s beliefs about ability, effort, and the learning task itself:

  • First, amotivation is sometimes based on valuing beliefs, or the academic value a learner ascribes to a task. A learner might not see the relevance or value of a task, and therefore won’t engage in it or will avoid it altogether.
  • Second, amotivation may come from ability beliefs. A learner may have a low perception of self-efficacy and, therefore, believe the task is beyond the learner’s capabilities or perceive no way to control the outcome of the task.
  • Third, amotivation may be based on task characteristic beliefs. A learner may avoid a task because it is perceived as boring, uninteresting, unappealing, or too difficult, or maybe the learner perceives the task as just plain irrelevant.
  • Finally, amotivation may be based on effort beliefs. A learner may not have the energy to initiate and sustain the behavior necessary to complete a task and, therefore, not wish to put forth the effort or simply avoid the task altogether. Ilter noted that all four of these types of beliefs can contribute to academic amotivation in students and lead to a variety of negative academic outcomes including low retention, low engagement, lack of commitment, insufficient effort, and high-test anxiety.

A few weeks after Melissa vented about Gregory, I received a message from her with some photos of student work. The photos showed panels of artwork and text formatted like a graphic novel. The student work was Gregory’s, and it was impressive. Melissa had created a choice board offering a variety of learning modalities. Gregory got excited about the options that involved drawing, and he chose to demonstrate his understanding of child labor during the industrial revolution using three options: a graphic novel, a help wanted poster, and a puzzle. Melissa likely tapped into Gregory’s task characteristics beliefs and ability beliefs. By including choices involving artistic expression, she made the task more appealing and achievable for Gregory, increasing his motivation to complete the task.

Teachers often ask, “What can I do to motivate my students?” Perhaps that’s the wrong way to frame the question. Understanding motivation as a mediating factor, teachers instead might ask, “What can I do to make this learning task more relevant, enjoyable, or achievable—i.e., more motivating—for my students?” As Wormeli and Nickelsen (n.d.) noted, “motivation is not something we do to students but rather something we create with them” (para. 9, emphasis added).  Ilter (2023) and Kaynak et al. (2023) offered practical suggestions for making tasks more motivating for learners that resonate with instructional recommendations in The Successful Middle School: This We Believe (Bishop & Harrison, 2021).

  • Use personalized, student-centered pedagogies that empower students with choices and value their voices. Such approaches foster student ownership of the learning process and address young adolescents’ need for autonomy.
  • Emphasize the relevance of content and learning tasks to students’ lives and futures so they can find value in them.
  • Help students develop positive beliefs about their abilities by using strengths-based and assets-based approaches in the classroom, and consistently communicate expectations that students are capable of completing academic tasks.
  • Provide clear, timely, actionable feedback to help students observe, monitor, and own their academic progress.
  • Design learning tasks with a social or relational element so students can both offer and experience peer-to-peer support.
  • Employ skills- and strategies-based instruction (e.g., modeling, guided practice, independent practice, peer-supported practice, and self-assessment) that is intentionally scaffolded to build students’ competence and confidence and help them see the results of their efforts in real time.
  • Model metacognitive approaches that demonstrate critical thought processes, creativity, curiosity, and problem solving.
  • Create classroom environments that encourage active participation in the learning process, offer opportunities for social interaction, and are characterized by warm, caring, and nurturing relationships.

To learn more about this topic, explore AMLE’s articles on “student motivation.” You can also learn more about the studies featured in this article by listening to the Middle School Research to Practice podcast, episodes 4 and 5, or by reading the complete articles in Research in Middle Level Education Online.

David C. Virtue is the Taft B. Botner Professor of Middle Grades Education at Western Carolina University and the editor of Research in Middle Level Education Online and the AMLE Innovations in Middle Level Education book series. He is also co-host of the Middle School Research to Practice podcast.

Melissa Unger is a first-year teacher at Macon Middle School in Franklin, North Carolina, and former president of the Collegiate Middle Level Association chapter at Western Carolina University.

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Comments

  1. I found this article very interesting as I remember middle school being the hardest school grades in my lifetime. Middle grades seems to be the place where you really find out who you are with academics, friends, interests, and if you are going to set yourself up for success academically, get by, or fail to succeed. This is also the time in life where you are aware of if you want to do something or not and the motivation behind school can be hard to find. In this article it states, “they found that perceptions of peer support influenced certain motivational beliefs, such as belief in the ability to achieve a task or belief in the importance of a task, and this boost in motivation was associated with higher academic achievement.”
    This is achieved by my stronger opinion of emphasizing the relevance of content and learning tasks to students’ lives and futures so they can find value in them.

    Reply