A Theory of Motivation for Some
Classroom Experiences
Summary of p. 3-12:
In this article Bernard
Weiner talks about motivation within causality and the attribution theory. The
article talks about students asking the attributional question of
"why," such as, "why did I not succeed" or "why
doesn't Jane like me?" students are much more likely to ask the question
of why when they fail rather then succeed. Students who do not expect failure,
or put a lot of importance on the subject are much more likely to ask why.
Weiner wanted to find out
more about what makes students ask why. Weiner says that, "we postulated
that in achievement-related contexts the causes perceived as most responsible
for success and failure are ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck."
Weiner goes on to say that for students to explain why they have succeeded or
failed in the past students look at their own ability, the amount of effort
given, how difficult the task was, and how lucky they got. Students then, when
assessing themselves in the future, will base their expectations for success or
failure on "perceived level of ability in relation to the perceived
difficulty of the task, as well as an estimation of the intended effort and
anticipated luck." Other factors that could influence achievement
performance are such things as mood, fatigue, illness, and bias. Weiner
believes that it is clear that ability, effort, and task difficulty are some of
the main perceived causes of achievement performance.
In looking at causes for
success and failure Weiner goes deeply into the dimensions of causality. He
goes on to talk about theoretical analyses done by others in this field. One important
dimension of causality in the article is stability. In the stability dimension
defining causes of stable versus unstable continuums is most important. Weiner
talks about how different attributes are considered either stable or unstable.
Many attributes can be looked at as both stable and unstable depending of the
situation. Weiner goes on to name many other dimensions of causality.
Implementing and these
dimensions can have consequences for thought and action. Weiner says, "the
primary relation of the stability dimension is to the magnitude of expectancy
change following success or failure." He goes on to say that expectations
sift after success and failure are dependent on the perceived stability of the
reason for the prior outcome, linking an outcome to stable factors produces
better shifts in expectancy, increasing after success and decreasing after
failure, than linking them to unstable causes. Overall, Weiner concludes that a
general theory of motivation is still being developed but may be of great
importance in understanding student's thoughts and behavior in the classroom.
Summary - 2nd half of article
In the
second half of the article, many theories are explored about the locus of
casualty. In the beginning, the locus of casualty was related to the emotional consequences
of success and failure. These emotions were maximized when thought to be
internal attributions for success and failure, but was minimized when success
and failure were thought to be an external attribution. So for example, the
internal emotional reactions displayed most often for success and failure was
pride and shame. Some external emotional factors that are related to failure
described in this article are the biases of teachers, hindrance from students,
luck, or others. In the case of failure, sometimes great anger can be
displayed, which is externally related to emotional intensity.
Furthermore,
for both success and failure many emotions were related to specific
attributions. By this, I mean that if one succeeded at a task, and they attribute
that to ability, then other emotions such as competence and confidence were
also experienced. Other attribution-affect emotional linkages for success that
was experienced were typical effort and relaxation, immediate effort and
activism, others and then feeling gratitude, and luck and surprise. If one
failed at a task, and they attribute failure to lack of ability, then
incompetence was another emotion that they experienced. Another failure
attribution-affect emotional linkage is when a student attributes failure to
effort, and then shame and guilt is experienced as well.
The article
also describes the steps people follow cognitively and emotionally when trying
to achieve contexts. For example, if someone receives a low grade on an exam,
then this lack of achievement will generate feelings of being frustrated and
upset. If the person continues to feel as though they received this bad grade
because they did not try hard enough, then this will filter feelings of shame
and guilt. If they continue to feel like this outcome would not change if given
another chance, then this brings about feelings of low self-esteem or lack of
worth and hopelessness. Another scenario, however, can generate totally
different emotions. For example, if a student receives an "A" on an
exam, then this will generate feelings of happiness and satisfaction. If they
attribute their success to working and trying hard, then this will produce
contentment and relaxation. If the person builds confidence and feels as though
they can continue to be successful, then this will filter high self-esteem and
feelings of self-worth and optimism for the future.
The
dimension of control in this article, is centered on others and how beliefs
that others are responsible for our success or failures can influence our
reactions toward that person. The reactions that were examined in this article
were helping, evaluation, and sentiments. It was described that the tendency
for people to help is influenced by their perception that someone is in need
for assistance. The evaluation aspect was characterized by how we evaluate
others, and what attributions are most important to look at when evaluating.
The data found that effort was viewed as having greater importance and value.
That is, that ability was less important and effort should be viewed as the
best attribute when evaluating the work of others. The sentiment dimension
focuses on how teachers will look at students and how hard they try (effort)
when completing a task. If the teacher sees a student isn't putting forth much
effort, then the teacher will not provide sympathy if the student fails. If the
teacher sees that a student is putting forth a lot of effort to complete a task
and the student fails, then the teacher will then provide sentiments for that
student.