Academic Motivation: Strategies for Students

Academic Motivation: Strategies for Students BY MICHAEL B. BROWN Communiqué Handout: September 2009, Volume 38, Number 1 1 Communiqué is the newspaper of the National Association of School Psychologists │ www.nasponline.org │ (301) 657-0270 A child with positive academic motivation has a desire to learn, likes learning-related activities, and believes that school is important. Positive academic motivation not only helps a child succeed in school, but also helps the child to see that learning is rewarding and important in all

aspects of life— school, work, and community. DEVELOPING ACADEMIC MOTIVATION Natural motivation. Children are naturally motivated to learn from the time they are born. The early signs of motivation to learn can be seen in a baby’s struggle to reach a toy, learn to walk, or eat without help. Children whose learning and discovery is encouraged when they are infants and preschoolers will approach school-related learning as challenging, interesting, and rewarding. Children with positive academic motivation believe that they can be successful if they try hard, work in order to master the material, and are motivated to improve their performance rather than just do better than other children. Negative beliefs about learning. Sometimes something gets in the way of a child’s natural motivation. The child may believe that he or she cannot do well in school-related tasks and stops trying or does not try hard enough because he or she does not think it will make a difference. The child becomes easily frustrated and gives up when learning is difficult. When the child gives up, he or she falls behind in learning, which makes the situation even worse. The child does not get to experience the thrill of learning something...

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