Presentation by Dr. Deborah Dillon for CI 5413 classes

1. The Role of Motivation in
Engaged Reading & Writing
CI 5413 Foundations of Reading
Deborah R. Dillon
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Citation for chapter this presentation is based on: O’Brien, D. G. & Dillon, D. R.
(May 2014). The role of motivation in engaged reading of adolescents. In K.
Hinchman & H. Sheridan-Thomas (Eds.), Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy
Instruction, 2nd ed. ( 36-61). New York, NY: Guilford.

2. Overview
1. What is motivation?
2. How is motivation important to students’
engagement in literacy learning?
3. What can teachers and students do to make a
difference in attribution and perceptions about
ability?
4. How can we change existing classroom
environments, curriculum, tasks, and
assessments to better motivate students? 2

3. 3
Link to Keating clip

4. 4
A Motivation Self Assessment
1. What does experience tell us about
what motivates students?
2. What does experience tell us about
what does not motivate students?
3. What role do rewards and incentives
play in student motivation?

5. Why focus on student
engagement and motivation?
fromNCREL,2005,“UsingStudentEngagementtoImproveAdolescentLiteracy.”
• Educators who teach reading and
writing skills without addressing student
engagement are unlikely to yield
substantial improvements.
• Students who are motivated can
succeed even in less-than-optimal
environments; this is true for various
racial/ethnic groups and both genders.
5

6. Why focus on student engagement
and motivation?—cont.
• Studies show that 15-year-olds whose
parents have the lowest occupational
status but are highly engaged in
reading, achieve better reading scores
than students whose parents have high
or medium occupational status but who
are poorly engaged in reading (PISA
Report, 2000).
6

7. 7

8. What is motivation? Why is it important
to literacy learning?
• Interest
• Attitude
• Motivation
• Engagement
8

9. Motivation refers to getting
someone moving…
When we motivate ourselves or
someone else, we develop incentives -
we set up conditions that start or stop
behavior.
Motivation deals with the problem of
setting up conditions so that learners
will perform to the best of their abilities
in academic settings.

10. Our Goal=Engagement
Engaged readers choose to read for a variety of
purposes and comprehend the materials within
the context of the situation. Engaged readers are
self-determining (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, &
Ryan, 1991) in the sense that they elect a wide
range of literacy activities for aesthetic
enjoyment, gaining knowledge, and interacting
with friends. They are motivated to read for its
own sake, and these motivations activate the
self-regulation of higher order strategies for
learning through literacy (Dole, Duffy, Roehler,
& Pearson, 1991).
From: John T. Guthrie Peggy Van Meter Ann Dacey McCann, Allan Wigfield. Growth of literacy
engagement: Changes in motivations and strategies during concept-oriented reading instruction.
Reading Research Quarterly, 31, (3) July/August/September 1996

11. How do we motivate learners?
Educators want to help learners
develop an expectancy that a benefit
will occur as a result of their
participation in an instructional
experience.
Motivation is concerned with the
factors that stimulate or inhibit the
desire to engage in a behavior.

12. Motivation is strongest when…
“The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one
that finds both its source and its reward in its
own exercise. The will to learn becomes a
"problem" only under specialized
circumstances like those of a school, where a
curriculum is set, students are confined, and
a path fixed. The problems exist not so much
in learning itself, but in the fact that what the
school imposes often fails to enlist the natural
energies that sustain spontaneous
learning...” (Bruner, 1966, p. 127)

13. Intrinsic Motivation
• What people will do without
external inducement.
o Intrinsically motivating activities are
those in which people will engage
for no reward other than the
interest and enjoyment that
accompanies them.

14. Video Clip #1

15. What can teachers do to foster
students’ motivation & engagement?
15

16. Attribution Theory—
An influential contemporary theory with implications for academic motivation
This theory emphasizes the idea that
• learners are strongly motivated by the
pleasant outcome of being able to feel good
about themselves (behavior modification)
• learners' current self-perceptions will strongly
influence the ways in which they will interpret
the success or failure of their current efforts
and hence their future tendency to perform
these same behaviors (cognitive theory and
self-efficacy theory).

17. Elements of Attribution Theory
Developed by Bernard Weiner
1. Locus - location of the cause—internal
(dispositional) or external (situational) for
success or failure according to the person
What does this mean?
• We may succeed or fail because of factors that we
believe have their origin within us, or because of
factors that originate in our environment. The role of
ability and effort factor in here.
• The explanations people make to explain their
success or failure are related to feelings of self-
esteem

18. Elements of Attribution Theory—cont.
2. Stability - whether the cause of our
success or failure is likely to stay the same in
the near future, or whether it can change.
What does this mean?
• If we believe the cause of our success or failure is
stable, then the outcome is likely to be the same if
we perform the same behavior on another occasion.
• If we believe the cause of our success or failure is
unstable, the outcome is likely to be different (and
maybe better!!!) on another occasion.

19. Elements of Attribution Theory—cont.
3. Controllability - whether the person can
control the cause of their success or failure.
What does this mean?
• A controllable factor is one which we believe we
ourselves can alter if we wish to do so.
• An uncontrollable factor is one that we do not
believe we can easily alter.
• Failure or success are related to ambitions such as
anger, pity, gratitude, or shame
ü If we feel responsible for our successes, we may feel proud
ü If we feel responsible for our failures, we may feel guilt
ü Failing at a task we cannot control can lead to shame or anger

20. An important assumption of attribution
theory…
People will interpret their environment in
such a way as to maintain a positive
self-image.
• Learners will attribute their successes or failures to
factors that will enable them to feel as good as
possible about themselves.
• When learners succeed at an academic task, they
are likely to want to attribute this success to their own
efforts or abilities.
• When learners fail, they will want to attribute their
failure to factors over which they have no control,
such as bad teaching or bad luck.

21. The Bottom Line is…(attribution theory as it applies to motivation)
A person's own perceptions or
attributions for success or failure
determine the amount of effort the
person will expend on that activity
in the future.

22. Dimensions of Perceptions
About Ability
Self-efficacy: Your belief about your
competency to perform on tasks you have yet
to face (Bandura, 1986).
“People with high self-efficacy are more
likely to have high aspirations, take long
views, think soundly, set themselves difficult
challenges, and commit themselves firmly to
meeting those challenges.” (Bandura,1997).
22

23. Video Clip #2

24. Perceptions About Ability: What can teachers
and students do to make a difference?
24

25. Conditions for Learning
fromCambourne,B.(1995). Towardaneducationallyrelevanttheoryofliteracylearning:Twentyyearsof
inquiry. TheReadingTeacher,49,182-190.
• Immersion: learners need to be immersed in text
of all kinds.
• Demonstration: learners need to receive many
demonstrations of how texts are constructed and
used.
• Expectations: expectations of those to whom
learners are bonded are powerful coercers of
learners’ behaviour. We achieve what we expect to
achieve; we fail if we expect to fail; we are more
likely to engage with demonstrations of those
whom we regard as significant and who hold high
expectations for us.” 25

26. Conditions for Learning—cont.
fromCambourne,B.(1995). Towardaneducationallyrelevanttheoryofliteracylearning:
Twentyyearsofinquiry. TheReadingTeacher,49,182-190.
• Responsibility: learners need to make their own
decisions about when, how, and what “bits” to
learn in any learning task. Learners who lose the
ability to make decisions are disempowered.
• Employment: learners need time and
opportunity to use, employ, and practice their
developing control in functional, realistic and
nonartificial ways.
• Approximations: learners must be free to
approximate the desired model—“mistakes”
are essential for learning to occur.
26

27. Conditions for Learning—cont.
fromCambourne,B.(1995). Towardaneducationallyrelevanttheoryofliteracylearning:
Twentyyearsofinquiry. TheReadingTeacher,49,182-190.
• Response: learners must receive feedback from
exchanges with more knowledgeable others.
Response must be relevant, appropriate, timely,
readily available, and nonthreatening, with no
strings attached.
• Engagement occurs when learners are
convinced that they are potential doers or
performers of these demonstrations they are
observing. Engaging with these demonstrations
will further the purposes of their lives. They can
engage and try to emulate without fear of physical
or psychological hurt if their attempts are not fully
correct. Helping learners make these decisions
constitutes the artistic dimensions of teaching. 27

28. Guidelines for Effective Praise 1
Effective Praise Ineffective Praise
1. Is delivered contingently Is delivered randomly or
unsystematically
2. Specifies the particulars of the
accomplishment
Is restricted to global positive
reactions
3. Shows spontaneity, variety,
and other signs of credibility;
suggests clear attention to the
students’ accomplishments
Shows a bland uniformity,
which suggests a conditional
response made with minimal
attention
4. Rewards attainment of
specified performance criteria
(which can include effort criteria)
Rewards mere participation
without consideration of
performance processes or
outcomes
28

29. Effective Praise Ineffective Praise
5. Provides information to
students about their competence
or the value of their
accomplishments
Provides no information at all
or gives students information
about their status
6. Orients students toward
better appreciation of their own
task related behavior and
thinking about problem solving
Orients students toward
comparing themselves with
others and thinking about
competing
7. Uses students own prior
accomplishments as the context
for describing present
accomplishments
Uses the accomplishments of
peers as the context for
describing students’ present
accomplishments
29

30. Effective Praise Ineffective Praise
8. Is given in recognition of
noteworthy effort or success at
difficult (for this student) tasks
Is give without regard to the
effort expended or the meaning
of the accomplishment (for this
student)
9. Attributes success to effort
and ability, implying that similar
successes can be expected in
the future
Attributes success to ability
alone or to external factors such
as luck or easy task
10. Fosters endogenous
attributions (students believe
they expend effort on the task
because they enjoy the task
and /or want to develop task-
relevant skills)
Fosters exogenous attributions
(students believe they expend
effort on the task for external
reasons—to please the teacher,
win a competition or reward)
30

31. Effective Praise Ineffective Praise
11. Focuses students’ attention
on their own task-relevant
behaviors
Focuses students’ attention
on the teacher as an external
authority figure who is
manipulating them
12. Fosters appreciation of and
desirable attribution about task
relevant behavior after the
process is completed
Intrudes into the ongoing
process, distracting attention
from task relevant behavior
31
1 From: Alderman, K. (1999). Motivation for achievement: Possibilities for teaching
and learning. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum (originally from Brophy, J. (1981) “Teacher
Praise: A Functional Analysis” Review of Educational Research, 51, pp. 5-32

32. The Six “Cs”
fromTurner & Paris (1995). How literacy tasks influence children’s motivation for literacy. The
ReadingTeacher, 48, (8), pp. 662-673.
• CHOICE: provide students with authentic choices and
purposes for literacy.
• CHALLENGE: allow students to modify tasks so the
difficulty and interest levels are challenging.
• CONTROL: show students how they can control their
learning.
• COLLABORATION: emphasize the positive aspects of
giving and seeking help.
• CONSTRUCTING MEANING: emphasize strategies and
metacognition for constructing meaning.
• CONSEQUENCES: use the consequences of tasks to build
responsibility, ownership, and self-regulation. 32

33. Next Steps
• Determine how classroom environments and
routines can be set up to enhance
engagement and motivation
• Redesign tasks in various subject areas to
foster goal orientation
• Analyze students’ and teachers’
interactions (verbal & nonverbal) to
determine how to motivate students and
develop their self efficacy
33