The document describes a proposed study that will examine how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as well as participation-based rewards versus performance-based rewards, affect the creativity of 150 fifth-grade students in a collage-making task. It is hypothesized that students who receive intrinsic motivation training and participation-based rewards will demonstrate the highest levels of creativity. The study involves randomly assigning students to conditions that vary the type of motivation training (intrinsic vs. extrinsic vs. control) and reward structure (participation-based vs. performance-based). Creativity will be assessed by professors rating the collages. Results are expected to show higher creativity in the intrinsic motivation and participation reward conditions.

1. Running head: CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 1
Children’s Motivation in Creative Tasks
Mika F. Truly
The University of Texas at San Antonio

2. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 2
Abstract
The role of reward type and motivation type on motivation of 150 fifth grade students will be
examined through the lenses of self-determination theory and the overjustification effect.
Participants will complete a collage making task then the collages will be assessed for level of
creativity by eight art professors. Based on previous literature there is an expected main effect of
motivation type and reward type as well as an interaction effect such that participants who are
intrinsically motivated and given a performance contingent reward will show the most creativity
as has been found in similar studies.
Children’s Motivation in Creative Tasks
The following experiment will explore the roles of internal versus external motivation in
the creative process of children. The creativity of elementary school students will be measured
by assessing the amount of creativity exhibited in a collage making task. A group of judges will
rate each collage on creativity based on originality and inventiveness. The proposed study will
seek to better understand how external motivation which is motivation caused by external
rewards affects the amount of creativity children exhibit (Lepper 1999). According to self-
determination theory, individuals with an internal locus of control feel that they are doing a task
for internal rewards. For example, a child may complete a math assignment because they enjoy
math. Conversely, individuals with an external locus of control believe that they are doing a task
for external reasons. For example, another child may only complete a math assignment to avoid
punishment (Deci & Ryan, 1985). The overjustification effect is a second contributing theory to
this experiment. The over justification effect expands on the idea of internal and external
motivators. According to the overjustification effect, when individuals decide that they are doing

3. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 3
a task for external reasons, i.e. reward, they have less desire to do the task (Greene, Sternberg &
Lepper, 1976).
The following experiment will explore the extent to which external versus internal motivation
affects the amount of creativity an individual display. Amabile, featured undergraduate students
working on a creative collage making task under two conditions: expectation of evaluation and
no expectation of evaluation, showed that the group that was expecting evaluation exhibited less
creativity than the group that worked without expectation of evaluation of their art work
(Amabile, 1979). Selart, Nordstrom, Kuvaas and Takemura (2008) found that participants who
were told that they would be rewarded based on their performance exhibited lower amounts of
creativity than individuals who were told they would be rewarded simply for their participation,
and a control group. Both of the aforementioned articles found that individuals who were
externally motivated by the expectation of reward based on their creative performance or
evaluation of their art exhibited less creativity in their artwork. This experiment will further
evaluate how external motivation effects creativity output in individuals. The proposed study
will have two independent variables. The first independent variable will be training type:
intrinsic motivation trained, Extrinsic motivation trained, and a control group. The second
independent variable will be task reward type: participation contingent reward and performance
contingent reward. My dependent variable will be creativity output. I hypothesis that there will
be a main effect of intrinsic motivation training such participants who undergo intrinsic
motivation training will exhibit more creativity compared to participants who undergo external
motivation training and the control group. I hypothesis that there will be a main effect of reward
type, such that the participation contingent reward group will exhibit more creativity compared
to the performance contingent reward group of the control group. Lastly I hypothesis an

4. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 4
interaction effect with reward type and motivation training such that the group that exhibits the
most creativity will be the group that receives both intrinsic motivation training and is also in the
performance contingent reward group.
Method
Participants
Participants were 150 fifth grade students from one classroom in 10 different schools
within the north side independent school district (NISD) in San Antonio Texas. The children
were recruited based on recommendation from the NISD superintendent. The children’s ages
ranged from 10 years to 11 years on average. There were an equal number of male and female
participants. The reward will be a variety of toys selected based on their popularity on an online
toy website and not exceeding the value of $10.
Materials
The participants’ creativity output will be assessed using a collage making task, as has
been used in similar experiments (Gerrard, Poteat & Ironsmith, 1996). The level of creativity
will be judged by 8 art professors from the University of Texas at San Antonio using a Likert
scale from 1-5, with 1 being low creativity and a score of 5 signifying high creativity. Half of
participants were shown a 20-minute video of attractive children expressing intrinsic reasons for
doing art and the other half (the control group) were individually asked about why they do school
work. Each participant will be set up at their desk in their classroom with one white 8 X 10 piece
of cardstock paper, a pair of scissors, a stick of glue, and 5 different colored pieces of
construction paper.

5. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 5
Procedure
Parental consent will be given for all participants. Additionally, all students will be asked
whether they would like to participate in the study. Those students that agree will be randomly
assigned to one of four conditions: intrinsic motivation training/performance contingent reward,
intrinsic motivation training/participation contingent reward, control group/participation
contingent reward, and control group/performance contingent reward. The students in the
intrinsic motivation training groups viewed the 20-minute video of intrinsically motivated
students while the students in the control group will be asked about what motivates them to do
their school work then for the remaining 20 minutes will be allowed free time in the classroom.
Two days later, participants in either the control group or the internal motivation trained group
will be randomly assigned to either a performance or participation contingent group and
separated into four different classrooms to participate in the collage making task. Once separated
a male administrator will show all participants assigned to the intrinsic motivation
trained/performance contingent reward and the control group/performance contingent reward
group three toys and inform both groups that the students who create the best three collages will
receive the reward. All participants assigned to the control group/participation contingent reward
group and the intrinsically motivated/participation contingent reward group not be informed that
everyone will be receiving a reward after they complete the task.
Then all four groups were given the supplies for the collage making task and given 30
minutes to complete their piece of art work. During this time, each administrator sat in the back
of the classroom out of sight, so as to avoid influencing participants. Upon completion of their
their collages, participants and parents will be thanked for their participation and informed about
the true purpose of the study and any questions will be addressed. Participants will be contacted

6. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 6
individually by their school psychologist for a follow up to ensure no long term negative effects
of their participation in the study.
Results
A 3 (Training type: Intrinsic motivation trained, Extrinsic motivation trained, control) X
2 (Task reward type: Participation contingent reward, performance contingent reward) ANOVA
will be performed to study the effects of motivation training and reward type on children’s
creativity output. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for this throughout.
The first prediction is that ANOVA results will show a main effect of training type on the
children’s level of creativity output (F(2,144) = , p < .001). Meaning that participants given
intrinsic motivation training (M = 4.8, SD = 1.35) will exhibit significantly more creativity than
the participants who underwent external motivation training (M = 3.1, SD = 1.7) or the control
group (M = 3.66, SD = 2.09). This result will support the first hypothesis that intrinsically
motivated children perform better in a creativity task.
The second hypothesis within the proposed study is that children who are offered a
performance contingent reward will exhibit less creativity than children offered a participation
contingent reward. ANOVA results are expected to show a significant main effect of reward type
on the level of creativity children exhibit (F (1,144) = , p < .001), such that the performance
contingent reward group (M = 3.67, SD = 1.52), will exhibit less creativity than the participation
contingent reward group (M =, SD = 1.1)
The third hypothesis within the proposed study is that there will be an interaction effect
of training type and reward type. Creativity level of the intrinsically motivated group (M = 4, SD
= 1.35) will exhibit the more creativity than any other group when they are in the performance
contingent group group (M = 3.3, SD = 1.52).

7. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 7
Discussion
Although research has found that humans have an innate love of learning in all stages of
life, it is common for children to loose motivation in certain subjects during their schooling ().
This unfortunate situation can continue to effect the child’s education for years. The proposed
study will contribute to the knowledge we have on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in children.
This information can be applied to motivating children in more academic areas such as
mathematics. I think a limitation of this study is that more than one independent variable could
have been assessed since there are so many different variables that can effect motivation in
children such as personality or life stressors such as parents’ divorce. Future research on intrinsic
and extrinsic motivation in children can go further than this research by seeing how these other
variables (personality and life stressors) affect children’s motivation.

8. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 8
References
Amabile, T. M. (1979). Effects of external evaluation on artistic creativity. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 37(2), 221-233. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-
3514.37.2.22
Deci, E. L. and Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human
behavior. New York: Plenum Press
Gerrard, L. E., Poteat, G. M., & Ironsmith, M. (1996). Promoting children's creativity: Effects of
competition, self-esteem, and immunization. Creativity Research Journal, 9(4), 339-346.
doi:10.1207/s15326934crj0904_5
Greene, D. Sternberg, B. and Lepper, M. R. (1976) Overjustification in a token economy, Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 1219-1234
Hennessey, B. A., & Zbikowski, S. M. (1993). Immunizing children against the negative effects
of reward: A further examination of intrinsic motivation training techniques. Creativity
Research Journal, 6(3), 297-307.
Lepper, M. R., Henderlong, J., & Gingras, I. (1999). Understanding the effects of extrinsic
rewards on intrinsic motivation—Uses and abuses of meta-anlysis: Comment on deci,
koestner, and ryan (1999). Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 669-676.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.libweb.lib.utsa.edu/10.1037/0033-2909.125.6.669
Selart, M., Nordström, T., Kuvaas, B., & Takemura, K. (2008). Effects of reward on self-
regulation, intrinsic motivation and creativity. Scandinavian Journal of Educational
Research, 52(5), 439-458. doi:10.1080/00313830802346314

9. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 9
Table 1
Mean Creativity Output for Each Condition
Motivation Training
Reward
Intrinsic Extrinsic Control
M SD M SD M SD
Participation 3.9 1.1 3 1.5 3.51 1.04
Performance 4.1 1.6 2 1.9 3.8 1.05
Note. Means represent creativity output in collage making task

10. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 10
Table 2
Main Effect of Reward Type
0
1
2
3
4
5
Participation Contingent Performance Contingent
CreativityLevel
Reward Type

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Table 3
Main Effect of Training Type
0
1
2
3
4
5
Intrinsic Extrinsic Control
CreativityLevel
Training Type

12. CHILDREN’S MOTIVATION 12
Table 4
Interaction Effect
0
1
2
3
4
5
Intrinsic Extrinsic Control
Training type
DependentVariableMeasure
Participation Contingent
Performance Contingent