Motivation is an internal process that activates guides and maintains the behaviors of human beings and other organisms. A rat in the Skinner box acts in a direction so as to obtain food, because of hunger. Hunger provides it the motivation to act to satisfy its needs. As the rat acts, it learns that lever pressing brings food.
Motivation, thus, is related to learning. A motivated animal or a human being would learn faster and better than a less motivated one. Although, the motivational variables have been studied extensively in animal learning experiments, much less attention been given to motivational variables in human learning. Motivation is induced into animals by depriving them of food and water. But this cannot be done with human subjects.
Those who perform well are better motivated, and as such, they put in more hard work to reach their goals. The nature of motivation may be extrinsic or intrinsic. A student’s motivation to learn may arise from two sources, because the activity is very enjoyable, or because the activity helps him to obtain rewarding experience from the environment.
Intrinsic motivation refers to persons’ participation in an activity for their own enjoyment, not for the reward it will get them. People are said to be extrinsically motivated when they participate in an activity for a tangible reward. A student is intrinsically motivated when he likes to read for his enthusiasm to acquire knowledge, but is extrinsically motivated, when he reads for the sake of obtaining an external reward, such as a good job.
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Research findings suggest that we are able to work harder and show higher quality performance when motivation is intrinsic, rather than extrinsic. Some psychologists suggest that providing rewards for desirable behaviors may reduce the level of intrinsic motivation resulting in less enthusiasm for work. Parents must think twice before offering monetary rewards to children for getting good report cards. Better results can come, if they are reminded of the pleasures of learning and mastering a body of knowledge. The intrinsic motivation explains why a child learns cycling quickly without any substantial help from the parents. He does so, because he likes to do it, or in other words, he is intrinsically motivated to learn cycling.
Learning might be either incidental or intentional. Incidental learning occurs when individuals are engaged in doing something other than what they are squired to show their competence in. Incidental learning is ‘unmotivated’ learning. There is no specific motive-incentive condition present to make people want to learn the incidental task. For example, students might be asked to rate the familiarity or certain uncommon words, and then be suddenly asked to recall the words they have rated. The learning of the words is incidental in nature. The learning of a target task with appropriate level of motivation is Intentional learning. Under nearly all conditions, incidental learning is poorer than intentional learning. Such a result is due to the weaker motivation of the subjects to learn the incidental material. The motivation will result in better learning provided that it does not cause a high level of emotional arousal in the learner, as emotion would interfere with complex performance. With increased arousal, motivation would turn to anxiety, which would not at all be helpful for learning. What is important is that the learner must be optimally motivated and must practice the task efficiently.