Importance of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation for Students

Motivation is a series of actions that causes, control, strengthen or support, and energizes the behaviour of human beings and other organisms, to satisfy physiological or psychological needs. Motivation improves the learners desire to achieve excellent academic performance and determines where one is going. Poor academic achievement is a result of poor study habit, laziness, ineffective class instructions, and poor supply of educational material and lack of motivation. Motivating students to learn in school is a topic of great concern for educationist today and motivating students so that they can succeed in school is one of the greatest challenges of this century.

Intrinsic Motivation During Educational Process

Intrinsic motivation is an inner force that motivates students to engage in academic activities, because they are interested in learning and they enjoy the learning process, intrinsically motivated individuals possess the following characteristics: They engage in both mental and physical activities holistically, they remain highly focused throughout these activities with clearly defined goals, they are self-critical, they self-reflect on their own actions, learn independently, always choose to do challenging tasks, they are usually relaxed and not afraid to fail during learning. They often ask questions to broaden their knowledge, learn regardless of any external push factors or help from teachers, they take pride in their work and express positive emotions during the learning process.

Extrinsic Motivation During Educational Process

Extrinsic motivation is driven by external factors such as parental expectations, expectations of trusted role models, earning potential to enroll in a course later and good grades. Extrinsic motivation promotes efforts with rewards serving as positive reinforces for the desired behavior, produces immediate results and requires less effort in comparison to intrinsic motivation. The problem with extrinsic motivators is that they do not work over the long term, once the rewards are removed, students lose their motivation and this motive distract students from true independent learning. Extrinsic motivational factors can diminish students’ intrinsic motivation, extrinsic rewards have negative impacts on intrinsic motivation.

Conclusion

Both extrinsic and intristic motivarion are important for successful academic results. If government, parents and teachers want to notice the positive changes in students’ achievements they should firstly develop the intristic motivation in students’ minds. Supportive, and caring teachers give special importance to the teaching learning process, no matter the learners academic result outcome and when they give feedback, learners tend to be motivated to achieve and to expect success. Getting learners to learn and sustaining their interest in what they are learning should be the sole objective of teachers. Parents and educators should strive to understand the importance of promoting and encouraging academic motivation early in life.

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