November 29, 2004
Grades and Student Motivation
On his weblog, Dennis Jerz responds to James Lang's essay, "Failing to Motivate" in a recent issue of The Chronicle. Lang's article anecdotally addresses the assumption that a low grade can motivate a student to work harder, arguing that "we don't know our students well enough to make the kinds of judgments about their self-confidence and circumstances that would enable us to calibrate their grades to achieve the desired level of motivation we want."
As I posted in my comment on Jerz' Literacy Weblog, I think that assumption is both true and false. While we're not psychologists who are specialists in behavior modification, researching student motives by spending hours and hours learning each "client's" case history, we do have an opportunity as a teacher to better know our students through conferencing, informal chats, journaling and other personalizing strategies. Moreover, when grading is approached as progressive assessment (as it ostensibly is in any portfolio-based course) then grading the "process" along the way is a part of student motivation. If we assess the "product" by evaluating the "outcome" alone, this could lead to the disenfranchisement of the student -- and the desire to judge the end product could be a symptom of the teacher's unwillingness to engage with the students' process in the first place, working as "inspector" at the paper factory rather than "coach."
He's also correct to some degree. Grades don't "fail" to motivate, they just don't motivate everyone the same way. They're founded on assumption that they can "reward or punish" following the behaviorist school of psychology. Students who feel alienated or victimized by the constant battering of reward-or-punish strategies from their parents, schools, peers sometimes "drop out" of that game altogether, withdrawing into apathy. Since the behaviorist model is built on the assumption that "man is nothing more than a machine that responds to conditioning" to the stimulae of pleasure and pain, I can see how the systematization of the model leads to a form of "alienated labor." in the political economy of education. (Such "meritocratic ideology" is explored in an online excerpt from Bowles and Gintis' Schooling in Capitalist America).
If we were to abandon hierarchical grading in favor of "pass-fail" courses, would the students be more or less motivated? The answer is probably that motivational levels would work out about the same, because teachers have many ways of "rewarding or punishing" students -- or skirting that game of behaviorism altogether (the latter seems to become an important skill when teaching non-traditional adult students). Ultimately, the teacher can make all the difference in setting up the rules of the game, being the ringleader of the course, personalizing the experience, and engaging students via an array of pedagogical strategies. Grades are just one tool in the toolbox. And just as every mechanic isn't a whiz with every tool in the box, a teacher needs to try alternative tools to see what works best when she wields it.
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Comments
Thanks for your great commentary, Chris U! It's heartening to hear the student side of things.
Mike,
As both an undergraduate and now as a graduate student, I have had professors purposefully give me certain grades to motivate me to work harder. At the undergraduate level, an English professor wanted me to shorten my writing by turning in about 2 pages instead of 5-6, so she kept lowering my grades on writing assignments until I complied. It wasn't that the assignment required just 2 pages. She just wanted me to practice brevity. At the graduate level, it seems like some professors believe that they can push me harder by giving me an A- rather than an A. Some students wouldn't even care but for some reason I do. An A+, even if rare, is even better. However, when I get that A-, as opposed to an A, I feel as if something in my work was seriously flawed. That might not be the case but it's hard not to feel that way. I do realize though that there is always room for improvement, and no matter how good I do and despite the grades I receive, I always believe that I can improve.
Overall though, the professors I have had, by and large, do motivate me to work hard, despite individual grades. And, when I do receive an A-, I see such moments as further opportunities to further challenge myself by reading more, exploring ideas, and continually revising my writing.
Teachers just need to be careful, because, as you point out, students all respond in different ways.
Austin
I don't know what I should do.
Since an early age, my parents never motivated me.
My mother lost interest in me and my sister once my stepdad moved in.
I used to get 85% average in every test, but now I'm now 18, and I am failing.
Parental motivation is everything.
I have started to drop into the sub 50s on some subjects. The low mark doesn't motivate me. It makes me feel worse.
I feel worse, I don't study, and the cycle continiues.
I am always depressed, tired and lonely.
My parents have refused to pay for my schooling, so I am working 30 hours a week + school to pay for thousands in school fees, books and uniforms.
Worse yet, I have one term left before the final exams.
I feel awful that I am dragging the class average down from all the other hard workers. But if I leave, I will not be allowed to sit a university exam. I want to go to university.
I have worthwhile dreams and aspiration, but not the motivation.
The teachers know, but they are not my parents & can't help me. Some do not care.
I have had teachers move me from class to class to try and avoid my pattern of failure, and not to corrupt the other students marks.
My sister recently dropped out of the 9th grade. I know, pathetic. My mother didn't protest.
My home is depressing. My mother does not care for us, only for herself.
I am paying for everything. I had the motivation, I lost it, and now can't find it.
It's hard to come home to such a depressing place.
Parents are everything. A mother like mine, will not give a crap what I get in a test.
She wont help me study, or give me advice.
Education starts at home, not at school.
You can work your ass off your whole life, but once your parents drop out on you, it hurts.
Each person has their own personal motivation to work for their goals. Low grades as a motivator to study hard could be true to some students while not to others.
Competition could also be a motivator to students. Wanting to get the top honors, they would likely to study hard. There could be a lot of personal motivation to students and each differs from the other.
I think your argument fits the truth from my perspective pretty well, Dr. Arnzen.
Throughout high school, I was always worried about getting low grades simply because of concern for the future and the watchful eyes of my parents... Yet many of my closest friends cared little about what grades they received, and only about having the most fun possible while doing assignments (even if that meant taking a lower grade in exchange).
In my experience, though, no matter which student you are talking about, at any grade level... No reward is as great as praise, personal support, and recognition of outstanding effort or success from the teachers. They are the guidance, the "mechanics," as you say, who best know how to manipulate not only tools for instruction such as grades, but also the subjects which they teach.
In the past, when teachers presented me with a wide array of ideas, I usually related to one of them more than others... And the best teachers I have had are the ones who have recognized that interaction, and fostered my personal growth by sharing their tools and know-how with me in order to foster further exploration of the idea I found the most appealing.