Chapter 4: Common Misconceptions and Challenges in the Teaching of Motivation Principles

What teachers believe about their students’ motivation, abilities, and behaviors tends to inform their teaching practices and strategies, including classroom management, grading, group work, assessment, activities, demonstrations, and communication. When it comes to motivational strategies, those that teachers practice in their classrooms appear to align with their personal beliefs and preferences (see Hornstra et al., 2015; Nolen & Nicholls, 1994). So, for example, teachers who feel optimally motivated to learn when in an autonomy-supportive environment (such as one in which they felt they had a say in making decisions), may be more readily supportive of providing autonomy-supportive opportunities to their own students (such as granting learners opportunities to provide input on developing classroom rules, setting goals or timelines, or delegating responsibilities for group projects). Teachers who have negative beliefs about students’ ability, background, motivation, or behavior, such as the belief that students in a class lack the ability to make appropriate decisions on a learning task, tend to use more controlling strategies (such as using extrinsic rewards and punishments) to pressure students to think or behave in a specific way.