Motivation requires a meaningful task

Frey, N., & Fisher, D. (2010). Motivation requires a meaningful task. English Journal, 100(1), 30-36.

Background

Prior research has shown that motivation predicts achievement as much as ability and that teenagers turn to their peers for validation and support. However, the tasks given in high school are often too simple to motivate students and do not allow them to engage in productive group work.

Aims

The authors aimed to create meaningful tasks that motivated students by taking into account the students’ developmental, academic and social needs and to provide qualitative evidence for successful productive group work in their high school English classrooms.

Sample

The participants comprised high school English teachers and students in the United States.

Method

The authors designed meaningful and challenging collaborative tasks based on the following characteristics: (a) the tasks required students to employ previously learnt concepts in a new way, (b) students had autonomy in decisions and choices, (c) students had opportunities to be recognised, (d) useful resources were provided, (e) students worked in groups, (f) students had the opportunity to evaluate, and (g) teachers devoted time to providing support and encouragement.

Using lesson observation and discourse analysis, they used the following indicators to determine whether students were working productively together: (a) the task allowed students to use a variety of resources to apply their knowledge and to experiment with concepts, (b) students were interacting with each other to build knowledge, (c) students used talk respectfully to persuade, give evidence and disagree, (d) teachers and peers provided language support in the form of sentence frames and academic vocabulary to help student use of academic language, (e) the teachers were purposeful in providing scaffolding by using prompts, cues and questions, and checks for understanding regularly, and (f) students were grouped to take advantage of their strengths based on students' proficiency, academic need, and/or content area.

Findings

Students were found to be more engaged and motivated. They used the sentence frames provided to express their opinions. They were respectful of the position of their peers and challenged each other with nuanced arguments. They listened to each other and considered their peers' claims in relation to theirs and were motivated to read more so that they could have the same types of discussion with each other.

Implications

The authors suggested that teachers should raise the complexity of tasks given to students, and provide the necessary structures and supports in order to increase student motivation.

Original article retrieved from Proquest.