06 December 2015 "I'm Never Gonna Use This--The Importance of Motivation in Inner-City High School Students"

Written as part of the course curriculum for a Writing course at Loyola University Maryland. Once a week for a full semester, I would go to Loyola's Writing Center and tutor a high school student, Kamia, for several hours as part of the Baltimore Bridges Program. 

When I was in high school, motivation to complete homework assignments and study for tests within subjects I disliked was extremely difficult for me. I often would not apply myself to a class if the subject was not within my immediate interest. Unfortunately, my immediate interest often found itself limited to the realm of fiction writing. Some days in school I found myself missing the substance of an entire class because instead of paying attention I decided to write a poem, a story, or a blog post. My mom took the initiative to try and get me feeling more motivated when she discovered my grades slipping, but she never really got through to me. Discussions about my grades often turned into screaming matches only to be resolved after one or two days, when both of us had cooled off. Several apologies and promises later, and the cycle would repeat itself.

            I did not get my academic act together until the first semester of my second year at college. It was not anything anyone did or said; the idea to get all my work done rather than putting it off eventually just clicked in my mind. I have not altered my homework and study habits since then.

            There are many factors to blame for my lack of motivation toward high school academics. And I cannot warrant a guess at all the things that may have caused Kamia Walker to struggle this year with academic motivation. Working with her every Wednesday of this semester has given me only a glimpse of what it is like to be a student in a Baltimore City high school. But judging from what I already knew about student motivation and what I have learned from our class’s work with Bridges this semester, I can identify several factors that I believe have been negatively impacting Kamia’s motivation with academics.

            According to the Center of Education Policy (CEP), a branch of the Graduate School of Education at George Washington University, motivation is an extremely important factor in the success of high school students. The higher motivation a student has, the more likely she is to succeed in “academic performance…conceptual understanding, satisfaction with school, self-esteem, [and] social adjustment” (CEP, 1). Generally, there are two recognized types of motivation: intrinsic (a person is motivated to do something because he wants to for himself) and extrinsic (a person is motivated to do something because it will produce a certain positive result.) However, a person may have any mixture of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; there is no set divide or limit between the two (2).

            Within these two types of motivation, there are four dimensions. One of these four dimensions must be satisfied for a person to feel motivated. The dimensions are as follows: “Competence – The student believes he or she has the ability to complete the task. Control/autonomy – The student feels in control by seeing a direct link between his or her actions and an outcome … Interest/value – The student has some interest in the task or sees the value of completing it. Relatedness – completing the task brings the student social rewards” (3). If more than one of these dimensions is satisfied, a person will feel more highly motivated. However, if none of these dimensions are satisfied, a person will not feel any motivation at all (3).

            When I first began working with Kamia, she would often bring Chemistry homework with her on Wednesday nights. The subject was difficult for both of us, and I have to admit, at certain points I found myself having difficulty feeling motivated to do the work just as much as Kamia did. At first I believed Kamia had such trouble with Chemistry because she never felt interested in the subject, but upon further examination, I found that in regards to Kamia’s Chemistry class, none of the four dimensions of motivation were satisfied. She would often feel very confused by the homework she brought to me, and did not believe in her own ability to complete the assignments. In addition, there didn’t appear to be a direct link between Kamia’s completion of homework assignments and her understanding of the material. Like I noticed first, Kamia was wholly uninterested in the subject of Chemistry as a whole. Finally, completion of the homework didn’t appear to bring Kamia any kind of approval from her teacher, as she still received poor grades on assignments, even after she worked very hard on them.

            I think quite a bit of Kamia’s lack of motivation can be attributed to weaknesses in the Chemistry class itself. Some of the homework assignments were unclear; even I had difficulty understanding sometimes what exactly the teacher wanted from her students. I often did not see a link between the homework and the actual subject of chemistry—for instance, at one point Kamia brought in a worksheet practicing the identification of different types of rock, and I found myself really questioning the subject matter of her class. It also became clear to me that Kamia’s teacher did not effectively communicate the subject matter to the class, making motivation and success in the course all the more difficult for people like Kamia. And finally, Kamia reported to me several times how unavailable her teacher was for additional support outside the classroom. Not only were students not allowed to bring the textbook home as a study tool, but the teacher’s only availability outside of class time was limited to some sort of study hall right after school. Though this could potentially be helpful for students only needing a minimum amount of additional help, students like Kamia found themselves totally out of luck.

            Though I certainly think Kamia’s Chemistry class could use some remodeling in order to boost student motivation, I believe Kamia herself could also use some improvement in finding motivation to work hard in the course. I think one of the biggest problems Kamia had in the beginning of the semester was the fact that she did not enjoy her Chemistry class. A good portion of this dislike certainly came from the fact that she didn’t totally understand the subject matter, but an additionally significant portion came from the fact that she simply does not find chemistry a subject of interest. I can certainly understand, and even agree, but one of the most important lessons I believe Kamia can learn from taking a class she isn’t particularly interested in is how to find motivation to succeed even in more difficult—and in this case, boring—situations.  

            One thing that really surprised me this semester was when Kamia gave me a mid-semester report card so I could get an idea of her grades—where she was doing well, where she needed improvement, etc. I expected the lowest grade to be in Chemistry (after all, it was almost exclusively what we had been working on), and everything else to be high B’s and A’s. However, Chemistry was one of Kamia’s highest grades, her lowest grade being in African American Studies, a class that until then I had heard almost nothing about. After talking with her for a while, I was easily able to identify the problem: motivation. Again. Kamia seemed to be having trouble completing and turning in homework, and also studying for and performing well on tests.

            Because Kamia and I had less time in the semester to focus specifically on African American Studies, I did not get such a concrete sense of what this class was like. It appeared to be a bit more organized than Chemistry, but still somewhat scattered, especially in regards to grading. But each time I tried to get her started working on homework for African American Studies, Kamia’s motivation appeared to be at an all-time low. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that it is almost the end of a semester, after all, I certainly can sympathize with the feeling of being just totally over school around Thanksgiving and Christmastime. But regardless of what the reason behind Kamia’s decline in motivation is, I think it is important to recognize the significance of such a steep decline.

            The CEP recommends three different strategies schools can adapt in order to increase motivation in students. The two I believe to be most relevant are “programs focused on teachers” (6) and “efforts to reorganize schools” (6). By implementing programs focused on teachers, schools can directly influence unmotivated students by combatting aversive teaching styles. Kamia, I believe could supremely benefit from a different teaching style, especially one within subjects she finds difficult and uninteresting. By attempting to reorganize schools according to specific structures like “size, scheduling, climate, student groupings, and other aspects” (6), I believe students like Kamia would highly benefit. Things like her study hall might not prove so useless, and could be used more successfully as outside resources.

            One of the final sections of the CEP article focuses on nontraditional methods of motivating unmotivated students. These include: “Inquiry-based learning…Service learning…Alternative education programs…extracurricular programs…[and] Creative educational uses of technology” (7). I don’t know Kamia well enough to know which method might be the most successful for reinstating her motivation for schoolwork, but I know enough to warrant a guess. Because she eventually wants to work with children and so far has enjoyed her childcare course (which involves writing lesson plans for and working directly with preschool and elementary-aged children), I think Kamia would benefit highly from service learning. Perhaps she could get involved with her local community’s youth, finding motivation here rather than in the traditional classroom. Perhaps she could also provide some motivation to younger children with similar difficulties.

           

References

Center on Education Policy (CEP)"Student Motivation--An Overlooked Piece of School Reform." The George Washington University. Print.