As Lao Tzu observed, “You can no more teach without the learner than a merchant can sell without a willing buyer.” Follow the ARCS motivation model to ensure that students will be motivated to learn.
Note
Motivate learners because without motivation learning is unlikely to occur.
ARCS Motivational Model
As described by Keller, motivation can be enhanced through addressing the four attributes of Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction (ARCS). Try to include all of the attributes since each alone may not maintain student motivation. Your learner analysis may have provided useful information for motivating students.
You should build motivational strategies into the materials throughout the instructional design process. This is challenging since each learner is an individual with unique interests, experiences, and goals.
Note
Carefully determine your motivational strategies since each learner has unique interests, experiences, and goals.
Attention
Gain attention and then sustain it. You can gain attention by using human-interest examples, arousing emotions such as by showing a peer being wheeled into an ambulance, presenting personal information, challenging the learner, providing an interesting problem to solve, arousing the learner’s curiosity, showing exciting video or animation sequences, stating conflicting information, using humour, asking questions, and presenting a stimulus change that can be as simple as an audio beep. One way to sustain attention is by making the learning highly interactive. Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\) shows an attention-grabbing strategy.
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Gaining attention with an explosion
Relevance
Relevance helps the student to want to learn the material. For example, when teaching adult students how to solve percent problems, having them calculate the gratuity on a restaurant bill may be more relevant than a problem that compares two person’s ages. You can provide relevance through testimonials, illustrative stories, simulations, practical applications, personal experience, and relating the material to present or future values or needs. Relevance is also useful in helping to sustain attention.
For material to be perceived as being relevant, you must strive to match the learner’s expectations to the material you provide.
Confidence
If students are confident that they can master the material, they will be much more willing to attempt the instruction. You will need to convince students with low confidence that they can be successful. You can do this through presenting the material in small incremental steps, or even by stating how other similar students have succeeded. Tasks should seem achievable rather than insurmountable.
You should also convince students who are overconfident that there is material that they need to learn. You can do this by giving a challenging pre-test or presenting difficult questions.
Satisfaction
Satisfaction provides value for learning the material. Satisfaction can be intrinsic from the pleasure or value of the activity itself, extrinsic from the value or importance of the activity’s result, for social reasons such as pleasing people who’s opinions are important to them, for achievement goals such as the motive to be successful or avoid failure, or a combination of these. Examples of intrinsic satisfaction include the joy or challenge of learning, increased confidence, positive outcomes, and increased feelings of self-worth. Examples of extrinsic satisfaction include monetary rewards, praise, a certificate, avoidance of discomfort or punishment for not doing it, and unexpected rewards. Some evidence suggests that extrinsic motivation, such as a certificate for completing a course, does not last over time. Nonetheless, it is better to assume that some students need extrinsic motivation. To be safe, try to provide your learners with both intrinsic, which should have more of the focus, and extrinsic rewards. If the intrinsic motivation is high for all learners, you will not need to plan as much for extrinsic motivation. Note that satisfaction can be provided by enabling learners to apply the skills they have gained in a meaningful way.
Remember to let the students know that the material to be learned is important. Consider increasing extrinsic motivation through quizzes and tests.
