- Maintain and generate interest in information
“Everything that is unknown is terribly interesting” – such is the psychological nature of this source of educational motivation. The role of adults is to encourage this Interest. Most children come to school with a lot of questions starting with “Why”, with a great desire to learn, understand, look where there is no way for a direct human gaze. Of course, in different age periods, the content of cognitive interests is different. Younger schoolchildren are interested to know how everything around them works, younger teenagers are interested in the same topic, and also in the fact how everything works, is assembled and disassembled.
- Maintain and stimulate interest in the mode of action
It is a normal and very valuable human need to understand how something is done and to do it even better. It’s a pleasure to come up with an effective way to solve a problem yourself. It is the pleasure of an explorer, discoverer, creator. By transmitting ready-made methods of action and “training” students for their automatic one hundred percent reproduction, we deprive them of truly human pleasures. This means that adults need to develop in children the independence of their thinking.
- Use children’s interest in people who organize the educational process
In any situation, someone is interested in the process itself, someone is interested in the result, and someone is interested in the possibility of communication, building relationships. The ability to communicate during the educational process is a huge incentive for many students. Naturally, communication in this case should be built into the educational process, it is necessary not to interfere with it, but, on the contrary, to provide and promote it. Another aspect is communication with the teacher. If teaching is structured in such a way that the child has the opportunity to build valuable relationships for him with the teacher, for a whole group of students this can be an incentive.
- Create conditions for the realization of the need for self-expression and self-presentation
If such a feature as demonstrativeness is inherent in a person, you cannot hide it and sew it into a bag. It will break out, and that’s normal. It is not normal when demonstrative children are deprived of the opportunity to show this peculiarity in a “legal” way, but are forced to arrange performances, grimace, disrupt the course of the lesson, in general – to play the role of buffoons and hooligans. But not only demonstrative children need educational situations that allow them to present themselves, their talents and capabilities. These situations are needed by everyone, and therefore they stimulate to study.
- Help children satisfy the need for self-knowledge and self-education
This need is actualized in the majority of students during adolescence. Hence, a huge interest in psychological tests, psychology lessons: in them there is a conversation about them. Meanwhile, modern courses in literature, history, biology and many other school disciplines can be delivered in such a way as to rely on this need and thereby increase students’ interest in the subject. A resource for actualizing the need for self-education is a variety of coping situations that need to be created for schoolchildren in the educational process.
- Actualize the creative position of children
For this purpose, it is necessary to use situations that involve the manifestation of originality, creativity, the creation of an absolutely new product (even if it is purely educational in nature). This method of increasing interest in learning is one of the most optimal.
- Create conditions for being aware of the significance for yourself and for others of what is happening
Adults should develop that very “conscious” educational motivation: “I study because I need it.” Conscious motivation is the lot of high school students. A child needs to grow up to it. And it is very good if it is supported by some other emotional interest. Otherwise, learning becomes a productive, but very energy-consuming process for children: they constantly need to explain to themselves the importance of the efforts made at a rational level.
- Create a situation of success and social acceptance
This natural need for children who are willing to study hard to be loved and respected by significant adults should also be targeted. This source of learning activity is used powerfully in today’s teaching practice by both parents and teachers.
- Using the motives of avoiding punishment, obtaining material benefits and advantages
It’s a very common and often effective way to stimulate activity. Moreover, for many schoolchildren of primary and secondary school age, it is practically irreplaceable: if the internal sources of cognitive activity are weak, the desire to express oneself and to declare oneself is not developed, it is difficult to do without them. However, it is necessary to understand that this kind of hedonistic incentives is exhaustible and requires a constant increase in the “dimensions” of both punishment and reward to feed it. If it is the only source of activity, we can hardly expect good educational results from the child.
Learning to correctly combine all possible ways of encouraging a child to educational activity, to switch from one method to another depending on the situation, choosing a personal, individual “button” for each individual person provide a good opportunity to maintain educational motivation.