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8 Ways To Stay Motivated To Complete Assignments

When you enter college, you get blasted with many responsibilities. Some are new to you, while others are not. The new things can take you a lot of time to learn. One new thing you have to learn and master is assignment writing . Yes, assignments are a big part of college life.

If you haven’t started college yet, you may be thinking that we’re exaggerating things. But, that’s not the case. Learning how to write assignments in college is crucial. Students who don’t learn it take expert help from websites like Grow With Grades (GWG), which isn’t bad, in our opinion.

Taking help occasionally isn’t bad. What’s bad is when you don’t learn how to write assignments throughout your time spent at college. We're writing this blog to stop you from dealing with this problem. This blog will tell you 8 ways to stay motivated to complete assignments.

Let’s start. 

Put An End To Procrastination

The first thing you want to take care of while writing assignments is to end procrastination. It is the number one enemy of a good and productive life. We know you love to sleep whenever you get time. But taking multiple naps throughout the day isn’t a good thing.

Procrastination can also look like using your smartphone, even after knowing that you have assignments to complete. Whatever is causing you to procrastinate, you need to find a solution ASAP.

The thing with procrastination is that it can stop you from completing the simplest of tasks. Consider you get 10 days for completing assignments . You can still not do it if you have a habit of procrastinating. You may not realize it now, but it is a big problem that will stop you from succeeding in life.  

Put Distractions Aside

Often some things lead you to procrastinate. And the most common is a smartphone. Parents reading this blog will agree that smartphones are indeed why they argue with their children. Children these days use smartphones for hours on end because they can do everything using them. From taking notes in class to setting reminders for assignment submission, there is no end to what can be done using smartphones.

When children have access to smartphones from a young age, they’re very likely to develop a habit. And developing a habit of using smartphones is never good because it can stop you from focusing on what’s important and start indulging in timepass activities.

So, from now on, when you’re about to start assignment writing , make sure to keep your smartphone away from you, preferably in the other room. Initially, you may want to use your smartphone every few minutes. But once you develop a habit, not using it will become a habit for you.

Do Extensive Research

You can’t straight away decide to write assignments when the professor asks you to. When you do it, assignment writing becomes boring, which is why you can’t stay motivated. There’s a very simple way you can counter this problem.

The way is by doing extensive research. When you research, you learn many things, and the task does not stay boring at all. Moreover, research is crucial for any assignment because you can’t complete it if you don’t research.

Make sure to search for information from multiple resources. When you do it, you identify any wrong information you might include if you don’t check multiple resources. We recommend you check research papers because they have the most credible information.

Create An Outline

You feel bored and lack motivation when you don’t begin the work. Often starting something is the hardest thing. You’ll realize it when you have to write assignments. Starting them is like a challenge, but you realize writing the other parts becomes fairly easy when you start writing.    

So, what you can do is create an outline for the assignment. Outline means to create the introduction and different headings. When you do it, you put an end to boredom and have a rough idea about what you’ll write. And when you have done some work, you stay motivated to complete the rest.

Reward Yourself

Writing assignments continuously can be tiring. We assure you that no one (even the best writers) can do it.

So, what’s the solution when you’re tight on deadlines?

A very good solution is to start rewarding yourself. The reward can be anything from tasty food to watching funny videos. There is no limitation to what a reward can look like. Whatever makes you appreciate your efforts can be a reward.

You might have seen many people these days intentionally make their lives harder. They do it in the name of evolving through challenges. While it is true that a person grows when they go through challenges, it isn’t a good practice to create them forcefully. We all have to realize how crucial it is to appreciate ourselves.

And occasionally eating your favourite food won’t make you fat. So, stop thinking about it and reward yourself often.    

Take A Walk

The breaks you take when writing assignments aren’t a waste of time. They are meant to refresh your mind and body, which are essential if you want to keep your productivity high. You can either sit idle or take a walk.

Taking a walk is a pretty good habit , as it can refresh your mind. When you walk in nature, your eyes, mind and entire body feels refreshed. If you’re looking to lose fat, walking is a good choice. You don’t necessarily have to run or go to a gym to get in good shape. Brisk walking can burn a lot of calories, and it is the perfect choice for people with busy schedules.

Ask Your Friends What You Don’t Understand

It is common for students in college not to know everything about all the subjects. It could be because they are interested in a specific subject or just don’t have enough time to become good at everything. When this happens, students can ask their friends to teach them what they don’t know.

We feel asking your college friends about topics you don’t understand is a very good thing. You can’t always approach your professor and ask them about your doubts. Well, you can, but most students are not comfortable doing it. If you are or want to learn how to be your professor’s favourite student, we recommend you read this blog .

Anyways, when you take help from your friends, you don’t have to speak in a formal tone, as you would with your professors. Another benefit is that your relation with your friends will strengthen. You never know which friends can become your best friends, and you may end up staying in touch with them for many years.  

Know The Negative Consequences

For some students, positive things don’t work. They have to think about the negative consequences to get motivation. In college, it means they have to think that they can fail if they don’t complete and submit their assignments on time.

Many people crumble under pressure, but some love working under it. Many athletes deal with pressure when the race is about to start. But whenever any news reporter asks them how they’re feeling, they always reply that they’re excited. That’s because the same part of your brain works when you’re under pressure and excited.

So, if thinking about negative consequences motivates you to take action and complete assignments, resort to it.

Staying motivated while writing assignments is difficult because there are some challenges that one is presented with. If you also lose motivation easily while doing assignments, you need to read this blog. That’s because, in this blog, we covered 8 ways to stay motivated to complete assignments. After reading this blog, we hope that you won’t have trouble finding motivation.

If you liked reading it, share it with your college friends.

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How to Find Motivation to Do Homework

Last Updated: January 31, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams and by wikiHow staff writer, Megaera Lorenz, PhD . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 1,703,834 times.

Even if you love school, it can be hard to stay excited about doing homework. Just like with any other kind of work, it’s important to set personal goals and find your own inspiration to keep going. You can also help yourself focus by minimizing distractions and caring for yourself while you work. Finally, organize your time wisely and break your homework up into manageable pieces so it doesn’t feel too overwhelming.

Finding Your Drive and Inspiration

• Give yourself bigger rewards for bigger accomplishments. For example, you might go out for pizza with a friend after handing in an important paper.

• Just make sure you limit yourself to a specific amount of time (like 10 minutes, for example) so that you don’t end up getting totally distracted and wasting a few hours.

Did you know? Researchers in Japan recently discovered that looking at pictures or videos of baby animals before you start working can make you much more productive. [3] X Trustworthy Source PLOS ONE Online peer-reviewed, open access scientific research journal Go to source So, go ahead and watch a couple of cute kitten videos on YouTube the next time you need to work on a boring assignment. It might help!

• Doing homework with a friend doesn’t necessarily mean collaborating on the same assignments. You can just spend time together while you each do your own work. Only get your parent to help you if you need help.
• Check with your teacher first before working together with a friend on an assignment. They may want you to do the work by yourself.

• For example, if you’re a morning person, try doing your homework right after you eat breakfast.
• If you tend to get distracted while working at your desk at home, experiment with doing your homework in the library or a coffee shop instead.
• Some people also find it helpful to change their routine from time to time. If you find yourself getting bored, try working at a different time from usual or finding a new study space.

• Setting vague goals can lead to frustration. Instead of saying, “I’m going to get all my homework done this week,” try something more specific—e.g., “I’m going to work on my English essay for 1 hour every day this week.”

• For example, maybe you want to get good grades so you can get into your dream college, or possibly you’re working towards an exciting career.
• Doing a good job in your classes can also be its own reward—knowing that you worked hard and did your best is a great self-esteem booster!

Keeping Yourself Focused and Alert

• If you feel physically tense, do some yoga or light stretches before you begin to work.
• Doing breathing exercises can also help you feel more comfortable and alert.
• If you’re not already in comfy clothes, get changed before you start working. This may mean joggers, sweatpants, pjs, shorts, underwear, or even being completely naked. It's your choice.

• You’ll want a place where you can sit comfortably, but don’t get too comfortable. If you do homework in bed or on a cozy couch, you may be tempted to fall asleep!
• If you have to work at home, ask anyone who lives with you to give you a little quiet time while you do your homework.

• If you can’t resist messing around on your phone or visiting time-wasting websites on your computer, consider installing an app or a browser extension that blocks tempting apps and sites.
• Don’t try to work with a TV or radio on. If you listen to music while you do your homework, choose something that’s quiet and not too exciting, like some gentle classical music.

• Whole grains
• Healthy proteins, like fish, beans, or nuts
• Blueberries
• Leafy greens

• During your breaks, you can go for a walk, have a snack, do a little meditation , or even put your head down for a quick power nap .
• You can also use your breaks to reward yourself with a fun video or a quick game on your phone.

Did you know? Walking can improve your thinking skills. If you’re feeling stuck on a problem, going for a quick walk or even hopping on a treadmill can help! [13] X Research source

• For example, if you’ve been working on an essay for an hour or two, take a break and then switch to doing some math problems.
• Don’t try to do more than one task at once, though. Trying to multitask will disrupt your focus and cause you to make more mistakes.

Organizing Your Time Effectively

• Setting a schedule also makes it easier to avoid procrastinating .
• Make sure to schedule in time for breaks and relaxation, too!

Tip: You can avoid unpleasant surprises by writing important dates and deadlines into your schedule. For example, make note of when you have tests or quizzes coming up or when different assignments are due.

• Make an ordered list of all your tasks. Try to prioritize ones that are due soon, count towards a major part of your grade, or seem like they will be the most complicated to complete.
• Put assignments that aren’t due for a while or that you know you can finish quickly and easily at the bottom.

• For example, if you’re writing a big paper, you might break it up into pieces like doing the research, composing a bibliography, writing an outline, drafting the introduction, and so on.

• Productivity apps are helpful for some people, but they’re not for everyone. Make sure you don’t spend so much time worrying about the app that it starts to cut into your homework time! [19] X Research source

Supercharge Your Studying with this Expert Series

Community Q&A

Tips from our Readers

• Start your homework as soon as you get home from school (you may need a small snack first) instead of watching tv or using the computer. If you start another activity, it will be harder to stop it to switch to homework. Go straight to homework and think of TV and the computer as your reward for finishing.
• Sometimes I have a lot of work to do and it seems overwhelming, even if the work isn't hard. If I close my eyes and imagine myself doing my homework, it doesn't feel as intimidating and gives me the feeling that I can do it.
• Make a homework playlist in your music app and play every time you sit down to study. If music with lyrics distracts you, try looking up "study playlists" and "homework playlists," as they're usually just instrumentals.
• If you can, have your parents drop you off at the library after school for an hour (or however long your homework would take) so you can stay focused. There isn't much to do at the library and it's quiet.
• Take short breaks to rest your mind for a little while so that it is ready to get back to work. This works for a lot of people who just need to decompress after a long period of working and hard thinking!
• Think about having free time after the homework to do what you want. Also, think about having the homework done, being stress-free, and not getting in trouble because you didn't do your homework.
• Dedicate a space in your house to homework and decorate it. Make your homework space a place you like to be.
• Work with a buddy who doesn't get as distracted as you. This way, your buddy can help you stay focused.
• Chewing on gum can help you stay alert and focused if you're feeling tired or distracted.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.
• ↑ https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/tips-studying-motivation.html
• ↑ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0046362
• ↑ https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/how-should-students-study-tips-advice-and-pitfalls
• ↑ https://www.umassd.edu/fycm/goal-setting/resources/smartgoals/
• ↑ https://allianzassistancehealth.com.au/en/living-in-australia/studying-motivation-tips-university/
• ↑ https://www.wgu.edu/blog/improve-online-study-environment1712.html
• ↑ https://share.upmc.com/2019/08/healthy-snacks-to-power-studying/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/homework.html
• ↑ https://news.stanford.edu/2014/04/24/walking-vs-sitting-042414/
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/studying-101-study-smarter-not-harder/
• ↑ https://www.aiuniv.edu/blog/2016/april/4-steps-to-prioritize-tasks
• ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/18/time-management-apps-work-life-balance-productivity

About This Article

To find the motivation to do your homework, give yourself small rewards after you accomplish a goal, like a 5 minute video after finishing a reading assignment. For larger accomplishments, like completing an important paper, give yourself a bigger reward, like going out for pizza with friends. You can also try giving yourself a treat, like a scoop of ice cream or 10 minutes to text your best friend, before you begin working to lift your mood and make you more productive. If you have a friend who won’t distract you, see if they want to do homework together so you can keep each other on track. To learn how to pick the best time and place to do your homework, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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30 Tips to Stop Procrastinating and Find Motivation to Do Homework

Updated on June 6, 2023 By Daniel Wong 44 Comments

To stop procrastinating on homework, you need to find motivation to do the homework in the first place.

But first, you have to overcome feeling too overwhelmed to even start.

You know what it feels like when everything hits you at once, right?

You have three tests to study for and a math assignment due tomorrow.

And you’ve got a history report due the day after.

You tell yourself to get down to work. But with so much to do, you feel overwhelmed.

So you procrastinate.

You check your social media feed, watch a few videos, and get yourself a drink. But you know that none of this is bringing you closer to getting the work done.

Does this sound familiar?

Don’t worry – you are not alone. Procrastination is a problem that everyone faces, but there are ways around it.

By following the tips in this article, you’ll be able to overcome procrastination and consistently find the motivation to do the homework .

So read on to discover 30 powerful tips to help you stop procrastinating on your homework.

Enter your email below to download a PDF summary of this article. The PDF contains all the tips found here, plus  3 exclusive bonus tips that you’ll only find in the PDF.

How to stop procrastinating and motivate yourself to do your homework.

Procrastination when it comes to homework isn’t just an issue of laziness or a lack of motivation .

The following tips will help you to first address the root cause of your procrastination and then implement strategies to keep your motivation levels high.

1. Take a quiz to see how much you procrastinate.

The first step to changing your behavior is to become more self-aware.

How often do you procrastinate? What kinds of tasks do you tend to put off? Is procrastination a small or big problem for you?

To answer these questions, I suggest that you take this online quiz designed by Psychology Today .

2. Figure out why you’re procrastinating.

Procrastination is a complex issue that involves multiple factors.

Stop thinking of excuses for not doing your homework , and figure out what’s keeping you from getting started.

Are you procrastinating because:

• You’re not sure you’ll be able to solve all the homework problems?
• You’re subconsciously rebelling against your teachers or parents?
• You’re not interested in the subject or topic?
• You’re physically or mentally tired?
• You’re waiting for the perfect time to start?
• You don’t know where to start?

Once you’ve identified exactly why you’re procrastinating, you can pick out the tips in this article that will get to the root of the problem.

3. Write down what you’re procrastinating on.

Students tend to procrastinate when they’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

But you might be surprised to discover that simply by writing down the specific tasks you’re putting off, the situation will feel more manageable.

It’s a quick solution, and it makes a real difference.

Give it a try and you’ll be less likely to procrastinate.

4. Put your homework on your desk.

Here’s an even simpler idea.

Many times, the hardest part of getting your homework done is getting started.

It doesn’t require a lot of willpower to take out your homework and put it on your desk.

But once it’s sitting there in front of you, you’ll be much closer to actually getting down to work.

5. Break down the task into smaller steps.

This one trick will make any task seem more manageable.

For example, if you have a history report to write, you could break it down into the following steps:

• Read the history textbook
• Do online research
• Organize the information
• Create an outline
• Write the introduction
• Write the body paragraphs
• Write the conclusion
• Edit and proofread the report

Focus on just one step at a time. This way, you won’t need to motivate yourself to write the whole report at one go.

This is an important technique to use if you want to study smart and get more done .

6. Create a detailed timeline with specific deadlines.

As a follow-up to Point #5, you can further combat procrastination by creating a timeline with specific deadlines.

Using the same example above, I’ve added deadlines to each of the steps:

• Jan 30 th : Read the history textbook
• Feb 2 nd : Do online research
• Feb 3 rd : Organize the information
• Feb 5 th : Create an outline
• Feb 8 th : Write the introduction
• Feb 12 th : Write the body paragraphs
• Feb 14 th : Write the conclusion
• Feb 16 th : Edit and proofread the report

Assigning specific dates creates a sense of urgency, which makes it more likely that you’ll keep to the deadlines.

7. Spend time with people who are focused and hardworking.

Jim Rohn famously said that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

If you hang out with people who are motivated and hardworking, you’ll become more like them.

Likewise, if you hang out with people who continually procrastinate, you’ll become more like them too.

Motivation to do homework naturally increases when you surround yourself with the right people.

So choose your friends wisely. Find homework buddies who will influence you positively to become a straight-A student who leads a balanced life.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have any fun! It just means that you and your friends know when it’s time to get down to work and when it’s time to enjoy yourselves.

8. Tell at least two or three people about the tasks you plan to complete.

When you tell others about the tasks you intend to finish, you’ll be more likely to follow through with your plans.

This is called “accountability,” and it kicks in because you want to be seen as someone who keeps your word.

So if you know about this principle, why not use it to your advantage?

You could even ask a friend to be your accountability buddy. At the beginning of each day, you could text each other what you plan to work on that day.

Then at the end of the day, you could check in with each other to see if things went according to plan.

9. Change your environment .

Maybe it’s your environment that’s making you feel sluggish.

When you’re doing your homework, is your super-comfortable bed just two steps away? Or is your distracting computer within easy reach?

If your environment is part of your procrastination problem, then change it.

Sometimes all you need is a simple change of scenery. Bring your work to the dining room table and get it done there. Or head to a nearby café to complete your report.

10. Talk to people who have overcome their procrastination problem.

If you have friends who consistently win the battle with procrastination, learn from their experience.

What was the turning point for them? What tips and strategies do they use? What keeps them motivated?

Find all this out, and then apply the information to your own situation.

11. Decide on a reward to give yourself after you complete your task.

“Planned” rewards are a great way to motivate yourself to do your homework.

The reward doesn’t have to be something huge.

For instance, you might decide that after you finish 10 questions of your math homework, you get to watch your favorite TV show.

Or you might decide that after reading one chapter of your history textbook, you get to spend 10 minutes on Facebook.

By giving yourself a reward, you’ll feel more motivated to get through the task at hand.

12. Decide on a consequence you’ll impose on yourself if you don’t meet the deadline.

It’s important that you decide on what the consequence will be before you start working toward your goal.

As an example, you could tell your younger brother that you’ll give him $1 for every deadline you don’t meet (see Point #6).

Or you could decide that you’ll delete one game from your phone for every late homework submission.

Those consequences would probably be painful enough to help you get down to work, right?

13. Visualize success.

Take 30 seconds and imagine how you’ll feel when you finish your work.

What positive emotions will you experience?

Will you feel a sense of satisfaction from getting all your work done?

Will you relish the extra time on your hands when you get your homework done fast and ahead of time?

This simple exercise of visualizing success may be enough to inspire you to start doing your assignment.

14. Visualize the process it will take to achieve that success.

Even more important than visualizing the outcome is visualizing the process it will take to achieve that outcome.

Research shows that focusing on the process is critical to success. If you’re procrastinating on a task, take a few moments to think about what you’ll need to do to complete it.

Visualize the following:

• What resources you’ll need
• Who you can turn to for help
• How long the task will take
• Where you’ll work on the task
• The joy you’ll experience as you make progress

This kind of visualization is like practice for your mind.

Once you understand what’s necessary to achieve your goal, you’ll find that it’s much easier to get down to work with real focus. This is key to doing well in school .

15. Write down why you want to complete the task.

You’ll be more motivated when you’re clear about why you want to accomplish something.

To motivate yourself to do your homework, think about all the ways in which it’s a meaningful task.

So take a couple of minutes to write down the reasons. Here are some possible ones:

• Learn useful information
• Master the topic
• Enjoy a sense of accomplishment when you’ve completed the task
• Become a more focused student
• Learn to embrace challenges
• Fulfill your responsibility as a student
• Get a good grade on the assignment

16. Write down the negative feelings you’ll have if you don’t complete the task.

If you don’t complete the assignment, you might feel disappointed or discouraged. You might even feel as if you’ve let your parents or your teacher – or even yourself – down.

It isn’t wise to dwell on these negative emotions for too long. But by imagining how you’ll feel if you don’t finish the task, you’ll realize how important it is that you get to work.

17. Do the hardest task first.

Most students will choose to do the easiest task first, rather than the hardest one. But this approach isn’t effective because it leaves the worst for last.

It’s more difficult to find motivation to do homework in less enjoyable subjects.

As Brian Tracy says , “Eat that frog!” By this, he means that you should always get your most difficult task out of the way at the beginning of the day.

If math is your least favorite subject, force yourself to complete your math homework first.

After doing so, you’ll feel a surge of motivation from knowing it’s finished. And you won’t procrastinate on your other homework because it will seem easier in comparison.

(On a separate note, check out these tips on how to get better at math if you’re struggling.)

18. Set a timer when doing your homework.

I recommend that you use a stopwatch for every homework session. (If you prefer, you could also use this online stopwatch or the Tomato Timer .)

Start the timer at the beginning of the session, and work in 30- to 45-minute blocks.

Using a timer creates a sense of urgency, which will help you fight off your urge to procrastinate.

When you know you only have to work for a short session, it will be easier to find motivation to complete your homework.

Tell yourself that you need to work hard until the timer goes off, and then you can take a break. (And then be sure to take that break!)

19. Eliminate distractions.

Here are some suggestions on how you can do this:

• Delete all the games and social media apps on your phone
• Turn off all notifications on your phone
• Mute your group chats
• Archive your inactive chats
• Turn off your phone, or put it on airplane mode
• Put your phone at least 10 feet away from you
• Turn off the Internet access on your computer
• Use an app like Freedom to restrict your Internet usage
• Put any other distractions (like food, magazines and books unrelated to your homework) at the other end of the room
• Unplug the TV
• Use earplugs if your surroundings are noisy

20. At the start of each day, write down the two to three Most Important Tasks (MITs) you want to accomplish.

This will enable you to prioritize your tasks. As Josh Kaufman explains , a Most Important Task (MIT) is a critical task that will help you to get significant results down the road.

Not all tasks are equally important. That’s why it’s vital that you identify your MITs, so that you can complete those as early in the day as possible.

What do you most need to get done today? That’s an MIT.

Get to work on it, then feel the satisfaction that comes from knowing it’s out of the way.

21. Focus on progress instead of perfection.

Perfectionism can destroy your motivation to do homework and keep you from starting important assignments.

Some students procrastinate because they’re waiting for the perfect time to start.

Others do so because they want to get their homework done perfectly. But they know this isn’t really possible – so they put off even getting started.

What’s the solution?

To focus on progress instead of perfection.

There’s never a perfect time for anything. Nor will you ever be able to complete your homework perfectly. But you can do your best, and that’s enough.

So concentrate on learning and improving, and turn this into a habit that you implement whenever you study .

22. Get organized.

Procrastination is common among students who are disorganized.

When you can’t remember which assignment is due when or which tests you have coming up, you’ll naturally feel confused. You’ll experience school- and test-related stress .

This, in turn, will lead to procrastination.

That’s why it’s crucial that you get organized. Here are some tips for doing this:

• Don’t rely on your memory ; write everything down
• Keep a to-do list
• Use a student planner
• Use a calendar and take note of important dates like exams, project due dates, school holidays , birthdays, and family events
• At the end of each day, plan for the following day
• Use one binder or folder for each subject or course
• Do weekly filing of your loose papers, notes, and old homework
• Throw away all the papers and notes you no longer need

23. Stop saying “I have to” and start saying “I choose to.”

When you say things like “I have to write my essay” or “I have to finish my science assignment,” you’ll probably feel annoyed. You might be tempted to complain about your teachers or your school .

What’s the alternative?

To use the phrase “I choose to.”

The truth is, you don’t “have” to do anything.

You can choose not to write your essay; you’ll just run the risk of failing the class.

You can choose not to do your science assignment; you’ll just need to deal with your angry teacher.

When you say “I choose to do my homework,” you’ll feel empowered. This means you’ll be more motivated to study and to do what you ought to.

24. Clear your desk once a week.

Clutter can be demotivating. It also causes stress , which is often at the root of procrastination.

Hard to believe? Give it a try and see for yourself.

By clearing your desk, you’ll reduce stress and make your workspace more organized.

So set a recurring appointment to organize your workspace once a week for just 10 minutes. You’ll receive huge benefits in the long run!

25. If a task takes two minutes or less to complete, do it now.

This is a principle from David Allen’s bestselling book, Getting Things Done .

You may notice that you tend to procrastinate when many tasks pile up. The way to prevent this from happening is to take care of the small but important tasks as soon as you have time.

Here are some examples of small two-minute tasks that you should do once you have a chance:

• Replying to your project group member’s email
• Picking up anything on the floor that doesn’t belong there
• Asking your parents to sign a consent form
• Filing a graded assignment
• Making a quick phone call
• Writing a checklist
• Sending a text to schedule a meeting
• Making an online purchase that doesn’t require further research

26. Finish one task before starting on the next.

You aren’t being productive when you switch between working on your literature essay, social studies report, and physics problem set – while also intermittently checking your phone.

Research shows that multitasking is less effective than doing one thing at a time. Multitasking may even damage your brain !

When it comes to overcoming procrastination, it’s better to stick with one task all the way through before starting on the next one.

You’ll get a sense of accomplishment when you finish the first assignment, which will give you a boost of inspiration as you move on to the next one.

27. Build your focus gradually.

You can’t win the battle against procrastination overnight; it takes time. This means that you need to build your focus progressively.

If you can only focus for 10 minutes at once, that’s fine. Start with three sessions of 10 minutes a day. After a week, increase it to three sessions of 15 minutes a day, and so on.

As the weeks go by, you’ll become far more focused than when you first started. And you’ll soon see how great that makes you feel.

28. Before you start work, write down three things you’re thankful for.

Gratitude improves your psychological health and increases your mental strength .

These factors are linked to motivation. The more you practice gratitude, the easier it will be to find motivation to do your homework. As such, it’s less likely that you’ll be a serial procrastinator.

Before you get down to work for the day, write down three things you’re thankful for. These could be simple things like good health, fine weather, or a loving family.

You could even do this in a “gratitude journal,” which you can then look back on whenever you need a shot of fresh appreciation for the good things in your life.

Either way, this short exercise will get you in the right mindset to be productive.

29. Get enough sleep.

For most people, this means getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night. And teenagers need 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night to function optimally.

What does sleep have to do with procrastination?

More than you might realize.

It’s almost impossible to feel motivated when you’re tired. And when you’re low on energy, your willpower is depleted too.

That’s why you give in to the temptation of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube videos more easily when you’re sleep-deprived.

Here are ways to get more sleep , and sleep better too:

• Create a bedtime routine
• Go to sleep at around the same time every night
• Set a daily alarm as a reminder to go to bed
• Exercise regularly (but not within a few hours of bedtime)
• Make your bedroom as dark as possible
• Remove or switch off all electronic devices before bedtime
• Avoid caffeine at least six hours before bedtime
• Use an eye mask and earplugs

30. Schedule appointments with yourself to complete your homework.

These appointments are specific blocks of time reserved for working on a report, assignment, or project. Scheduling appointments is effective because it makes the task more “official,” so you’re more likely to keep the appointment.

For example, you could schedule appointments such as:

• Jan 25 th , 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm: Math assignment
• Jan 27 th , 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm: Online research for social studies project
• Jan 28 th , 4:30 pm – 5:00 pm: Write introduction for English essay

Transform homework procrastination into homework motivation

Procrastination is a problem we all face.

But given that you’ve read all the way to here, I know you’re committed to overcoming this problem.

And now that you’re armed with these tips, you have all the tools you need to become more disciplined and focused .

By the way, please don’t feel as if you need to implement all the tips at once, because that would be too overwhelming.

Instead, I recommend that you focus on just a couple of tips a week, and make gradual progress. No rush!

Over time, you’ll realize that your habit of procrastination has been replaced by the habit of getting things done.

Now’s the time to get started on that process of transformation. 🙂

Like this article? Please share it with your friends.

Images: Student and books , Homework , Group of students , Consequences , Why , Writing a list , Organized desk , Gratitude

January 19, 2016 at 11:53 am

Ur tips are rlly helpful. Thnkyou ! 🙂

January 19, 2016 at 1:43 pm

You’re welcome 🙂

August 29, 2018 at 11:21 am

Thanks very much

February 19, 2019 at 1:38 pm

The funny thing is while I was reading the first few steps of this article I was procrastinating on my homework….

November 12, 2019 at 12:44 pm

same here! but now I actually want to get my stuff done… huh

December 4, 2022 at 11:35 pm

May 30, 2023 at 6:26 am

October 25, 2023 at 11:35 am

fr tho i totally was but now I’m actually going to get started haha

June 6, 2020 at 6:04 am

I love your articles

January 21, 2016 at 7:07 pm

Thanks soo much. It’s almost like you could read my mind- when I felt so overwhelmed with the workload heap I had created for myself by procrastination, I know feel very motivated to tackle it out completely and replace that bad habit with the wonderful tips mentioned here! 🙂

January 21, 2016 at 8:04 pm

I’m glad to help 🙂

January 25, 2016 at 3:09 pm

You have shared great tips here. I especially like the point “Write down why you want to complete the task” because it is helpful to make us more motivated when we are clear about our goals

January 25, 2016 at 4:51 pm

Glad that you found the tips useful, John!

January 29, 2016 at 1:22 am

Thank you very much for your wonderful tips!!! ☺☺☺

January 29, 2016 at 10:41 am

It’s my joy to help, Kabir 🙂

February 3, 2016 at 12:57 pm

Always love your articles. Keep them up 🙂

February 3, 2016 at 1:21 pm

Thanks, Matthew 🙂

February 4, 2016 at 1:40 pm

There are quite a lot of things that you need to do in order to come out with flying colors while studying in a university away from your homeland. Procrastinating on homework is one of the major mistakes committed by students and these tips will help you to avoid them all and make yourself more efficient during your student life.

February 4, 2016 at 1:58 pm

Completely agreed, Leong Siew.

October 5, 2018 at 12:52 am

Wow! thank you very much, I love it .

November 2, 2018 at 10:45 am

You are helping me a lot.. thank you very much….😊

November 6, 2018 at 5:19 pm

I’m procrastinating by reading this

November 29, 2018 at 10:21 am

January 8, 2021 at 3:38 am

March 3, 2019 at 9:12 am

Daniel, your amazing information and advice, has been very useful! Please keep up your excellent work!

April 12, 2019 at 11:12 am

We should stop procrastinating.

September 28, 2019 at 5:19 pm

Thank you so much for the tips:) i’ve been procrastinating since i started high schools and my grades were really bad “F” but the tips have made me a straight A student again.

January 23, 2020 at 7:43 pm

Thanks for the tips, Daniel! They’re really useful! 😁

April 10, 2020 at 2:15 pm

I have always stood first in my class. But procrastination has always been a very bad habit of mine which is why I lost marks for late submission .As an excuse for finding motivation for studying I would spend hours on the phone and I would eventually procrastinate. So I tried your tips and tricks today and they really worked.i am so glad and thankful for your help. 🇮🇳Love from India🇮🇳

April 15, 2020 at 11:16 am

Well I’m gonna give this a shot it looks and sounds very helpful thank you guys I really needed this

April 16, 2020 at 9:48 pm

Daniel, your amazing information and advice, has been very useful! keep up your excellent work! May you give more useful content to us.

May 6, 2020 at 5:03 pm

nice article thanks for your sharing.

May 20, 2020 at 4:49 am

Thank you so much this helped me so much but I was wondering about like what if you just like being lazy and stuff and don’t feel like doing anything and you don’t want to tell anyone because you might annoy them and you just don’t want to add your problems and put another burden on theirs

July 12, 2020 at 1:55 am

I’ve read many short procrastination tip articles and always thought they were stupid or overlooking the actual problem. ‘do this and this’ or that and that, and I sit there thinking I CAN’T. This article had some nice original tips that I actually followed and really did make me feel a bit better. Cheers, diving into what will probably be a 3 hour case study.

August 22, 2020 at 10:14 pm

Nicely explain each tips and those are practical thanks for sharing. Dr.Achyut More

November 11, 2020 at 12:34 pm

Thanks a lot! It was very helpful!

November 15, 2020 at 9:11 am

I keep catching myself procrastinating today. I started reading this yesterday, but then I realized I was procrastinating, so I stopped to finish it today. Thank you for all the great tips.

November 30, 2020 at 5:15 pm

Woow this is so great. Thanks so much Daniel

December 3, 2020 at 3:13 am

These tips were very helpful!

December 18, 2020 at 11:54 am

Procrastination is a major problem of mine, and this, this is very helpful. It is very motivational, now I think I can complete my work.

December 28, 2020 at 2:44 pm

Daniel Wong: When you’re doing your homework, is your super-comfortable bed just two steps away? Me: Nope, my super-comfortable bed is one step away. (But I seriously can’t study anywhere else. If I go to the dining table, my mum would be right in front of me talking loudly on the phone with colleagues and other rooms is an absolute no. My mum doesn’t allow me to go outside. Please give me some suggestions. )

September 19, 2022 at 12:14 pm

I would try and find some noise cancelling headphones to play some classical music or get some earbuds to ignore you mum lol

March 1, 2021 at 5:46 pm

Thank you very much. I highly appreciate it.

May 12, 2023 at 3:38 am

This is great advice. My little niece is now six years old and I like to use those nice cheap child friendly workbooks with her. This is done in order to help her to learn things completely on her own. I however prefer to test her on her own knowledge however. After a rather quick demonstration in the lesson I then tend to give her two simple questions to start off with. And it works a treat. Seriously. I love it. She loves it. The exam questions are for her to answer on her own on a notepad. If she can, she will receive a gold medal and a box of sweets. If not she only gets a plastic toy. We do this all the time to help her understand. Once a week we spend up to thirty minutes in a math lesson on this technique for recalling the basic facts. I have had a lot of great success with this new age technique. So I’m going to carry on with it for now.

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How to Motivate Students: 13 Classroom Tips & Examples

In the bustling world of education, one question that perennially echoes through the hallways is, “How can we motivate students effectively?” As educators, understanding the intricate dynamics of motivation is pivotal in creating an enriching learning environment.

In this article, we’ll explore 12 classroom tips and examples to ignite and sustain the flame of motivation among students.

Importance of Student Motivation

Student motivation is the heartbeat of any thriving classroom. When students are motivated, they are more engaged, enthusiastic, and open to learning.

Motivation serves as the catalyst for academic success and personal growth, shaping individuals into lifelong learners.

The Role of Teachers in Fostering Motivation

Teachers play a pivotal role in sculpting the motivational landscape of their classrooms.

By employing effective strategies and creating a positive atmosphere, educators can inspire and empower students to reach new heights.

1. Understanding Motivation

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

Motivation comes in two main flavors: intrinsic and extrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation stems from internal desires and a genuine love for learning, while extrinsic motivation involves external rewards.

Balancing these two elements is crucial for a holistic approach to student motivation.

The Psychology of Motivation

Delving into the psychology of motivation unveils a world of cognitive and emotional triggers. Understanding how students perceive challenges and achievements is key to tailoring motivational strategies that resonate with them.

2. Creating a Positive Learning Environment

Importance of a Supportive Atmosphere

A positive and supportive atmosphere is the breeding ground for motivation. Students thrive in environments where they feel safe, acknowledged, and encouraged.

Fostering such an atmosphere lays the foundation for a motivated and engaged classroom.

Personalized Learning Experiences

Recognizing that every student is unique is the first step toward personalized learning experiences. Tailoring lessons to individual interests and learning styles not only sparks motivation but also enhances comprehension and retention.

One way to achieve this is through an assignment writing service that can provide tailored assignments based on your interests and learning style.

3. Setting Clear Goals

SMART Goal-Setting for Students

Setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals provides students with clear objectives. This goal-setting framework empowers them to track progress and celebrate achievements, fueling their motivation.

Tracking Progress and Achievements

Regularly tracking and acknowledging progress is a powerful motivator. Whether through charts, badges, or verbal praise, recognizing achievements, no matter how small, creates a positive feedback loop.

4. Encouraging Student Engagement

Interactive Teaching Methods

Engagement is the key to sustained motivation. Incorporating interactive teaching methods, such as group discussions, hands-on activities, and multimedia presentations, captivates students’ attention and makes learning enjoyable.

Incorporating Real-World Examples

Connecting lessons to real-world examples bridges the gap between theory and practice.

By illustrating the practical applications of knowledge, teachers can instill a sense of purpose, making the learning experience more meaningful and motivating.

5. Recognizing and Rewarding Efforts

The Power of Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is a cornerstone of motivation. Whether through verbal praise, tangible rewards, or a simple acknowledgment of effort, reinforcing positive behavior encourages students to continue putting in their best.

Creative Reward Systems

Injecting creativity into reward systems adds an element of excitement. From “Student of the Week” awards to themed achievement badges, these creative incentives make the journey towards goals more enjoyable.

6. Fostering a Growth Mindset

Embracing Challenges as Opportunities

Fostering a growth mindset involves cultivating a mindset that views challenges as opportunities for growth. Encouraging students to embrace difficulties as stepping stones to success cultivates resilience and a hunger for knowledge.

Encouraging Resilience in the Face of Setbacks

Setbacks are inevitable, but how students respond to them is crucial. Teaching resilience and perseverance empowers students to overcome obstacles, reinforcing their belief in their ability to succeed.

7. Utilizing Technology Effectively

Integrating Technology in the Classroom

Incorporating technology into lessons caters to the digital-native generation. Interactive apps, educational games, and multimedia presentations not only enhance learning but also add a modern flair that captures students’ interest.

Gamification for Enhanced Engagement

Gamifying the learning experience transforms the classroom into an interactive playground. Incorporating elements like point systems, challenges, and leaderboards taps into the competitive spirit, making learning an exciting adventure.

8. Promoting Collaborative Learning

Benefits of Group Activities

Collaborative learning encourages teamwork and communication skills. Group activities not only break the monotony of traditional teaching but also provide students with a support system, fostering motivation through shared achievements.

Peer-to-Peer Support and Motivation

Peer support is a powerful motivator. Creating an environment where students cheer for each other’s successes and provide assistance during challenges nurtures a sense of community, making the classroom a place where everyone thrives.

9. Tailoring Teaching Styles

Recognizing Diverse Learning Preferences

Students have diverse learning preferences. Some are visual learners, while others excel with hands-on experiences.

Recognizing and accommodating these differences ensures that every student feels seen and understood, enhancing their motivation to learn.

Adapting Teaching Methods Accordingly

Flexibility in teaching methods is a key element in keeping students engaged. Experimenting with different approaches allows educators to find what resonates best with their students, making the learning journey more dynamic and exciting.

10. Celebrating Diversity

Inclusive Teaching Practices

Inclusive teaching practices acknowledge and celebrate diversity. By incorporating diverse perspectives and cultural references in lessons, educators create an inclusive environment where every student feels valued and motivated to participate.

Appreciating Cultural Differences

Cultural differences bring richness to the classroom. Acknowledging and appreciating these differences not only broadens students’ horizons but also fosters a sense of pride in their unique backgrounds, contributing to heightened motivation.

11. Effective Communication

Providing Constructive Feedback

Constructive feedback is a cornerstone of improvement. Timely and specific feedback guides students toward improvement, instilling confidence and motivation to continuously strive for excellence.

12. Instilling a Sense of Purpose

Linking lessons to real-world applications answers the perennial student question, “Why do I need to know this?”

Understanding the practical relevance of knowledge instills a sense of purpose, motivating students to delve deeper into their studies.

Passion is the driving force behind sustained motivation. By sharing their own enthusiasm for the subject matter, teachers can ignite a spark in students, inspiring them to pursue knowledge not just for grades but for the sheer joy of learning.

13. Balancing Structure and Flexibility

The Importance of Routine

Structure provides a sense of security and predictability. Implementing routines in the classroom establishes a conducive learning environment, allowing students to focus on learning without unnecessary distractions.

Allowing for Flexibility in Learning

While structure is essential, flexibility is equally vital. Allowing for flexibility in learning caters to the diverse needs and interests of students, keeping the educational journey dynamic and adapting to the ever-evolving landscape of knowledge.

In the intricate dance of education, motivation takes center stage. By embracing a multifaceted approach that combines positive environments, personalized learning, goal-setting, and effective communication, educators can create classrooms where motivation thrives.

The journey toward motivating students is ongoing, requiring dedication, creativity, and a genuine passion for teaching.

About the Author Pearl Holland is an experienced Academic writer having 7 years of experience at Perfect Essay Writing with a passion for crafting compelling and insightful content.

Learn How to Focus Your Attention

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Do you ever procrastinate to avoid unpleasant tasks or assignments? Do you find it hard to get started? Do you struggle to stay focused and on task when working from your dorm room, house, or apartment? Motivating yourself to go to class, complete assignments, study, and do all the other things required of you in college can be difficult—but it’s crucial to your college success. Research shows that students can learn how to become better learners by using effective motivation strategies. Successful students know how to self-regulate (control) their own learning and the factors that impact their learning. Fortunately, there are strategies for increasing motivation and self-efficacy, which can in turn increase chances of academic success and well-being.

This handout explores common challenges when it comes to accomplishing tasks and shares several tips and strategies to improve your self-motivation.

Effort over ability

One of the key differences between people who do and don’t succeed is not their ability level but their effort and motivation levels . Few people wake up wanting to do unpleasant or boring tasks. The ones who do them and succeed in them are the ones who believe they can and motivate themselves to do them even when they don’t feel like it. Here are some specific strategies you can use to develop your self-motivation and improve your overall success.

Motivational strategies

Strategies to set yourself up for success.

Set clear goals . Include daily, weekly, semester, and long-term goals. Write them down somewhere easily visible. Use SMART goals to be specific and create a plan: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound. For example: Instead of saying, “I want to get better grades,” say something like, “I want to get at least an 85% on my BIO exam on March 5.” Even better, set up concrete goals (e.g., increased study hours, peer tutoring) that help you track your progress toward that long-term goal. For example, instead of saying, “I want to do well in my online classes,” say something like, “I want to devote thirty minutes tomorrow to taking notes on my Spanish textbook before starting my online homework.”

Help yourself focus. Eliminate or limit things that are distracting and cause you to procrastinate . Take distracting apps off your phone, turn off the TV, study outside of your dorm room, keep your phone/laptop away during class or study times, create a designated study space in your bedroom or home, block Netflix, clear out the junk food, etc. If you know you struggle with something, make it more difficult for you to indulge in that temptation.

Pace yourself. Chunk your study, work, and reading times into small sections (30-60 minutes) with breaks in between. Breaks are important for your focus, health, and motivation and should be worked into any study time. If you are going to be studying or working for longer, go back and forth between one task or class and another.

Prioritize. Study early in the day and do the most challenging or unpleasant tasks first. Research shows that tackling difficult tasks first thing in the day can make you feel better throughout the rest of the day and be more productive. Doing so keeps you from procrastinating all day and having that dreaded feeling of knowing that you need to do something unpleasant.

Location, location, location. Think about where you work best and where you will be most motivated to get to work and stay working. For most people, their dorm room or bed are not ideal, as they come with many distractions. Some students focus better in a public place like the library or a coffee shop, while others prefer silence and isolation, like a quiet and secluded room on campus. Some students benefit from blocking off an area in their home that they use exclusively for studying and working on projects.

Self-care strategies

Get enough sleep . Aim for at least 7 hours a night. Sleep is important to motivation. If you aren’t well-rested and are running on fumes, it’s a lot more difficult to be productive, stay focused, and motivate yourself.

Build a routine and healthy habits . Structure healthy habits like meals, sleep, exercise, and study times into your daily schedule and then stick with it. Motivating yourself to accomplish tasks becomes easier when you make it a part of your regular routine.

Eat and drink healthily. Drink enough water—your body needs water to function and improve energy. Eat regularly, don’t skip meals, and try to eat healthy foods. You need energy to complete tasks, and it’s much easier to get started and stay focused on work if you are well fed.

Metacognitive strategies

Reflect on what makes you happy, what fulfills you, and what you are passionate about. Try to align what you do with things that make you happy and fulfill you. If you spend all of your time doing or pursuing things that you do not like or care about, you may never be fully motivated. Choosing pathways and activities that interest you is one of the biggest ways to better motivate yourself.

Give yourself rewards for accomplishing difficult tasks and identify strategies that help keep you accountable.

Think about what support you need in order to achieve your goals and then get the support you need. This could include investing in a new planner, attending peer tutoring, or making an appointment with an academic coach at the Learning Center.

Accept that you aren’t perfect. Many students lack motivation because they are afraid of not performing as well as they would like. Combat your fear of failure by telling yourself that your self-worth does not depend on your ability to perform. Include your image of success to include personal and social success and growth.

Write a letter to your future self to remind yourself of your goals. Read this message when you find yourself feeling unmotivated.

Reflect. When you have a task to accomplish, reflect before, during, and after. Think about your feelings towards the task, what you need to do to accomplish it, and how you feel when you are done.

Talk to yourself out loud about your dreams and goals and speak encouraging, positive words to yourself. Compliment yourself and tell yourself you can do it.

List out what is preventing you from doing what you need to do, then find ways to tackle those things. Be specific.

Think long-term. Keep focused on your long-term goals and think about them when you’re feeling unmotivated. Reminder yourself of how this task or step gets you closer to your big goals. Print out a picture of where you want to be in the future and post it on your wall or mirror.

If you’re feeling stuck, visualize yourself as you want to be in the future. Picture yourself in your future career or situation and remind yourself of what you are working for.

Stay positive and optimistic. Avoid complaining or commiserating at times when you planned to make progress towards your goals. If the problems or obstacles can be set aside till later, it may help to write them down to ensure you get back to them. If there’s a problem that cannot be set aside, seek out resources and support to help you address what’s wrong.

Think about consequences. Sometimes thinking about the negative consequences of not doing a particular task you might be stuck on can be motivating. Alternatively, think about the reward of accomplishing the goal (or at least the feeling of being getting it over with) as a motivator.

Accountability strategies

Set visual reminders and alarms on your phone and laptop to remind and encourage yourself of your goal. Consider changing the background of your phone and laptop to a motivational quote or simply to saying the goal that you want to reach. Create positive and encouraging visual reminders and motivators to hang on your bedroom wall or mirror.

Share your goals with a friend, classmate, or someone in your life. Reach out to someone and ask them to help keep you accountable with your work and goals. Check in with this person face-to-face or online regularly to discuss your progress.

Meet with an academic coach at the Learning Center to talk through your goals and have accountability.

Attend office hours to discuss the class with your professor and gain specific tips and suggestions.

Check out some of the study groups and tutoring that the Learning Center offers:

• STEM study groups
• ADHD/LD resources
• Learning Center Workshops

Worked consulted

Elton, C. and Gostick, A. (2014). What motivates me: Put your passions to work. Kamas: The Culture Works Press.

Dembo, M. and Seli, H. (2013). Motivation and learning strategies for college success: A focus on self-regulated learning. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Holschuh, J. and Nist, S. (2000). Active learning: Strategies for college success. Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

Pychyl, T. (2010). The procrastinator’s digest. Canada: Howling Pines Publishers.

Newport, C. (2007). How to become a straight A student: The unconventional strategies real college students use to score high while studying less. New York: Broadway Books.

Ryan, M.J. (2006). This year I will…How to finally change a habit, keep a resolution, or make a dream come true. New York: Broadway Books.

Tracy, B. (2007). Eat that frog! 21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

If you enjoy using our handouts, we appreciate contributions of acknowledgement.

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6 ways to build motivation to do your schoolwork now that you’re forced to learn online at home

Assistant Professor of University Studies, Middle Tennessee State University

Disclosure statement

Ryan Korstange does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Even in normal circumstances, it can be hard to get motivated to do your schoolwork . But these are not normal circumstances.

The switch to remote instruction caused by COVID-19 has been unsettling. Patterns have changed. Habits have been disrupted . Remote classes are simply different from classes that involve face-to-face instruction.

As a researcher who looks at what it takes to get through college , I have a few tips that could maximize your motivation and productivity when you’re at home going to school online.

1. Guard your time

You do not need large amounts of time to be productive. Instead, be intentional and focused in short blocks where you can work without interruption. Protect these open times by setting up your workspace to minimize distraction – including silencing notifications on your cellphone or laptop. Communicate your boundaries to friends and family and make sure to identify times when work and socialization can happen.

2. Determine how much work is needed

Write down the work you need to accomplish, because there is a limit to how much information you can recall and process at one time. Examine the remaining projects, including research and written assignments, and estimate the amount and type of effort that each requires. Identify any tests and quizzes that are scheduled and determine what preparation is necessary.

3. Break large projects into smaller ones

Breaking big projects into smaller and more manageable tasks allows you to achieve maximum efficiency and effectiveness .

Your assigned tasks should follow a logical sequence. Some tasks are basic, like locating articles in the online library for a research paper. Others, like proofreading, are best left to do later in the process. Work steadily, and record your progress as you do, because you get more done when you can actually see the progress you’re making.

4. Set goals

When you set specific and difficult goals for your work and make them public in some way , it can boost your performance and enhance your motivation .

Setting generic, vague or easy goals is less helpful. Set goals related to effort. For example, plan to spend three hours one day studying for a certain class. Also, set goals related to the completion of specific tasks or products. For instance, give yourself a deadline to read and take notes on a specific article for a certain paper you must write.

Further, make time in your plan to deal with any interruptions and challenges that may occur. For example, when my 7-year-old gets bored or needs some attention and interrupts me in my work, I plan to spend 20-30 minutes doing something with her. We take a walk or a bike ride, or create some art. Then I can return to work. I even set a timer to keep myself honest.

5. Identify the rewards

It pays to clarify the rewards at stake this semester – whether those rewards are internal, such as the feeling of accomplishment that comes from understanding a difficult concept well, or external, such as getting a good grade.

Many universities are adopting pass/fail grading systems in the short term, so the external reward course grades provide will likely be different. Learning is what matters now. Focus on the course learning outcomes and make sure that you’re meeting them, because these skills will be the ones required of you as you progress toward your degree.

6. Be flexible and go easy on yourself

This is an unprecedented crisis, and we are all scrambling to make it work. You didn’t expect to spend these months at home, learning online. Some days won’t go as planed - and that’s alright. Forgive yourself when you don’t do your best, then move forward and overcome the setbacks .

When the pandemic passes

Eventually, this pandemic will be over. Face-to-face classes will start again, and this semester will be but a memory. The good habits you build and the strategies follow now to manage to learn and work independently will bear dividends in the future.

[ Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter .]

• Online learning
• Online education
• Coronavirus
• US higher education
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How to Motivate Yourself to Do Homework

How to Get Motivated to Do Schoolwork to Achieve Stellar Results

To motivate yourself to do homework, set clear, achievable goals, create a distraction-free study space, and establish a regular routine. Use a timer for focused work sessions, reward yourself after completing tasks, and maintain a positive mindset. Remember to take care of your health and seek help if needed.

• Make a Plan: Break tasks into chunks, set realistic goals.
• Seek Help: Find a mentor or use assignment services.
• Set Small Goals: Break homework into smaller, manageable objectives.
• Stay Organized: Keep workspace tidy and schedule organized.
• Take Breaks: Regular breaks to recharge.
• Give Rewards: Treat yourself for completing tasks.
• Stay Positive: Maintain an optimistic mindset.
• Get Specialized Help: Seek assistance for challenging subjects.
• Hang Out With Like-Minded Peers: Surround yourself with motivated friends.
• Eat Nutritiously: Maintain a balanced diet for focus and energy.

Are you wondering how to motivate yourself to do homework? Transform your study routine with actionable tips like staying organized, taking breaks, making a plan, etc. Read this article to help you foster focus and productivity.

Gain insight on tackling assignments and confidently turning your challenges into triumphs. Find out how to embrace the power of positive habits and witness your motivation soar. Let's break the cycle of boredom and ignite your passion for learning.

Instead of letting deadlines overwhelm you, let's turn them into milestones. With our proven methods, you can easily elevate your academic journey and conquer schoolwork. 

Motivation to Do Homework: Learn Why It Matters

Finding motivation for homework can sometimes feel impossible, especially when you're tired and overwhelmed with many responsibilities. But homework was not given by your teachers or professors as a form of torture.

It's a vital element in your academic journey, and staying motivated is the compass guiding the way to complete them. Consider motivation as the fuel propelling you through your seemingly impossible tasks.

Maintaining inspiration is crucial because it transforms routine assignments into valuable learning opportunities.

When you enthusiastically approach your homework, the benefits extend beyond completion—it fosters a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Embrace motivation as a tool for getting things done and fostering a positive and productive mindset. In the academic realm, staying inspired is the key to unlocking the doors to knowledge and answering the question of how to get motivated to do schoolwork.

Make a Plan to Help Jump-start Everything

Every student knows the feeling of being overwhelmed by homework. Sometimes, students can't help but scratch their heads, wondering how to get motivated to do schoolwork. It is indeed easy to drag your feet and procrastinate. The secret to conquering that mountain of assignments?

Make a plan! Start by breaking tasks into manageable chunks and set realistic goals. The key is finding what inspires you—a cozy study spot, a reward system, or a study playlist. Having a plan helps organize your workload and gives you a roadmap to success.

So, take a deep breath, make that plan, and watch as motivation for homework becomes your trusty sidekick on your academic journey! 

Seek Help and Find a Mentor

When wondering how to get motivated to do homework, seeking help and finding a mentor becomes a game-changer. The benefits are profound, whether it's reaching out to an alumna, a high-achieving peer, or even considering a professional online "do my assignment" service.

A mentor provides guidance, shares insights, and instills motivation by offering a fresh perspective. Alumnae brings real-world experience which may help you understand. Your peers offer relatability and can also help explain concepts.

Finally, assignment services provide expert support to ensure you can beat your deadlines.

Guidance not only eases your academic load but also fosters a collaborative spirit. Seeking help makes your assignments less daunting. Instead of feeling as if you're drowning in tasks, your mind becomes more prepared for learning and growth.

Break Things Down and Set Small Goals for Homework Assignments

When wondering how to force yourself to do homework, the secret lies in breaking homework assignments down into smaller chunks. Transform your daunting mountain of tasks into manageable molehills. Start with bite-sized objectives that feel achievable, gradually building momentum.

It's like turning homework into a series of mini-victories, making your workload more digestible. Small goals and specific tasks not only boost motivation but also promote a sense of accomplishment.

So, rather than overwhelming yourself, slice your assignments into manageable portions and check your to-do list.

Then, watch as each completed task propels you forward. It's a strategy that helps you stop procrastinating and makes you spend time working on relevant current and future assignments.

Stay Organized to Help You Crush Those Goals

Are you curious how to get motivation to do homework? The answer lies in staying organized to help you crush your goals. Picture your workspace as a battleground—clutter is the enemy, and order is your ally. It's challenging to stay focused amid chaos.

Studies show that a tidy environment fosters mental clarity. So, organize your tasks, create a schedule, and tidy up your space. As you conquer the clutter, you'll find motivation thriving. A well-ordered work area reflects a well-ordered mind, making your homework journey smoother and the path to your goals clearer.

Get organized and watch your motivation, propelling you to academic excellence! And start expecting good grades, and not just in your favorite subject.

Take Breaks to Help You Recharge and Achieve Homework Fun

Wondering how to get motivated for homework? Embrace the power of breaks to help you recharge and do my homework . Picture your brilliant mind as a battery! Continuous work drains your brain of energy needed for motivation.

Breaks act as the charger, replenishing your mental reserves. It's not about procrastination. Instead, think of these planned breaks as strategic rejuvenation. Step away, stretch, take a walk, or indulge in a quick hobby. Spend some time alone and rest for a few hours.

You'll find renewed focus and energy as you return, making your assignments more sustainable.

Strategic breaks aren't like other distractions.

In fact, they are essential tools for maintaining motivation. So, intersperse your study sessions with short breaks and witness how recharging catalyzes academic success. 

Give Yourself Rewards

Are you thinking how to motivate yourself to do school work, especially when feeling sluggish and tired? The answer lies in giving yourself rewards when hitting milestones. Consider it a pat on your back for a job well done.

Rewards don't have to be grand. Even simple treats can work wonders! When you associate completing tasks with positive reinforcement, it creates a sense of accomplishment. This becomes a powerful motivator, especially during slumps.

Whether it's a brief break, a favorite snack, or a small celebration, these rewards are energy boosts. They will help you inject enthusiasm into your schoolwork grind. Whether you're working on social studies, classical music, or any focused course, there are many reasons why a reward in the first place will make any assignment progress much faster.

Celebrate your victories, big or small. With each celebration, watch motivation become your constant companion. 

Stay Positive and Optimistic

Maintaining an optimistic mindset is the cornerstone of tackling any challenge, including homework. Want to figure out how to stay motivated to do homework?

It starts with cultivating a positive outlook. Embrace each of your assignments as an opportunity to learn and grow. Positivity breeds motivation! When faced with difficulties, view them as stepping stones, not stumbling blocks.

Surround yourself with an optimistic atmosphere—whether it's a neat study space or the support of encouraging friends.

Celebrate small victories and approach each task believing you can conquer it. Positivity makes the homework journey more enjoyable and transforms obstacles into opportunities for success. 

Get Specialized Help When You Need It

Pondering how to be motivated to do homework, especially when facing challenging subjects like math problems or drafting an English essay?

The key is getting specialized help when you need it. College encompasses a spectrum of subjects, from English and humanities to math and statistics.

Seeking math homework help for calculus or essay assistance from experts isn't a sign of weakness. You can think of this as a strategic move. Recognizing when to ask for specialized support is a strength. It alleviates your struggles and fosters a proactive approach to learning.

So, don't hesitate to reach out when faced with academic hurdles.

Specialized help ensures you conquer the complexities and stay motivated on your educational journey. 

Hang Out With Like-Minded Peers

If you're figuring out how to get motivation to do school work, one of the answers could be in the company you keep. Imagine being with friends who party hard and ditch deadlines. Uh-oh, that spells trouble!

Instead, surround yourself with like-minded peers who share your academic goals and enthusiasm. Studying with friends who are equally driven creates a supportive environment that fuels motivation. Exchange ideas and share strategies for work-life balance.

Celebrate your successes together. The collective energy of a group with a common purpose can be contagious, making your academic journey more enjoyable.

When you're in the company of peers who are passionate about learning, the motivation to excel becomes a shared experience, propelling everyone toward success. 

Fuel Your Brain and Body with Nutritious Food 

Listen up! Eat well to stay motivated. Why does your diet play an important role in how to make yourself do homework? What you fuel your brain and body matters!

A balanced diet is the secret weapon for sustained focus and energy. Incorporate brain-boosting foods like fruits, nuts, and whole grains into your meals. Skipping meals leads to fatigue, affecting your concentration.

By nourishing your body, you're investing in your academic success. So, make your plate a palette of productivity. Then, watch how your well-fed body becomes the foundation for a motivated mind. 

Students Tend to Forget Water Intake - Will You?

Hydration is critical when figuring out how to get motivation for homework. Dehydration can significantly impact concentration and focus, putting you in a study slump.

So, as a busy student, it's vital to stay hydrated. Water is not just a refreshing beverage to quench thirst. It's also an amazing cognitive enhancer. Many studies show that even mild dehydration can lead to reduced cognitive performance.

Therefore, keep your water bottle within arm's reach while tackling assignments. And drink before you feel thirsty because you're already mildly dehydrated by then. Water helps with mental sharpness. A well-hydrated brain is focused and ready to take on the challenges of homework. 

Use an Inspiring Music Playlist

Fill your study area with an inspiring music playlist—especially if you're wondering how to become motivated to do school work or contemplating how to do my assignment excellently. Music has a magical quality that can ignite motivation.

Create a playlist filled with fave tunes that uplift your spirits and set the tone for productivity. The right soundtrack can turn mundane tasks into engaging activities.

Whether you need a boost to start your assignments or a rhythm to carry you through to ace a test, music is a powerful ally.

So, put on those headphones, hit play, and let the motivational beats become the backdrop to your academic triumphs. 

How to Get Motivation for Homework - FAQs

How to get motivated to do school work .

Do you wish to unlock how to be motivated to do schoolwork? Think of this as like finding the perfect rhythm for a dance. Start small—break tasks into manageable steps. Surround yourself with a supportive study environment.

Use inspiring music as your soundtrack. Stay positive and celebrate victories. Your academic journey is a dance of determination. 

What can I do when I have no motivation to do homework? 

Feeling the homework blues? When you have no motivation to do homework, start small—break your tasks into bite-sized chunks. Change your scenery, create a dedicated study space, and consider incorporating inspiring music.

Seek support from mentors. Remember, every small effort counts, turning your homework struggle into achievable victories.

Where to find motivation in a few hours for schoolwork when I'm lazy?  

Curious how to do homework when you don't want to? Your journey from laziness to productivity is manageable by breaking tasks into small steps.

Then, create a motivating study environment and consider help. For example, seeking physics homework help or essay writing assistance from professionals when needed.

Every small effort counts because you'll find inspiration in every completed task. 

Is seeking professional help online acceptable? 

Absolutely! When figuring out how to get the motivation to do homework, seeking professional help online is a smart move. Online assistance provides valuable support, guidance, and resources, empowering you to tackle assignments confidently. It's a proactive step towards academic success in the digital age.

If I seek online help, how much will I pay? 

The cost of online help varies based on subject, complexity, and deadline, but consider it an investment in your academic success when exploring how to motivate to do homework. Our platform offers flexible pricing, ensuring accessibility to resources and assistance tailored to your needs and budget. 

Where can I find homework help? 

When wondering how to get yourself to do homework, remember that you're in the digital age and finding homework help is a click away. Explore our online platform for personalized assistance. We provide valuable support, making your homework journey more manageable and efficient. 

Is an online assignment platform legal?

Yes, seeking Python homework help , essay writing assistance, or any other service from an online assignment platform like ours is legal. We are a legitimate resource that aligns with the quest to answer how to get motivated for school work, providing valuable assistance and support to enhance your learning experience.

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10 ways to generate study motivation

10 February 2020

If you have exams and essay deadlines piling up but you just can't seem to focus - here are 10 ways you can help yourself get motivated!

This is the time of the year when courseworks and dissertations are due and for some of you, exam time is looming. Sometimes having to do all that studying and catching up with reading feels like a drag. It can be overwhelming because together with the studying can come a wave of questions where you doubt yourself on a personal level with thoughts such as:

" ‘Do I even understand these readings?’… ‘Am I going to be able to write something interesting and relevant?’…  ‘Am I going to do the right thing?’… ‘Am I good enough to do this?’… ‘Others seem to be more on top of things than I am’… ‘What if I do badly?’...  

These thoughts are subtle, but can lead to difficult feelings that interfere with motivation. So try out these 10 ways that you could help yourself to generate that motivation!

• Acknowledge your resistance and difficult feelings with motivation. It may be helpful to write these feelings or thoughts down and then leave these on the side so you can then study.
• Do not run away. Avoiding work can make you feel deflated. This is emotionally more draining than having to go through the frustration of reading for your paper.
• Do not blame yourself for procrastinating now and then. Try to become aware of the habit and gently make yourself to go back to the task sooner rather than later. 
• Try to understand your studying style better. What will make it easier for you to work? We are all prone to pleasant experiences and it is natural that we tend to avoid uncomfortable, dry chores and duties.  So try to make your study experience as interesting as possible.
• Don’t question your abilities.  Don’t put yourself down by comparing yourself to others.
• Visualise yourself starting. Make yourself sit down and work even if this is for just 20 minutes. See starting as a parallel process like a plane on a runway. You may start slow but you will still take off! 
• Focus on the task at hand and prioritise the most important tasks.  Avoid multitasking.
• Communicate to others any difficulties and/or what you intend to do. This can help you engage with the process and identify the important tasks. Communication / externalisation can help you to commit with immediate goals and you could also find out others points of view and tips. 
• Take a time limited approach in which you schedule your tasks.  Ask yourself  ‘how much can I achieve in the next 2 hours?’ instead of ‘Can I complete all tasks?’ In this way you do not get as easily overwhelmed by the volume of study you need to do.  

By Zoi Kontakou, Counselling Psychologist in UCL Student Support and Wellbeing 

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School Life Balance , Tips for Online Students

Must Know Tips for Student Motivation

Updated: February 24, 2023

Published: March 3, 2019

Lack of motivation in students is one of the biggest problems in the world. It is not only a problem but it is also affecting the education system. If you’ve ever felt like your schoolwork has been a struggle, you’re not alone. Studies show that students across the country are feeling less motivated to learn and more stressed about how their grades will affect their future career options.

New students  are filled with will and zeal, slowly fading away, calling for some little prodding to have work done avoidable through student motivation. But it doesn’t have to be that way. This blog will cover useful student motivation tips-and it’s never too late to start putting them to use.

What is student motivation?

Motivation  is simply a person’s willingness to exert physical or mental effort to complete a predetermined goal. In his quote, Samuel L. Johnson, a writer who made a huge contribution to a dictionary of the English language, about curiosity is in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last, enlighten us that motivation for students is the engine and fuel for prolonged love of learning. It’s therefore paramount to run programs parallel to academics that provide student motivation tips. Three parameters define motivation choice, effort and persistence, categorizing motivation under two levels intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.

What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic student motivation?

Intrinsic student motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is associated with internal rewards where students learn to value learning due to its merits regardless of external factors. The students’ drive motivates them unconditionally.

Extrinsic student motivation

Extrinsic motivation is characterized by external factors example, the student may be motivated to learn to pass the exams or avoid punishment. Students lose attachment if they are motivated externally.

Intrinsic motivation tips for students

Student’s interest .

Assignments and projects should align with the student’s areas of interest to encourage high student participation. With interest in heart, the student will always endeavor to discover more in that field, boosting their motivation.

Reward 

Choose rewards that encourage the student’s intrinsic interests. This is after identifying the student’s interests to continue with the pursuit of their interest. Setting rewards and gifts in their interests will motivate the student to do even more. Reward the student’s best performance to encourage them to soar higher.

Student’s encouragement over assignments

Blended learning is a strategy that involves a series of independent learning and whole-class lessons. The students are encouraged to share what they learned in class lessons to build their experiences and lessons with certain topics.

Positive feedback on student assignments

Appreciation works magic with student motivation. The positive feedback that aims to encourage students to do better is a great motivation tip for the students. This is necessary, especially if the student did not generally perform well in the assignment. Therefore, they should be encouraged on what to improve to make their assignments better.

“Curiosity is the mother of all invention.” The student’s curiosity should be harnessed and used to inspire them to further their learning positively. Finding out what the students are curious about and investing in helping them find answers and discover more helps to motivate them in areas of their interests.

Shared enthusiasm 

Trainers and students should have a common ground of synchronized interest. This means that the trainer and the student share similar views towards a topic or a learning field. Hence creating a sense of value for the students. In addition, the student can utilize the online discussion boards for online coursework to interact with the trainer and fellow students. 

Conducive learning environment

A learning environment free of bias, ill-treatment, prejudices, racism and favoritism will give the students a sense of belonging. Be a champion of equality for all by instilling positive relationships within the learning environment. This will consequently encourage the students to build their confidence as a motivation for them. Study shows online learning helps to motivate students. 

Teamwork building 

Sometimes motivation comes from the people around us. They can be our friends, family and peers. Student teamwork building is critical in creating confidence within the students. A student study group with shared activities helps build motivation by sharing common ideas.

Real-life inspiration stories 

Inspirational real-life student stories  are always fascinating. They give the students hope, especially with their prevailing conditions and nature. Successful real-life stories motivate students to have courage and determination in their pursuit of learning. Relatable life experiences strike a desire for success within the students by assuring them that their dreams are attainable.

Fun sessions and activities 

Students should be exposed to more than classroom activities to be productive. A trainer s should entail fun elements in the class schedule to lift their spirits and encourage participation.  Online games  and other social activities should be part of fun sessions. The students can also participate by suggesting their activities.

As much as intrinsic motivation is concerned, the students should also have their motivations. Therefore, the following are motivation tips students should practice.

Be perspective

Sometimes a student may feel a drag on their learning. It’s normal for anyone, but students should always have a purpose for what they want. All the tasks in learning have a common good in the end, and that should be a motivation for the student.

Be competitive

Students should strive to be better by setting goals for themselves. This includes working towards a certain personal best and going beyond. Exploring their best areas and maximizing them is an excellent motivation for the student.

Get your eyes on the prize

A student should always set goals and create timelines for completing the tasks.

Get support

Finally, the student should request support from family, friends and peers on tasks they cannot do independently. They should also indulge their trainers and create a good relationship with them for student motivation. 

The student can also join a motivational class for support. Organizations host these classes’ camps and seminars to help students who lack motivation. It’s also advisable to follow your influential motivational speaker sessions or videos regularly.

Find a Program that Matches Your Ambition

Motivation also depends on the program you are studying as astudent and how you arrived to it. A wide range of programs give you the flexibility to pursue a program that matches your ambition. At the University of The People , we are a reputable online university offering a wide range of American accredited programs for any qualified applicant. We nurture students’ academic abilities by establishing an outstanding student body. We offer 100%- online certificate,associate degree, bachelor’s and masters degree programs . Visit our blog for more insights. 

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How to Promote the Intrinsic Desire to Learn

Rather than relying on grades as external motivators, teachers can help students develop intrinsic motivation by providing opportunities for autonomy and building their sense of competence.

A case can be made, and researchers have made it, that motivation is one of the keystones of teaching and learning (Dorn et al., 2017).

As an educator, based on my life and professional experience, I may have a fairly solid idea of what I believe students might need to know in order to be successful academically and professionally. However, how much does that matter if my students are not motivated to learn what I am teaching?

Of course, I can try to entice their interest through “dangling carrots” like grades, points, prizes, gold stars, etc, (or threatening “sticks” like detention or negative calls home). This kind of “extrinsic motivation” can work, but usually only for the short term and typically for tasks that don’t require much higher-order thinking (“Daniel Pink on Incentives and the Two Types of Motivation,” n.d.).

On the other hand, “intrinsic motivation” describes a situation where the energy to act comes more from inside the learner. In other words, the reward is the activity itself. The late educator Ken Robinson talked (Ferlazzo, 2012) about how farmers can’t force their crops to grow, but they can create the conditions that support their seeds' ability to grow—providing the right soil, water, and care. This description is similar to the challenge teachers face with encouraging student intrinsic motivation—we can’t make them have it, but we can create the classroom conditions where that kind of motivation is more likely to develop and flourish.

Extensive research documents the benefits of intrinsic motivation over the extrinsic kind. Intrinsic motivation tends to lead to greater academic achievement and a better sense of well-being (Burton et al., 2006) lasts longer, enhances creativity, and cultivates higher-order thinking (Brewster & Fager, 2000).

Extrinsic motivation tends to reduce long-term interest and effort in the topic at hand (Deci et al., 1999; Kohn, 2018; Wehe et al., 2015) and reduce creativity, as well (Hennessey, 2000). Research has found that motivation driven by extrinsic factors tends to lead to “decreased well-being” (Howard et al., 2021). Experiments using student rewards to improve academic achievement have failed repeatedly (Adams, 2014; Dietrichson et al., 2020; Ferlazzo, 2016). If and when incentives have resulted in very limited short-term “success,” researchers have found they tend to increase participants’ focus on the reward itself, not on the task. Work quality then suffers, and task interest tends to decline to previous levels—or below them—after the reward is given (Kohn, 2016).

Students, especially teens, in the United States report exceptionally high feelings of disengagement from school (Sparks, 2020; Yale University, 2020)—and that was before the COVID pandemic. It does not seem to be a stretch to consider that the high levels of extrinsic motivation present in most classes and schools might contribute to these strong negative perspectives.

Emphasizing intrinsic motivation also makes me feel better about myself as a teacher and, I believe, also contributes towards creating an overall class atmosphere of a “community of learners” instead of a “classroom of students.” No one wants to be treated like a rat in a maze, and I certainly don’t want to view myself as a teacher who even vaguely can be described as promoting that kind of system.

Does that mean I never use extrinsic motivation in my classroom? Of course not. I was a community organizer for nineteen years prior to becoming a secondary teacher twenty years ago. Organizers talk about working “in the world as it is” and not in “the world as we’d like it to be.” Creating the conditions to encourage student intrinsic motivation can sometimes be hard and time-consuming. It’s not at all unusual for me to offer extra credit, grade by using points, and offer healthy snacks as game prizes, and I am definitely not above sometimes “threatening” negative consequences for inappropriate behaviors. I am not a Pollyanna with my head up in the clouds, and live “in the world as it is.” However, often (though not always) when I apply “carrots,” I also briefly talk with students about how it is more of an exception to the “rule.” The “rule” is that I hope students generally do things in our class because they want to, and not because they feel a need to pursue rewards.

When it comes to using “sticks,” I try to follow the advice (with a slight adjustment) of Dr. Edward Deci, perhaps the preeminent researcher in the world on intrinsic motivation. He acknowledges that a negative consequence might have to be used, but then “you need to sit down the next afternoon when everyone’s calm, talk it through from both sides, then discuss ways so the behavior doesn’t happen again.... Always use the blow-up as a learning moment the next day” (Feiler, 2013, para. 18). 

My modification to his advice comes from my community organizing experience, where we learned that “polarization” can happen, but that “depolarization” can be most effective if it happens fairly quickly. In that spirit, I try to make that follow-up conversation happen during the same class or track the student down later in the day.

It is also important to keep in mind that students—and the rest of us—can be motivated by both a desire to learn what is being taught and wanting a good grade, just as an interest in being a better teacher motivated me to write this book, as well as the possible additional income I could gain from royalties.

Let’s also recognize the role of what writer Daniel Pink calls “baseline rewards” (“Daniel Pink on Incentives and the Two Types of Motivation,” n.d.) and that is also supported by other research (Ferlazzo, 2015; Kaplan, 2015). The “baseline rewards” concept suggests that basic extrinsic “rewards” in a classroom (a caring teacher, engaging lessons, predictable and fair grading, cleanliness, respectful rules and atmosphere, etc.) or in a job situation (reasonable salary, safe working conditions) must be present for people to have any sort of motivation at all.

Absent those kinds of “baseline rewards” and participants will tend to focus on the inequitable and unfair situation rather than on learning or on being productive.

But even though I recognize the role of extrinsic motivation in the lives of my students and in my life, I am also constantly striving in my classroom to create “the world as I’d like it to be” by creating the conditions where intrinsic motivation can blossom. This book shares what teachers can do to make that world happen more often in our classes.

For effective educators, there is always tension between “the world as it is” and “the world as we’d like it to be.” If we always operate out of the former, we can become transactional pragmatists always settling for what appears to be the easiest short-term solution. If we always operate out of the latter, we can become hopeless sentimentalists who are likely to become disillusioned and burnt-out. But it’s not a question of either/or and, instead, it’s more of one considering which side do you tend to operate on, and if you tend to use the former to lead you to more of the latter. I would suggest that favoring that side of the coin is the perspective that is more likely to keep you—and your students—in a content and effective learning situation.

Researchers have identified four general areas that can contribute towards creating the conditions where intrinsic motivation can be supported (Center on Education Policy, 2012; Ryan & Deci, 2000), and they serve as the basis for the next four chapters in this book:

• Autonomy: having a degree of control over what needs to happen and how it can be done
• Competence: feeling that one has the ability to be successful in doing it
• Relatedness: doing the activity helps the student feel more connected to others, and feel cared about by people whom they respect
• Relevance: the work must be seen by students as interesting and valuable to them, and useful to their present lives and/or hopes and dreams for the future

Not everything we do in the classroom has to involve all four of these elements, but I do think we can include some of them in most of our lessons. There will be times, however, that students are required to do tasks that make it challenging to include even one of them (for example, taking state standardized tests). In those cases, I believe it’s a safe guess that students are likely to be more engaged in them if their teachers have emphasized the conditions for intrinsic motivation most of the rest of the time.

Excerpt from The Student Motivation Handbook: 50 Ways to Boost an Intrinsic Desire to Learn by Larry Ferlazzo, © 2023 Routledge/Taylor & Francis, Used with permission.

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8 Ways to Get Middle School Students to Care About Their Grades

And more importantly, learning.

Fifteen years ago, I stepped into my classroom excited and full of energy. I couldn’t wait to change lives and make a difference. Then several years in, I started to burn out. I felt frustrated that my students didn’t seem to put in as much effort as I did, and I was exhausted.

Kids weren’t turning in assignments. They were losing materials. Sometimes I was lucky if they showed up to class with a pencil. I soon realized that the kids weren’t going to change if I didn’t. I had to shift my focus.

Motivating middle school students to care about their grades involves a lot of shifting: shifting our focus, shifting our language, shifting the way we grade, and shifting our mindset. Here are some of my lessons learned.

1. Remind Students It’s Not Grades That Matter

This might sound contradictory; however, the first step in motivating middle school students to care about their grades is to shift the focus away from grades altogether. By the middle school years, many students become somewhat desensitized to grades. They label themselves as a single grade and start to believe that movement isn’t even possible. Why would students care about grades if they can’t change or control their number?

When we are too focused on number grades, we lose sight of the important things happening in our classroom every day: learning. When we teach students to notice growth in their learning, we help them shift their focus and look beyond the numbers on a paper. Help your students focus on their learning and growth. The grades follow.

2. Instill a Growth Mindset

Growth mindset is all the rage and for good reason. Teaching students (and ourselves) to shift from a fixed mindset, where student intelligence cannot change, to a growth mindset, where students have control of their learning, can change a child’s educational experience. Our students often come to us with labels—the smart kid, the failure. Labels are fixed. When we consistently reinforce a growth mindset in our classroom, we begin to drop labels.

A growth mindset encourages the belief that with hard work, students’ grades will have movement. Growth mindset levels the playing field so all students and their teachers develop the understanding that with hard work, students will become better at the skill they are practicing.

3. Focus on Language

Word choice is powerful and important. We define our students through language, and they often define themselves this way too. In my classroom, we use words side by side with a five-point grading scale. The words are carefully chosen to show that students can move within the system with hard work. For instance, we use levels like mastery, grade appropriate, almost there, developing, or needs improvement. When we’re motivating middle school students to care about their grades, students need to know and believe that they have the chance to grow. Our choice of language should reflect the opportunity for growth.

4. Make the Switch to Standards-Based Grading

I’m not exaggerating when I say that making the switch to standards-based grading has transformed my students’ relationships with grades. My first year voyaging into the world of standards-based grading, I immediately noticed the shift: kids were no longer obsessed with their number grade. They started to truly care about learning. No longer was I measuring student’s performance in my class based on behaviors or habits. I began to focus strictly on skills and standards. Most empowering was that students now had the freedom to retake, retest, and rewrite assignments.  As a result, the quality of student work improved and their grades actually went up.

Focusing on very specific standards helped me to maintain grading too.  Knowing exactly what I was looking for in a piece of writing or having a focus standard to measure on a test helped me simplify what can sometimes be a daunting task of grading and regrading work. Parent communication became easier as well.  Overall, grading became specific, easily measurable, and meaningful.

5. Encourage Student-Led Record Keeping

If you’re a middle school teacher, you certainly know this scenario: you hand back a stack of papers you spent your entire weekend grading and providing feedback on only to find half of the papers in the recycling bin by the end of the day. If we want students to care about their grades, we have to make sure that they actually process their grades and understand the significance of the numbers.  A simple form at the front of a student’s binder where they can physically copy down each grade you turn back to them and where they track their retake grades can easily do the trick. Several times per grading period, I instruct students to calculate their averages and translate them into words. Students’ translated word grades give them meaning, direction, and purpose.

6. Keep Growth Portfolios

All of the educational jargon in the world is great, but the reality for students is that they need to see measurable growth to believe it. Growth portfolios are the perfect place for students to maintain physical evidence of their growth and learning. In my ELA 7 class, students maintain growth portfolios all school year. At the end of each quarter, students clean out their work so their binders reflect their individual growth and learning. Students complete a reflection describing the standards they have mastered and the standards they need more work on. At the end of the school year, students present their learning to the class using a document camera and their portfolio work in place of a traditional final exam. I can see concrete evidence of each student’s achievement through their portfolios of work.

7. Use Rubrics

Grading must be transparent to students. I have found that one of the best tools for grading transparency is a good old fashioned rubric. On tests, I group questions by standard with a short, simple rubric after each question set. In my class, rubrics are handed out to students with each assignment. Before I assess with the rubric, students use them as a tool to revise and edit their work. They give themselves a grade and make revisions based on the rubric descriptions. Next, peers use the rubric to provide specific feedback to fellow students. Finally, I use the rubric as a method of providing final feedback to students. It is essential that rubrics are either student friendly or student created.  If students cannot understand the rubric, they won’t understand the grading of their work.

8. Build Positive Relationships

At the end of the day, motivating middle school students to care about their grades really depends on their trust for you. Students must know that we are invested. They will follow our commitment to their growth and learning. One of my favorite inspirational educators, Rita Pierson, once said, “Learning sometimes occurs because someone insists that you recognize the excellence in yourself.”

If we can help students at all levels to recognize the excellence in themselves, think of what they could accomplish. If we can help the students who lose their packet, didn’t finish their homework, are late to class, and never carry a pencil to recognize the excellence within, then we will too!

Motivating middle school students to care about their grades can seem like a daunting task. Our job is exhausting and using our own energy to energize students can be especially draining. However, with a few simple shifts over time, students can and will care about their grades and, more importantly, their learning.

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Writing Motivation: How to Get Students Inspired to Write

Demme Learning · October 7, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Well, here you are again. You just sent your student off to start a writing assignment, and you notice they’re staring at a blank page with their head in their hands and a frown on their face. You ask them what’s wrong, but they just shrug their shoulders and mumble, “I just don’t feel like writing.” 

Does this scenario sound familiar? Writing is a critical skill to teach, but it isn’t always easy to motivate your students to write. That said, there are several practices that you can put in place to make writing really enjoyable for your students. In this blog, we’re sharing some practical ways you can boost your student’s writing motivation even if it isn’t their favorite subject. Read on to learn more!

5 Ways to Maximize Writing Motivation

Wondering how to get your students inspired to write? Consider these five simple tips.

1) Switch Up Your Assignments

Do you have one student who loves creative writing and another who prefers to write nonfiction?

Unfortunately, many writing curriculums are limited to just a few genres, and restricting your students to book reports or five paragraph essays crushes creativity and stifles writing motivation.

Instead, give them a chance to dabble in different genres by varying their writing assignments. Your students won’t always like every type of writing you assign , but they’ll appreciate you mixing things up. Not only will it expose them to a wide range of writing styles, but it will also motivate them more than sticking to the same genre.

Here are a few ideas for writing assignments to try out with your students:

• Have teens try descriptive writing , using vivid sensory details to describe people, places, and objects.
• Invite younger children to use their five senses to write descriptively.
• Play around with expository writing by encouraging students to explain a process, write short reports or biographies, or create their own newspaper complete with articles, opinions, human-interest stories, and comics.
• Teach your student to write a narrative from varying points of view or in a different voice or tense.
• Help them write a description of an imaginary land .
• Teach older teens how to write a well-supported research paper.
• Invite students of all ages to have fun writing poetry, such as a haiku or cinquain poem .
• Throw in an occasional writing prompt just for fun .

2)  Provide Freedom of Choice

Not only is it important for students to write in different genres, it’s also important to give them flexibility of choice within those genres . Nothing crushes creativity like saying, “You MUST write about this topic in this way.” If the topic seems irrelevant or uninteresting to them, your student likely won’t feel very enthusiastic about writing.

Now, we’re not saying that writing instruction should be a complete free-for-all where students write whatever they want to. You should still establish parameters for them to work within. But whenever possible, give them some choice . For example, if you’re teaching how to describe a place, let each student choose the place they want to describe rather than making them describe their home. They might pick a sports stadium, coffee shop, mountain cabin, or the moon, but they’ll still be practicing the skill at hand. Providing structure and guidelines while offering some freedom of choice gives you the best of both worlds. When students have some ownership of what they’re writing, they’re much more likely to enjoy the experience.

3) Choose High-Interest Topics

While giving opportunities for students to pick their own topics is beneficial, we understand that it isn’t always feasible. There will be times when you’ll have to assign a specific topic to write about, but you can do this in a way that doesn’t cause your student to become disengaged.

To maximize writing motivation in these instances, choose a topic that your students are likely to enjoy. Take their interests into account when coming up with an assignment and consider incorporating age-appropriate current events or trends into your instruction (if you’re comfortable with it). 

Then, once you’ve assigned a topic, get your students excited to write by letting them share what they already know about it or any relevant experiences that they’ve had. You can also show videos, read articles and mentor texts , or even go on a virtual or in-person field trip for inspiration. 

Getting your students hyped up to write about a topic is crucial when you’ve chosen it.

4) Let Them Share Their Writing

Professional writers would probably agree that there’s no greater feeling of pride than what comes from getting to share their work with others. Sharing a piece of work that you’ve poured a lot of time and energy into with people who will appreciate it and offer praise is a great way to stay inspired. 

So, don’t let your student’s writing submission stop with you! Come up with ways that you can allow your students to share their finished pieces if they want to. Some examples of how you can accomplish this include:

• Entering a writing contest
• Reading their piece aloud to their classmates or family
• Making a digital newsletter or e-book and sending it to extended family members
• Joining a local writing club and sharing it with other members
• Creating a “class blog page”

It’s important to note that you should never force your student to share their work if they aren’t comfortable, as this could lead to feelings of stress and anxiety regarding writing.

5) Establish a Positive Learning Environment

If you’re wondering how to get students inspired to write, one of the best ways is simply to create a positive environment for them.

Aside from being disinterested in topics, one of the other main reasons students struggle with writing motivation is insecurity. When a student doesn’t feel confident in their abilities and considers themself a bad writer, they probably won’t feel motivated to write. Sharing encouraging words and promoting a growth mindset can make a world of difference.

When editing their writing, always communicate their strengths first and try to keep critiques positive and constructive. Then, gently offer pragmatic suggestions. Writing can make some students feel very vulnerable. A positive attitude really helps to encourage and inspire them to find their voice.

Motivating students to write can be challenging at times, but there are plenty of ways that you can make writing an enjoyable experience. We hope you find these tips helpful for your students!

Looking for a fun and effective writing curriculum to motivate your student? Check out our award-winning program—WriteShop ! 

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22 Best Motivational Activities for Students

Motivational activities for students play a crucial role in fostering a positive learning environment and inspiring individuals to reach their full potential.

These activities are designed to ignite enthusiasm, boost self-confidence, and encourage a proactive approach towards academic and personal goals.

Now let’s delve into the impact of motivational activities in enhancing the overall educational experience for students

Activity 1: “Goal Visualization and Dream Boards”

Encouraging students to set clear goals and envision their dreams can be a powerful motivational tool. In this activity, provide each student with art supplies such as colorful markers, magazines, scissors, and glue. Ask them to create their “Dream Boards” by cutting out pictures, words, and phrases that represent their aspirations, both academically and personally. They can include future career paths, academic achievements, hobbies, and anything else they wish to accomplish.

Activity 2: “Passion Projects”

One of the most effective ways to motivate students is by allowing them to explore their passions. This activity provides students with the opportunity to embark on “Passion Projects” where they can choose a topic of personal interest to research and present. Whether it’s an artistic endeavor, a scientific inquiry, or a social cause close to their hearts, this project allows students to take ownership of their learning journey.

Activity 3: “Random Acts of Kindness Challenge”

Motivating students to spread positivity and compassion within their community can be a transformative experience. Organize a “Random Acts of Kindness Challenge,” where students are tasked with performing small acts of kindness for their peers, teachers, or even strangers over a designated period. These acts can range from writing heartfelt notes of encouragement to helping someone with a task or simply offering a kind gesture.

Related: 20 Wonderful Frisbee Games for Kids

Activity 4: “TED-Ed Talks and Inspirational Speeches”

Incorporate TED-Ed Talks and inspirational speeches into the classroom to expose students to compelling stories and insights from various thought leaders and achievers. Choose talks that resonate with the student’s interests and aspirations, focusing on themes like perseverance, overcoming challenges, or the power of education. After watching the talks, encourage open discussions to explore the key takeaways and how they relate to the student’s lives.

Activity 5: “Growth Mindset Journaling”

Cultivating a growth mindset is essential for students’ long-term success and motivation. Introduce “Growth Mindset Journaling,” where students regularly write about their academic progress, setbacks, and personal growth. In their journals, encourage them to reflect on challenges they’ve overcome, skills they’ve developed, and areas they wish to improve. Emphasize the idea that setbacks are opportunities for learning and growth, not failures.

Related: 20 Best Boredom Busters for Kids

Activity 6: “Student Show and Tell”

Show and Tell isn’t just for elementary school! This activity can be adapted for older students to boost their confidence and motivation. Allocate time for each student to present something that holds personal significance to them. It could be a project they are proud of, a book that inspired them, a skill they’ve honed, or a memorable experience.

Activity 7: “Success Celebration Wall”

Designate a space in the classroom as the “Success Celebration Wall.” Whenever a student accomplishes a significant academic milestone, receives praise from another teacher, or achieves a personal goal, celebrate their success by adding their name and achievement to the wall. The wall becomes a visual representation of the student’s accomplishments, reminding them of their progress and the potential for future success.

Activity 8: “Gamified Learning Challenges”

Introduce a gamified approach to learning by creating interactive challenges and competitions. Break the class into teams or pairs and set up academic challenges that require problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity. Use educational apps or online platforms that offer gamified learning experiences.

Activity 9: “Peer Recognition and Appreciation”

Foster a culture of appreciation and support within the classroom by implementing a “Peer Recognition and Appreciation” activity. Provide students with opportunities to acknowledge and celebrate each other’s achievements, acts of kindness, or displays of perseverance.

Create a bulletin board or digital platform where students can post notes of gratitude and recognition for their peers.

Activity 10: “Real-World Problem Solving”

Engage students in addressing real-world issues that align with their interests. Encourage them to brainstorm innovative solutions to problems related to the environment, social justice, technology, or any topic they feel passionate about.

Collaborate with local organizations or experts in relevant fields to offer guidance and support.

Activity 11: “Career Exploration Fair”

Organize a “Career Exploration Fair” where students can interact with professionals from various fields. Invite guest speakers, alumni, or local community members to share their career journeys and insights into their respective industries.

Activity 12: “Guest Speaker Series”

Organize a series of guest speaker events, where professionals from diverse fields share their experiences and insights with the students.

Invite speakers from different industries, entrepreneurs, scientists, artists, and other inspiring individuals.

Each guest speaker can present their unique journey, highlighting the challenges they faced and the lessons they learned along the way.

Activity 13: “Personal Learning Projects”

Empower students with the autonomy to design their own “Personal Learning Projects.” Encourage them to choose a topic they are genuinely interested in and wish to explore further.

Provide guidance and resources to support their research and creative endeavors.

Throughout the project, offer regular check-ins and opportunities for students to share their progress and discoveries.

Activity 14: “Letter of Encouragement Exchange”

Promote a sense of camaraderie and support among students with a “Letter of Encouragement Exchange.” Randomly pair students and ask them to write heartfelt letters of encouragement to their assigned partners.

In the letters, students can express appreciation for their partner’s unique qualities, talents, and contributions to the class.

Activity 15: “Community Service Projects”

Engage students in “Community Service Projects” that allow them to contribute positively to their local community. Collaborate with local charities, non-profit organizations, or community centers to identify projects that align with students’ interests and skills.

Whether it’s volunteering at a shelter, organizing a charity event, or participating in environmental clean-ups, these activities instill a sense of responsibility and empathy in students.

Activity 16: “Mindfulness and Gratitude Journaling”

Introduce students to the practice of mindfulness and gratitude journaling. Begin each class session with a brief mindfulness exercise to help students focus their minds and be present in the moment.

Activity 17: “Innovative Inventions”

Tap into students’ creativity and problem-solving skills with an “Innovative Inventions” activity. Challenge them to come up with unique solutions to everyday problems or address specific issues faced by their communities. Provide them with resources, brainstorming sessions, and time for prototyping.

Activity 18: “Book Clubs and Inspirational Reads”

Start a book club in the classroom, focusing on reading inspirational and motivational literature. Allow students to choose books from a pre-selected list or nominate titles related to themes such as resilience, leadership, or personal growth.

Provide time during class for group discussions, allowing students to share their reflections and insights from the readings.

Activity 19: “Career Shadowing and Internships”

Offer students the opportunity to participate in career shadowing experiences or internships related to their fields of interest.

Collaborate with local businesses, organizations, or professionals to arrange short-term placements for the students.

Activity 20: “My Learning Manifesto”

Encourage students to craft their own “Learning Manifesto” – a statement of their beliefs, values, and commitments to their education. Provide guiding questions to help them reflect on their personal learning journey, their strengths, and areas they wish to improve.

Recommended:

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Sohaib Hasan Shah

Sohaib's journey includes 10+ years of teaching and counseling experience at BCSS School in elementary and middle schools, coupled with a BBA (Hons) with a minor in Educational Psychology from Curtin University (Australia) . In his free time, he cherishes quality moments with his family, reveling in the joys and challenges of parenthood. His three daughters have not only enriched his personal life but also deepened his understanding of the importance of effective education and communication, spurring him to make a meaningful impact in the world of education.

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22 Motivation Activity Ideas for Students

March 7, 2023 //  by  Dominique Binns

Keeping your students engaged and motivated can be challenging! Making learning fun and intriguing sometimes requires creative lesson planning that utilizes positive psychology to decrease the effects of stress that can impede a child’s learning experience. By curating a lesson plan that makes room for student motivation, you’ll witness the positive effects of happier students. From cutting down study time to unlocking better results, motivation activity ideas will benefit both you and your students! Take a look at these 22 activities that will help students feel inspired to study hard, perform well, and practice autonomous regulation.

1. The Share Chair

Nothing is more motivating than someone who cares! Kick off the year by decorating a chair to place right next to your desk. Explain to your students that they can sit down next to you at any time to discuss a topic they don’t understand, ask a homework question, or chat about their learning goals and challenges. Make It clear that you are available. 

Learn More: The Owl Teacher

2. Change Of Scenery

Lesson planning that includes a different environment will help motivate your students to learn. Taking them to the site of a history lesson, for example, or even outside on the field are great ideas. 

Learn More: Education Week

3. Stoke Their Competitive Fires

At the end of every week or month, host a quiz or interactive competition that pits students against one another. Keep it friendly to avoid negative associations and hand out homemade trophies to boost positive motivation. 

Learn More: eHow

4. Think Up Their Own Reward

Make use of the self-determination theory and have your students plan out their own rewards to receive when they achieve a goal. For example, you could have the class decide on whether they will have a pizza party, a disco party, or a movie day if everyone hands in their project on time. 

Learn More: Gretas Day

5. Create A Fun Corner

Decrease the school-related stress that your students experience by having a “calming corner” or “play area” in the classroom. Place teddy bears, board games, and other motivational activities behind a curtain or in a special cupboard, and allow students who have finished their work to play and enjoy a brain break. 

Learn More: A Perfect Blend Teaching

6. Assign Some Responsibility

Feeling responsible for something will encourage students to want to come to school and learn. Have a class puppet or teddy bear that everyone has a turn taking care of over the weekend. Have your students include what they did with the classroom mascot in a joint diary. This motivation activity will support a positive correlation between school and having fun. 

7. Leverage A Part of Their Daily Lives

Increase student motivation by allowing phones in the classroom for a short group project. Divide a sample of adolescents in your classroom into groups and have them create a TikTok video that explains a concept they’ve recently learned.

Learn More: Learning Liftoff

8. Give Them A Desk Pet

Give each student animal-shaped erasers or figurines to take care of whilst at school. Set up a points system where they can exchange points for food, clothing, or other accessories for their pet. This will assist with student motivation as they will be inspired to collect cute items for their pets by working hard to achieve points. 

Learn More: We Are Teachers

9. Self-Reflection And Journaling

Reduce the negative effects that some children experience after being overstimulated at school by encouraging self-reflection with a journaling activity. This will keep your students calm and happy and will help your learners develop autonomous regulation and motivation.

Learn More: Journal Buddies

10. Make Your Enthusiasm Contagious

When you’re excited to learn, your students will be too! Improve the motivational aspects of your classroom by adding some fresh décor to it.

Learn More: Chaylor And Mads

11. Leverage Your Learner’s Unique Interests

Celebrate each of your students on a special theme day that is built around their favorite thing- like animals, a TV show, or baking. Decorate your class to match the theme and curate your lesson plan accordingly. 

Learn More: Classroom Transformations

12. Finding It In Themselves

Intrinsic motivation will push your students further than you ever could. Encourage them to love learning on their own terms. Doing this will also have a stress-buffering effect as learners will have a greater goal to cling to when studying gets hard.

Learn More: Exam Study Expert

13. Build Physical Education Into Their Daily Lives

Many students feel anxious at school; particularly before tests or exams. Help these students by using physical activity as a way to reduce the impact of stress. Include games to get your learners moving in the classroom.

Learn More: Goodbye Anxiety Hello Joy

14. Celebrate Progress

Motivate your adolescent students using the extrinsic motivation tactic of inviting each student for a progress discussion in the class over yummy snacks. If you meet each student at their level once a term, they will see that you respect and care for them and their progress. 

Learn More: Oh Happy Joy

15. Show You Care

Kick off the school year or a new term with a care package. Student motivation will skyrocket when they get their hands on snacks, activities, and useful items that will be of use during academic lessons!

Learn More: Rain And Pine

16. Classroom Yoga

The effects of stress can be minimized when you encourage students to get active in class. Teach self-regulation in the classroom by starting every day off with ten minutes of Yoga. Secondary outcomes of this exercise include students enjoying more mental clarity that will assist them in their academic lessons. 

Learn More: Pink Oatmeal

17. Obstacle Course On The Field 

Promote adolescent health and motivation when you encourage your students to take part in an obstacle course! Take a break from the classroom and get outside for some moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

Learn More: Happy Toddler Playtime

18. Encourage Community

The primary outcome of any motivation activity should be to improve the positive association learners have with the school. Include socialization time in your lesson planning so that learners can bond with friends and enjoy spending time in your class.

Learn More: K12

19. Guest Speaker Day

Encourage self-determined motivation by inviting successful people from all walks of life to discuss how work ethic and behavioral regulation improved their quality of life.

Learn More: Edutopia

20. Create A Vision Board

Encouraging your students to be self-motivated will go a long way to ensuring their success well past the year that they spend as your student. Bring magazines, glitter glue, and glue to class and have each student collect, cut out and paste images that inspire them onto their boards. Having a greater life goal in mind will help them stay on track with their studies.

Learn More: Study All Knight

21. Break The Work Into Pieces

Make sure that your lesson planning involves breaking a complex subject or activity into manageable pieces. Students will build a positive correlation between working hard and enjoying school when they go at a pace that allows them to answer questions and digest the work.

Learn More: HCPSS

22. Encourage Evaluations

By making time for a self-evaluation exercise throughout the term, you will encourage behavioral regulation in your learners. Students will find it motivating to reflect on their learning journey and to set goals for the next term or year. 

Learn More: Math Giraffe

10 Inspiring Quotes To Motivate You When Writing Assignments

It’s that time of the year again when everything seems to be due at once and it does not feel like there is enough time in the day to do it all. As students we experience a constant flux and flow of motivation so here are 10 of the most inspiring quotes regarding that study grind to motivate you when writing assignments.

1. Writing Assignments Requires Rest

“If you get tired learn to rest, not to quit.” – Banky

This quote is particularly relevant at this time of year when writing assignments because we feel fatigue more now than ever before. But it is important to note that taking study breaks is important for not just your physical health, but your emotional health too! So next time an assignment has you feeling worn out, take a break but don’t quit. You’ve got this!

2. Take A Risk When Writing Assignments

“How sweet the risks are.” Paul Valéry

In the midst of a particularly gruelling essay we often fail to see the benefit in risk. When we take a risk we almost always reap the reward. So this assignment season choose a topic that’ll challenge you and help you grow, experiment with new language and have fun with it! The possibility of learning something new will help you find that missing motivation.

3. Have Nerve When Writing Assignments

“It’s not enough to be nice in life. You’ve got to have nerve.” – Georgia O’Keffe

When you are writing assignments this semester remind yourself to have nerve and be brave in your work! We lose motivation when we also lose faith in ourselves and our own capabilities, so invite motivation back into your life by having the tenacity to do something that makes you nervous.

4. You Belong Here!

“I belong wherever I want to be.” – Stephenie Meyer

As students we are no strangers to a mid-assignment existential crisis. We then lose our motivation because we don’t believe we belong where we are, but the truth is that we belong wherever we want to be! So if you are doing what you love, if you are striving for a particular career that you think serves your life’s purpose then you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing – which right now, is finishing that assignment. Allow your sense of belonging to motivate you!

5. Take Your Time When Writing Assignments

“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” – Virginia Woolf

Assignment deadlines often have us scrambling to finish our work in time but don’t let a due date rush you to the point that you lose all motivation to finish it at all. The truth is that just by being who you are, you are already capable to do this work. You don’t need to be smarter, richer, shiner or someone else to do what you are doing. So motivate yourself with your own qualities and don’t rush. You will get it done!

6. You’ll Find The Way!

“Hidden in all that tangle, there is a way.” – Adrienne Rich

When writing assignments challenges us the most we often lose our motivation because we can’t see how we can get it done when there is so much standing in our way. But in between what is holding us back there is a way in which to get it done. It doesn’t matter how you get it done, just that you do! So look past what is hindering your progress and find a way to do it.

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7. coffee helps.

“Coffee in one hand. Confidence in the other.” – Unknown

While we are not all coffee drinkers, this quote reminds us to hold close something that soothes us while we let our confidence carry us. There needs to be balance when writing assignments. So if a cup of coffee helps you when you are studying, demolish those lattes but it’s important you stay in tune to your confidence as well. You have two hands, use them both!

8. Find Something To Be Excited About!

“You ruin your life by tolerating it. At the end of the day you should be excited to be alive. When you settle for anything less than what you innately desire, you destroy the possibility that lives inside of you, and in that way you cheat both yourself and the world of your potential. The next Michelangelo could be sitting behind a Macbook right now writing an invoice for paperclips, because it pays the bills, or because it is comfortable, or because he can tolerate it. Do not let this happen to you. Do not ruin your life this way. Life and work, and life and love, are not irrespective of each other. They are intrinsically linked. We have to strive to do extraordinary work, we have to strive to find extraordinary love. Only then will we tap into an extraordinarily blissful life.” – Bianca Sparacino

Writing assignments can be boring and hard work but we must remind ourselves that these assignments are apart of the bigger picture and we ruin our lives if we are simply tolerating them. Watch your motivation pour back into your life when you have a better sense of why you are doing the work.

9. Don’t Take Your Assignments Too Seriously

“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.” – Herman Hesse

Motivations escapes us when we take things too seriously and make them harder than they need to be. So while this assignment may be worth a large portion of your marks, your entire career rides on much more than this one assessment piece. So don’t take it too seriously and try to laugh in between.

10. You Are In Control!

“The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

When we realise we are the authors of our own stories we often find our motivation again. The world is our oyster and we are completely in control of the journey we take, so let your power also be your motivation this assignment season!

Have these inspirational quotes motivated you to finish that assignment you’re currently working on? Let us know in the comments below and share some of your favourite motivational quotes not listed here!

Featured image source: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/awc2jshrfjwk_u-uxazttebfsxmm8-2iorde3kln1tzypn61nuebzkc/.

A poet, INFP and an empath who is never without a book, and thoroughly enjoys a soy latte. Based in Melbourne, Australia.

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• Georgia State University
• Grand Valley State University
• Hofstra University
• Illinois State University
• Indiana University
• Indiana Wesleyan University
• Iowa State University
• James Madison University
• Johnson and Wales University
• Kansas State University
• Kent State University
• Liberty University
• Loyola Marymount University
• Loyola University Chicago
• Loyola University Maryland
• Michigan State University
• Mississippi State University
• New York University
• Northeastern University
• Northern Illinois University
• Ohio State University
• Ohio University
• Pennsylvania State University
• Plymouth State University
• Providence College
• Purdue University
• Rutgers University
• San Diego State University
• San Francisco State University
• Southern Methodist University
• St. John’s University
• Stony Brook University
• SUNY Binghamton
• Syracuse University
• Temple University
• Texas Tech University
• The College of New Jersey
• Tulane University
• University of Alabama
• University of Arizona
• University of Arkansas
• University of California Berkeley
• University of California Irvine
• University of California Los Angeles
• University of California Riverside
• University of California San Diego
• University of Central Florida
• University of Colorado Boulder
• University of Connecticut
• University of Delaware
• University of Florida
• University of Georgia
• University of Iowa
• University of Kansas
• University of Maryland
• University of Massachusetts
• University of Miami
• University of Michigan
• University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• University of Mississippi
• University of Missouri-Columbia
• University of New Hampshire
• University of North Carolina
• University of Pittsburgh
• University of South Carolina
• University of Southern California
• University of Tennessee at Knoxville
• University of Texas at Dallas
• University of Utah
• University of Virginia
• University of Wisconsin Madison
• Virginia Tech
• West Virginia University
• Los Angeles
• Minneapolis
• New York City
• Philadelphia
• San Francisco
• Tallahassee
• Washington DC

How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures (2018)

Chapter: 6 motivation to learn, 6 motivation to learn.

Motivation is a condition that activates and sustains behavior toward a goal. It is critical to learning and achievement across the life span in both informal settings and formal learning environments. For example, children who are motivated tend to be engaged, persist longer, have better learning outcomes, and perform better than other children on standardized achievement tests ( Pintrich, 2003 ). Motivation is distinguishable from general cognitive functioning and helps to explain gains in achievement independent of scores on intelligence tests ( Murayama et al., 2013 ). It is also distinguishable from states related to it, such as engagement, interest, goal orientation, grit, and tenacity, all of which have different antecedents and different implications for learning and achievement ( Järvelä and Renninger, 2014 ).

HPL I 1 emphasized some key findings from decades of research on motivation to learn:

• People are motivated to develop competence and solve problems by rewards and punishments but often have intrinsic reasons for learning that may be more powerful.
• Learners tend to persist in learning when they face a manageable challenge (neither too easy nor too frustrating) and when they see the value and utility of what they are learning.
• Children and adults who focus mainly on their own performance (such as on gaining recognition or avoiding negative judgments) are

___________________

1 As noted in Chapter 1 , this report uses the abbreviation “ HPL I ” for How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition ( National Research Council, 2000 ).

less likely to seek challenges and persist than those who focus on learning itself.

• Learners who focus on learning rather than performance or who have intrinsic motivation to learn tend to set goals for themselves and regard increasing their competence to be a goal.
• Teachers can be effective in encouraging students to focus on learning instead of performance, helping them to develop a learning orientation.

In this chapter, we provide updates and additional elaboration on research in this area. We begin by describing some of the primary theoretical perspectives that have shaped this research, but our focus is on four primary influences on people’s motivation to learn. We explore research on people’s own beliefs and values, intrinsic motivation, the role of learning goals, and social and cultural factors that affect motivation to learn. We then examine research on interventions and approaches to instructional design that may influence motivation to learn, and we close with our conclusions about the implications of this research.

The research we discuss includes both laboratory and field research from multiple disciplines, such as developmental psychology, social psychology, education, and cognitive psychology.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Research on motivation has been strongly driven by theories that overlap and contain similar concepts. A comprehensive review of this literature is beyond the scope of this report, but we highlight a few key points. Behavior-based theories of learning , which conceptualized motivation in terms of habits, drives, incentives, and reinforcement schedules, were popular through the mid-20th century. In these approaches, learners were assumed to be passive in the learning process and research focused mainly on individual differences between people (e.g., cognitive abilities, drive for achievement). These differences were presumed to be fixed and to dictate learners’ responses to features in the learning environment (method of instruction, incentives, and so on) and their motivation and performance.

Current researchers regard many of these factors as important but have also come to focus on learners as active participants in learning and to pay greater attention to how learners make sense of and choose to engage with their learning environments. Cognitive theories, for example, have focused on how learners set goals for learning and achievement and how they maintain and monitor their progress toward those goals. They also consider how physical aspects of the learning environment, such as classroom structures ( Ames, 1986 ) and social interactions (e.g., Gehlbach et al., 2016 ), affect learning through their impacts on students’ goals, beliefs, affect, and actions.

Motivation is also increasingly viewed as an emergent phenomenon , meaning it can develop over time and change as a result of one’s experiences with learning and other circumstances. Research suggests, for example, that aspects of the learning environment can both trigger and sustain a student’s curiosity and interest in ways that support motivation and learning ( Hidi and Renninger, 2006 ).

A key factor in motivation is an individual’s mindset : the set of assumptions, values, and beliefs about oneself and the world that influence how one perceives, interprets, and acts upon one’s environment ( Dweck, 1999 ). For example, a person’s view as to whether intelligence is fixed or malleable is likely to link to his views of the malleability of his own abilities ( Hong and Lin-Siegler, 2012 ). As we discuss below, learners who have a fixed view of intelligence tend to set demonstrating competence as a learning goal, whereas learners who have an incremental theory of intelligence tend to set mastery as a goal and to place greater value on effort. Mindsets develop over time as a function of learning experiences and cultural influences. Research related to mindsets has focused on patterns in how learners construe goals and make choices about how to direct attention and effort. Some evidence suggests that it is possible to change students’ self-attributions so that they adopt a growth mindset, which in turn improves their academic performance ( Blackwell et al., 2007 ).

Researchers have also tried to integrate the many concepts that have been introduced to explain this complex aspect of learning in order to formulate a more comprehensive understanding of motivational processes and their effects on learning. For example, researchers who study psychological aspects of motivation take a motivational systems perspective , viewing motivation as a set of psychological mechanisms and processes, such as those related to setting goals, engagement in learning, and use of self-regulatory strategies ( Kanfer, 2015 ; Linnenbrink-Garcia and Patall, 2016 ; Yeager and Walton, 2011 ).

LEARNERS’ BELIEFS AND VALUES

Learners’ ideas about their own competence, their values, and the preexisting interests they bring to a particular learning situation all influence motivation.

Self-Efficacy

When learners expect to succeed, they are more likely to put forth the effort and persistence needed to perform well. Self-efficacy theory ( Bandura, 1977 ), which is incorporated into several models of motivation and learning, posits that the perceptions learners have about their competency or capabilities are critical to accomplishing a task or attaining other goals ( Bandura, 1977 ).

According to self-efficacy theory, learning develops from multiple sources, including perceptions of one’s past performance, vicarious experiences, performance feedback, affective/physiological states, and social influences. Research on how to improve self-efficacy for learning has shown the benefits of several strategies for strengthening students’ sense of their competence for learning, including setting appropriate goals and breaking down difficult goals into subgoals ( Bandura and Schunk, 1981 ) and providing students with information about their progress, which allows them to attribute success to their own effort ( Schunk and Cox, 1986 ). A sense of competence may also foster interest and motivation, particularly when students are given the opportunity to make choices about their learning activities ( Patall et al., 2014 ).

Another important aspect of self-attribution involves beliefs about whether one belongs in a particular learning situation. People who come from backgrounds where college attendance is not the norm may question whether they belong in college despite having been admitted. Students may misinterpret short-term failure as reflecting that they do not belong, when in fact short-term failure is common among all college students. These students experience a form of stereotype threat, where prevailing cultural stereotypes about their position in the world cause them to doubt themselves and perform more poorly ( Steele and Aronson, 1995 ).

A recent study examined interventions designed to boost the sense of belonging among African American college freshmen ( Walton and Cohen, 2011 ). The researchers compared students who did and did not encounter survey results ostensibly collected from more senior college students, which indicated that most senior students had worried about whether they belonged during their first year of college but had become more confident over time. The students who completed the activity made significant academic gains, and the researchers concluded that even brief interventions can help people overcome the bias of prior knowledge by challenging that knowledge and supporting a new perspective.

Another approach to overcoming the bias of knowledge is to use strategies that can prevent some of the undesirable consequences of holding negative perspectives. One such strategy is to support learners in trying out multiple ideas before settling on the final idea. In one study, for example, researchers asked college students either to design a Web page advertisement for an online journal and then refine it several times or to create several separate ones ( Dow et al., 2010 ). The researchers posted the advertisements and assessed their effectiveness both by counting how many clicks each generated and by asking experts in Web graphics to rate them. The authors found that the designs developed separately were more effective and concluded that when students refined their initial designs, they were trapped by their initial decisions. The students who developed separate advertisements explored the possibilities more thoroughly and had more ideas to choose from.

Learners may not engage in a task or persist with learning long enough to achieve their goals unless they value the learning activities and goals. Expectancy-value theories have drawn attention to how learners choose goals depending on their beliefs about both their ability to accomplish a task and the value of that task. The concept of value encompasses learners’ judgments about (1) whether a topic or task is useful for achieving learning or life goals, (2) the importance of a topic or task to the learner’s identity or sense of self, (3) whether a task is enjoyable or interesting, and (4) whether a task is worth pursuing ( Eccles et al., 1983 ; Wigfield and Eccles, 2000 ).

Research with learners of various ages supports the idea that those who expect to succeed at a task exert more effort and have higher levels of performance ( Eccles and Wigfield, 2002 ). However, some studies have suggested that task valuation seems to be the strongest predictor of behaviors associated with motivation, such as choosing topics and making decisions about participation in training ( Linnenbrink-Garcia et al., 2008 ). Such research illustrates one of the keys to expectancy-value theory: the idea that expectancy and value dimensions work together. For example, a less-than-skilled reader may nevertheless approach a difficult reading task with strong motivation to persist in the task if it is interesting, useful, or important to the reader’s identity ( National Research Council, 2012c ). As learners experience success at a task or in a domain of learning, such as reading or math, the value they attribute to those activities can increase over time ( Eccles and Wigfield, 2002 ).

Learners’ interest is an important consideration for educators because they can accommodate those interests as they design curricula and select learning resources. Interest is also important in adult learning in part because students and trainees with little interest in a topic may show higher rates of absenteeism and lower levels of performance ( Ackerman et al., 2001 ).

Two forms of learner interest have been identified. Individual or personal interest is viewed as a relatively stable attribute of the individual. It is characterized by a learner’s enduring connection to a domain and willingness to re-engage in learning in that domain over time ( Schiefele, 2009 ). In contrast, situational interest refers to a psychological state that arises spontaneously in response to specific features of the task or learning environment ( Hidi and Renninger, 2006 ). Situational interest is malleable, can affect student engagement and learning, and is influenced by the tasks and materials educators use or encourage ( Hunsu et al., 2017 ). Practices that engage students and influence their attitudes may increase their personal interest and intrinsic motivation over time ( Guthrie et al., 2006 ).

Sometimes the spark of motivation begins with a meaningful alignment of student interest with an assignment or other learning opportunity. At other times, features of the learning environment energize a state of wanting to know more, which activates motivational processes. In both cases, it is a change in mindset and goal construction brought about by interest that explains improved learning outcomes ( Barron, 2006 ; Bricker and Bell, 2014 ; Goldman and Booker, 2009 ). For instance, when learner interest is low, students may be less engaged and more likely to attend to the learning goals that require minimal attention and effort.

Many studies of how interest affects learning have included measures of reading comprehension and text recall. This approach has allowed researchers to assess the separate effects of topic interest and interest in a specific text on how readers interact with text, by measuring the amount of time learners spend reading and what they learn from it. Findings from studies of this sort suggest that educators can foster students’ interest by selecting resources that promote interest, by providing feedback that supports attention ( Renninger and Hidi, 2002 ), by demonstrating their own interest in a topic, and by generating positive affect in learning contexts (see review by Hidi and Renninger, 2006 ).

This line of research has also suggested particular characteristics of texts that are associated with learner interest. For example, in one study of college students, five characteristics of informational texts were associated with both interest and better recall: (1) the information was important, new, and valued; (2) the information was unexpected; (3) the text supported readers in making connections with prior knowledge or experience; (4) the text contained imagery and descriptive language; and (5) the author attempted to relate information to readers’ background knowledge using, for example, comparisons and analogies ( Wade et al., 1999 ). The texts that students viewed as less interesting interfered with comprehension in that they, for example, offered incomplete or shallow explanations, contained difficult vocabulary, or lacked coherence.

A number of studies suggest that situational interest can be a strong predictor of engagement, positive attitudes, and performance, including a study of students’ essay writing ( Flowerday et al., 2004 ) and other research (e.g., Alexander and Jetton, 1996 ; Schraw and Lehman, 2001 ). These studies suggest the power of situational interest for engaging students in learning, which has implications for the design of project-based or problem-based learning. For example, Hoffman and Haussler (1998) found that high school girls displayed significantly more interest in the physics related to the working of a pump when the mechanism was put into a real-world context: the use of a pump in heart surgery.

The perception of having a choice may also influence situational interest and engagement, as suggested by a study that examined the effects of classroom practices on adolescents enrolled in a summer school science course

( Linnenbrink-Garcia et al., 2013 ). The positive effect learners experience as part of interest also appears to play a role in their persistence and ultimately their performance (see, e.g., Ainley et al., 2002 ).

Intrinsic Motivation

Self-determination theory posits that behavior is strongly influenced by three universal, innate, psychological needs—autonomy (the urge to control one’s own life), competence (the urge to experience mastery), and psychological relatedness (the urge to interact with, be connected to, and care for others). Researchers have linked this theory to people’s intrinsic motivation to learn ( Deci and Ryan, 1985 , 2000 ; Ryan and Deci, 2000 ). Intrinsic motivation is the experience of wanting to engage in an activity for its own sake because the activity is interesting and enjoyable or helps to achieve goals one has chosen. From the perspective of self-determination theory ( Deci and Ryan, 1985 , 2000 ; Ryan and Deci, 2000 ), learners are intrinsically motivated to learn when they perceive that they have a high degree of autonomy and engage in an activity willingly, rather than because they are being externally controlled. Learners who are intrinsically motivated also perceive that the challenges of a problem or task are within their abilities.

External Rewards

The effect of external rewards on intrinsic motivation is a topic of much debate. External rewards can be an important tool for motivating learning behaviors, but some argue that such rewards are harmful to intrinsic motivation in ways that affect persistence and achievement.

For example, some research suggests that intrinsic motivation to persist at a task may decrease if a learner receives extrinsic rewards contingent on performance. The idea that extrinsic rewards harm intrinsic motivation has been supported in a meta-analysis of 128 experiments ( Deci et al., 1999 , 2001 ). One reason proposed for such findings is that learners’ initial interest in the task and desire for success are replaced by their desire for the extrinsic reward ( Deci and Ryan, 1985 ). External rewards, it is argued, may also undermine the learner’s perceptions of autonomy and control.

Other research points to potential benefits. A recent field study, for example, suggests that incentives do not always lead to reduced engagement after the incentive ends ( Goswami and Urminsky, 2017 ). Moreover, in some circumstances external rewards such as praise or prizes can help to encourage engagement and persistence, and they may not harm intrinsic motivation over the long term, provided that the extrinsic reward does not undermine the individual’s sense of autonomy and control over her behavior (see National Research Council, 2012c , pp. 143–145; also see Cerasoli et al.,

2016 ; Vansteenkiste et al., 2009 ). Thus, teaching strategies that use rewards to capture and stimulate interest in a topic (rather than to drive compliance), that provide the student with encouragement (rather than reprimands), and that are perceived to guide student progress (rather than just monitor student progress) can foster feelings of autonomy, competence, and academic achievement (e.g., Vansteenkist et al., 2004 ). Praise is important, but what is praised makes a difference (see Box 6-1 ).

Other work ( Cameron et al., 2005 ) suggests that when rewards are inherent in the achievement itself—that is, when rewards for successful completion of a task include real privileges, pride, or respect—they can spur intrinsic motivation. This may be the case, for example, with videogames in which individuals are highly motivated to play well in order to move to the next higher level. This may also be the case when learners feel valued and respected for their demonstrations of expertise, as when a teacher asks a student who correctly completed a challenging homework math problem to explain his solution to the class. Extrinsic rewards support engagement sufficient for learning, as shown in one study in which rewards were associated with enhanced memory consolidation but only when students perceived the material to be boring ( Murayama and Kuhbandner, 2011 ). Given the prevalence

BOX 6-1 What You Praise Makes a Difference

of different performance-based incentives in classrooms (e.g., grades, prizes), a better, more integrated understanding is needed of how external rewards may harm or benefit learners’ motivation in ways that matter to achievement and performance in a range of real-world conditions across the life span.

Effects of Choice

When learners believe they have control over their learning environment, they are more likely to take on challenges and persist with difficult tasks, compared with those who perceive that they have little control ( National Research Council, 2012c ). Evidence suggests that the opportunity to make meaningful choices during instruction, even if they are small, can support autonomy, motivation, and ultimately, learning and achievement ( Moller et al., 2006 ; Patall et al., 2008 , 2010 ). 2

Choice may be particularly effective for individuals with high initial interest in the domain, and it may also generate increased interest ( Patall, 2013 ). One possible reason why exercising choice seems to increase motivation is that the act of making a choice induces cognitive dissonance: a feeling of being uncomfortable and unsure about one’s decision. To reduce this feeling, individuals tend to change their preferences to especially value and become interested in the thing they chose ( Izuma et al., 2010 ). Knowing that one has made a choice (“owning the choice”) can protect against the discouraging effects of negative feedback during the learning process, an effect that has been observed at the neurophysiological level ( Murayama et al., 2015 ). The perception of choice also may affect learning by fostering situational interest and engagement ( Linnenbrink-Garcia et al., 2013 ).

THE IMPORTANCE OF GOALS

Goals—the learner’s desired outcomes—are important for learning because they guide decisions about whether to expend effort and how to direct attention, foster planning, influence responses to failure, and promote other behaviors important for learning ( Albaili, 1998 ; Dweck and Elliot, 1983 ; Hastings and West, 2011 ).

Learners may not always be conscious of their goals or of the motivation processes that relate to their goals. For example, activities that learners perceive as enjoyable or interesting can foster engagement without the learner’s

2 The 2008 study was a meta-analysis, so the study populations are not described. The 2010 study included a total of 207 (54% female) high school students from ninth through twelfth grade. A majority (55.5%) of the students in these classes were Caucasian, 28 percent were African American, 7 percent were Asian, 3 percent were Hispanic, 1.5 percent were Native American, and 5 percent were of other ethnicities.

conscious awareness. Similarly, activities that learners perceive as threatening to their sense of competence or self-esteem (e.g., conditions that invoke stereotype threat, discussed below 3 ) may reduce learners’ motivation and performance even (and sometimes especially) when they intend to perform well.

HPL I made the point that having clear and specific goals that are challenging but manageable has a positive effect on performance, and researchers have proposed explanations. Some have focused on goals as motives or reasons to learn ( Ames and Ames, 1984 ; Dweck and Elliott, 1983 ; Locke et al., 1981 ; Maehr, 1984 ; Nicholls, 1984 ). Others have noted that different types of goals, such as mastery and performance goals, have different effects on the cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes that underlie learning as well as on learners’ outcomes ( Ames and Archer, 1988 ; Covington, 2000 ; Dweck, 1986 ). Research has also linked learners’ beliefs about learning and achievement, or mindsets, with students’ pursuit of specific types of learning goals ( Maehr and Zusho, 2009 ). The next section examines types of goals and research on their influence.

Types of Goals

Researchers distinguish between two main types of goals: mastery goals , in which learners focus on increasing competence or understanding, and performance goals , in which learners are driven by a desire to appear competent or outperform others (see Table 6-1 ). They further distinguish between performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals ( Senko et al., 2011 ). Learners who embrace performance-avoidance goals work to avoid looking incompetent or being embarrassed or judged as a failure, whereas those who adopt performance-approach goals seek to appear more competent than others and to be judged socially in a favorable light. Within the category of performance-approach goals, researchers have identified both self-presentation goals (“wanting others to think you are smart”) and normative goals (“wanting to outperform others”) ( Hulleman et al., 2010 ).

Learners may simultaneously pursue multiple goals ( Harackiewicz et al., 2002 ; Hulleman et al., 2008 ) and, depending on the subject area or skill domain, may adopt different achievement goals ( Anderman and Midgley, 1997 ). Although students’ achievement goals are relatively stable across the school years, they are sensitive to changes in the learning environment, such as moving from one classroom to another or changing schools ( Friedel et al., 2007 ). Learning environments differ in the learning expectations, rules, and

3 When an individual encounters negative stereotypes about his social identity group in the context of a cognitive task, he may underperform on that task; this outcome is attributed to stereotype threat ( Steele, 1997 ).

TABLE 6-1 Mindsets, Goals, and Their Implications for Learning

structure that apply, and as a result, students may shift their goal orientation to succeed in the new context ( Anderman and Midgley, 1997 ).

Dweck (1986) argued that achievement goals reflect learners’ underlying theories of the nature of intelligence or ability: whether it is fixed (something with which one is born) or malleable. Learners who believe intelligence is malleable, she suggested, are predisposed toward adopting mastery goals, whereas learners who believe intelligence is fixed tend to orient toward displaying competence and adopting performance goals ( Burns and Isbell, 2007 ; Dweck, 1986 ; Dweck and Master, 2009 ; Mangels et al., 2006 ). Table 6-1 shows how learners’ mindsets can relate to their learning goals and behaviors.

Research in this area suggests that learners who strongly endorse mastery goals tend to enjoy novel and challenging tasks ( Pintrich, 2000 ; Shim et al., 2008 ; Witkow and Fuligni, 2007 ; Wolters, 2004 ), demonstrate a greater willingness to expend effort, and engage higher-order cognitive skills during learning ( Ames, 1992 ; Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; Kahraman and Sungur, 2011 ; Middleton and Midgley, 1997 ). Mastery students are also persistent—even in the face of failure—and frequently use failure as an opportunity to seek feedback and improve subsequent performance ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ).

Learners’ mastery and performance goals may also influence learning and achievement through indirect effects on cognition. Specifically, learners with mastery goals tend to focus on relating new information to existing knowledge as they learn, which supports deep learning and long-term memory for the

information. By contrast, learners with performance goals tend to focus on learning individual bits of information separately, which improves speed of learning and immediate recall but may undermine conceptual learning and long-term recall. In this way, performance goals tend to support better immediate retrieval of information, while mastery goals tend to support better long-term retention ( Crouzevialle and Butera, 2013 ). Performance goals may in fact undermine conceptual learning and long-term recall. When learners with mastery goals work to recall a previously learned piece of information, they also activate and strengthen memory for the other, related information they learned. When learners with performance goals try to recall what they learned, they do not get the benefit of this retrieval-induced strengthening of their memory for other information ( Ikeda et al., 2015 ).

Two studies with undergraduate students illustrate this point. Study participants who adopted performance goals were found to be concerned with communicating competence, prioritizing areas of high ability, and avoiding challenging tasks or areas in which they perceived themselves to be weaker than others ( Darnon et al., 2007 ; Elliot and Murayama, 2008 ). These students perceived failure as a reflection of their inability and typically responded to failure with frustration, shame, and anxiety. These kinds of performance-avoidance goals have been associated with maladaptive learning behaviors including task avoidance ( Middleton and Midgley, 1997 ; sixth-grade students), reduced effort ( Elliot, 1999 ), and self-handicapping ( Covington, 2000 ; Midgley et al., 1996 ).

The adoption of a mastery goal orientation to learning is likely to be beneficial for learning, while pursuit of performance goals is associated with poor learning-related outcomes. However, research regarding the impact of performance goals on academic outcomes has yielded mixed findings ( Elliot and McGregor, 2001 ; Midgley et al., 2001 ). Some researchers have found positive outcomes when learners have endorsed normative goals (a type of performance goal) ( Covington, 2000 ; Linnenbrink, 2005 ). Others have found that achievement goals do not have a direct effect on academic achievement but operate instead through the intermediary learning behaviors described above and through self-efficacy ( Hulleman et al., 2010 ).

Influence of Teachers on Learners’ Goals

Classrooms can be structured to make particular goals more or less salient and can shift or reinforce learners’ goal orientations ( Maehr and Midgley, 1996 ). Learners’ goals may reflect the classroom’s goal structure or the values teachers communicate about learning through their teaching practices (e.g., how the chairs are set up or whether the teacher uses cooperative learning groups) (see Kaplan and Midgley, 1999 ; Urdan et al., 1998 ). When learners perceive mastery goals are valued in the classsroom, they are more likely

TABLE 6-2 Achievement Goals and Classroom Climate

SOURCE: Adapted from Ames and Archer (1988 , Tbl. 1, p. 261).

to use information-processing strategies, self-planning, and self-monitoring strategies ( Ames and Archer, 1988 ; Schraw et al., 1995 ). A mastery-oriented structure in the classroom is positively correlated with high academic competency and negatively related to disruptive behaviors. Further, congruence in learners’ perceptions of their own and their school’s mastery orientation is associated with positive academic achievement and school well-being ( Kaplan and Maehr, 1999 ).

Teachers can influence the goals learners adopt during learning, and learners’ perceptions of classroom goal structures are better predictors of learners’ goal orientations than are their perceptions of their parents’ goals. Perceived classroom goals are also strongly linked to learners’ academic efficacy in the transition to middle school. Hence, classroom goal structures are a particularly important target for intervention ( Friedel et al., 2007 ; Kim et al., 2010 ). Table 6-2 summarizes a longstanding view of how the prevailing classroom goal structure—oriented toward either mastery goals or performance goals—affects the classroom climate for learning. However, more experimental research is needed to determine whether interventions designed to influence such mindsets benefit learners.

Learning Goals and Other Goals

Academic goals are shaped not only by the immediate learning context but also by the learners’ goals and challenges, which develop and change

throughout the life course. Enhancing a person’s learning and achievement requires an understanding of what the person is trying to achieve: what goals the individual seeks to accomplish and why. However, it is not always easy to determine what goals an individual is trying to achieve because learners have multiple goals and their goals may shift in response to events and experiences. For example, children may adopt an academic goal as a means of pleasing parents or because they enjoy learning about a topic, or both. Teachers may participate in an online statistics course in order to satisfy job requirements for continuing education or because they view mastery of the topic as relevant to their identity as a teacher, or both.

At any given time, an individual holds multiple goals related to achievement, belongingness, identity, autonomy, and sense of competence that are deeply personal, cultural, and subjective. Which of these goals becomes salient in directing behavior at what times depends on the way the individual construes the situation. During adolescence, for example, social belongingness goals may take precedence over academic achievement goals: young people may experience greater motivation and improved learning in a group context that fosters relationships that serve and support achievement. Over the life span, academic achievement goals also become linked to career goals, and these may need to be adapted over time. For example, an adolescent who aspires to become a physician but who continually fails her basic science courses may need to protect her sense of competence by either building new strategies for learning science or revising her occupational goals.

A person’s motivation to persist in learning in spite of obstacles and setbacks is facilitated when goals for learning and achievement are made explicit, are congruent with the learners’ desired outcomes and motives, and are supported by the learning environment, as judged by the learner; this perspective is illustrated in Box 6-2 .

Future Identities and Long-Term Persistence

Long-term learning and achievement tend to require not only the learner’s interest, but also prolonged motivation and persistence. Motivation to persevere may be strengthened when students can perceive connections between their current action choices (present self) and their future self or possible future identities ( Gollwitzer et al., 2011 ; Oyserman et al., 2015 ). The practice of displaying the names and accomplishments of past successful students is one way educators try to help current students see the connection.

Researchers have explored the mechanisms through which such experiences affect learning. Some neurobiological evidence, for example, suggests that compelling narratives that trigger emotions (such as admiration elicited by a story about a young person who becomes a civil rights leader for his community) may activate a mindset focused on a “possible future” or values

BOX 6-2 Learners’ Perceptions of the Learning Environment Can Inadvertently Undermine Motivation

( Immordino-Yang et al., 2009 ). Similar research also points to an apparent shifting between two distinct neural networks that researchers have associated with an “action now” mindset (with respect to the choices and behaviors for executing a task during learning) and a “possible future/values oriented”

mindset (with respect to whether difficult tasks are ones that “people like me” do) ( Immordino-Yang et al., 2012 ). Students who shift between these two mindsets may take a reflective stance that enables them to inspire themselves and to persist and perform well on difficult tasks to attain future goals ( Immordino-Yang and Sylvan, 2010 ).

Practices that help learners recognize the motivational demands required and obstacles to overcome for achieving desired future outcomes also may support goal attainment, as suggested in one study of children’s attempts to learn foreign-language vocabulary words ( Gollwitzer et al., 2011 ). Research is needed, however, to better establish the efficacy of practices designed to shape learners’ thinking about future identities and persistence

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON MOTIVATION

All learners’ goals emerge in a particular cultural context. As discussed in Chapter 2 , the way individuals perceive and interpret the world and their own role in it, and their expectations about how people function socially, reflect the unique set of influences they have experienced. The procedures people use to complete tasks and solve problems, as well as the social emotional dispositions people bring to such tasks, are similarly shaped by context and experience ( Elliott et al., 2001 ; Oyserman, 2011 ). In this section, the committee discusses three specific lines of research that illustrate the importance of culturally mediated views of the self and social identities to learners’ perceptions of learning environments, goals, and performance.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Learners’ Self-Construals

Over the past several decades, researchers have attempted to discern the influence of culture on a person’s self-construal, or definition of herself in reference to others. In an influential paper, Markus and Kitayama (1991) distinguished between independent and interdependent self-construals and proposed that these may be associated with individualistic or collectivistic goals. For example, they argued that East Asian cultures tend to emphasize collectivistic goals, which promote a comparatively interdependent self-construal in which the self is experienced as socially embedded and one’s accomplishments are tied to the community. In contrast, they argued, the prevailing North American culture tends to emphasize individualistic goals and an individualistic self-construal that prioritizes unique traits, abilities, and accomplishments tied to the self rather than to the community.

Although assigning cultural groups to either a collectivist or individualistic category oversimplifies very complex phenomena, several large-sample

survey studies have offered insights about the ways learners who fit these two categories tend to vary in their assessment of goals, the goals they see as relevant or salient, and the ways in which their goals relate to other phenomena such as school achievement ( King and McInerney, 2016 ). For example, in cross-cultural studies of academic goals, Dekker and Fischer (2008) found that gaining social approval in achievement contexts was particularly important for students who had a collectivist perspective. This cultural value may predispose students to adopt goals that help them to avoid the appearance of incompetence or negative judgments (i.e., performance-avoidance goals) ( Elliot, 1997 , 1999 ; Kitayama, Matsumoto, and Norasakkunkit, 1997 ).

More recent work has also explored the relationships between such differences and cultural context. For example, several studies have compared students’ indications of endorsement for performance-avoidance goals and found that Asian students endorsed these goals to a greater degree than European American students did ( Elliot et al., 2001 ; Zusho and Njoku, 2007 ; Zusho et al., 2005 ). This body of work seems to suggest that though there were differences, the performance avoidance may also have different outcomes in societies in which individualism is prioritized than in more collectivistic ones. These researchers found that performance-avoidance goals can be adaptive and associated with such positive academic outcomes as higher levels of engagement, deeper cognitive processing, and higher achievement. (See also the work of Chan and Lai [2006] on students in Hong Kong; Hulleman et al. [2010] ; and the work of King [2015] on students in the Philippines.)

Although cultures may vary on average in their emphasis on individualism and collectivism, learners may think in either individualistic and collectivistic terms if primed to do so ( Oyserman et al., 2009 ). For example, priming interventions such as those that encourage participants to call up personal memories of cross-cultural experiences ( Tadmor et al., 2013 ) have been used successfully to shift students from their tendency to take one cultural perspective or the other. Work on such interventions is based on the assumption that one cultural perspective is not inherently better than the other: the most effective approaches would depend on what the person is trying to achieve in the moment and the context in which he is operating. Problem solving is facilitated when the salient mindset is well matched to the task at hand, suggesting that flexibility in cultural mindset also may promote flexible cognitive functioning and adaptability to circumstances ( Vezzali et al., 2016 ).

This perspective also suggests the potential benefits of encouraging learners to think about problems and goals from different cultural perspectives. Some evidence suggests that these and other multicultural priming interventions improve creativity and persistence because they cue individuals to think of problems as having multiple possible solutions. For instance, priming learners to adopt a multicultural mindset may support more-divergent thinking about multiple possible goals related to achievement, family, identity, and

friendships and more flexible action plans for achieving those goals. Teachers may be able to structure learning opportunities that incorporate diverse perspectives related to cultural self-construals in order to engage students more effectively ( Morris et al., 2015 ).

However, a consideration for both research and practice moving forward is that there may be much more variation within cultural models of the self than has been assumed. In a large study of students across several nations that examined seven different dimensions related to self-construal ( Vignoles et al., 2016 ), researchers found neither a consistent contrast between Western and non-Western cultures nor one between collectivistic and individualistic cultures. To better explain cultural variation, the authors suggested an ecocultural perspective that takes into account racial/ethnic identity.

Social Identity and Motivation Processes

Identity is a person’s sense of who she is. It is the lens through which an individual makes sense of experiences and positions herself in the social world. Identity has both personal and social dimensions that play an important role in shaping an individual’s goals and motivation. The personal dimensions of identity tend to be traits (e.g., being athletic or smart) and values (e.g., being strongly committed to a set of religious or political beliefs). Social dimensions of identity are linked to social roles or characteristics that make one recognizable as a member of a group, such as being a woman or a Christian ( Tajfel and Turner, 1979 ). They can operate separately (e.g., “an African American”) or in combination (“an African American male student”) ( Oyserman, 2009 ).

Individuals tend to engage in activities that connect them to their social identities because doing so can support their sense of belonging and esteem and help them integrate into a social group. This integration often means taking on the particular knowledge, goals, and practices valued by that group ( Nasir, 2002 ). The dimensions of identity are dynamic, malleable, and very sensitive to the situations in which people find themselves ( Oyserman, 2009 ; Steele, 1997 ). This means the identity a person takes on at any moment is contingent on the circumstances

A number of studies indicate that a positive identification with one’s racial or ethnic identity supports a sense of school belonging, as well as greater interest, engagement, and success in academic pursuits. For example, African American adolescents with positive attitudes toward their racial/ethnic group express higher efficacy beliefs and report more interest and engagement in school ( Chavous et al., 2003 ). The value of culturally connected racial/ethnic identity is also evident for Mexican and Chinese adolescents ( Fuligni et al., 2005 ). In middle school, this culturally connected identity is linked to higher grade-point averages among African American ( Altschul et al., 2006 ; Eccles et al., 2006 ), Latino ( Oyserman, 2009 ), and Native American students in North

BOX 6-3 Basketball, Mathematics, and Identity

America ( Fryberg et al., 2013 ). The research described in Box 6-3 illustrates the potential and powerful influence of social identity on learners’ engagement with a task.

Stereotype Threat

The experience of being evaluated in academic settings can heighten self-awareness, including awareness of the stereotypes linked to the social group to which one belongs and that are associated with one’s ability ( Steele, 1997 ). The effects of social identity on motivation and performance may be positive, as illustrated in the previous section, but negative stereotypes can lead people to underperform on cognitive tasks (see Steele et al., 2002 ; Walton and Spencer, 2009 ). This phenomenon is known as stereotype threat , an unconscious worry that a stereotype about one’s social group could be applied to oneself or that one might do something to confirm the stereotype ( Steele, 1997 ). Steele has noted that stereotype threat is most likely in areas of performance in which individuals are particularly motivated.

In a prototypical experiment to test stereotype threat, a difficult achievement test is given to individuals who belong to a group for whom a negative stereotype about ability in that achievement domain exists. For example, women are given a test in math. The test is portrayed as either gender-neutral

(women and men do equally well on it) or—in the threat condition—as one at which women do less well. In the threat condition, members of the stereotyped group perform at lower levels than they do in the gender-neutral condition. In the case of women and math, for instance, women perform more poorly on the math test than would be expected given their actual ability (as demonstrated in other contexts) ( Steele and Aronson, 1995 ). Several studies have replicated this finding ( Beilock et al., 2008 ; Dar-Nimrod and Heine, 2006 ; Good et al., 2008 ; Spencer et al., 1999 ), and the finding is considered to be robust, especially on high-stakes tests such as the SAT ( Danaher and Crandall, 2008 ) and GRE.

The effects of negative stereotypes about African American and Latino students are among the most studied in this literature because these stereotypes have been persistent in the United States ( Oyserman et al., 1995 ). Sensitivity to these learning-related stereotypes appears as early as second grade ( Cvencek et al., 2011 ) and grows as children enter adolescence ( McKown and Strambler, 2009 ). Among college-age African Americans, underperformance occurs in contexts in which students believe they are being academically evaluated ( Steele and Aronson, 1995 ). African American school-age children perform worse on achievement tests when they are reminded of stereotypes associated with their social group ( Schmader et al., 2008 ; Wasserberg, 2014 ). Similar negative effects of stereotype threat manifest among Latino youth ( Aronson and Salinas, 1997 ; Gonzales et al., 2002 ; Schmader and Johns, 2003 ).

Stereotype threat is believed to undermine performance by lowering executive functioning and heightening anxiety and worry about what others will think if the individual fails, which robs the person of working memory resources. Thus, the negative effects of stereotype threat may not be as apparent on easy tasks but arise in the context of difficult and challenging tasks that require mental effort ( Beilock et al., 2007 ).

Neurophysiological evidence supports this understanding of the mechanisms underlying stereotype threat. Under threatening conditions, individuals show lower levels of activation in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, reflecting impaired executive functioning and working memory ( Beilock et al., 2007 ; Cadinu et al., 2005 ; Johns et al., 2008 ; Lyons and Beilock, 2012 ; Schmader and Jones, 2003 ) and higher levels of activation in fear circuits, including, for example, in the amygdala ( Spencer et al., 1999 ; Steele and Aronson, 1995 ).

In the short term, stereotype threat can result in upset, distraction, anxiety, and other conditions that interfere with learning and performance ( Pennington et al., 2016 ). Stereotype threat also may have long-term deleterious effects because it can lead people to conclude that they are not likely to be successful in a domain of performance ( Aronson, 2004 ; Steele, 1997 ). It has been suggested that the longer-term effects of stereotype threat may be one cause of longstanding achievement gaps ( Walton and Spencer, 2009 ). For example, women for whom the poor-at-math stereotype was primed reported

more negative thoughts about math ( Cadinu et al., 2005 ). Such threats can be subtly induced. In one classroom study, cues in the form of gendered objects in the room led high school girls to report less interest in taking computer science courses ( Master et al., 2015 ).

Students can maintain positive academic self-concepts in spite of negative stereotypes when supported in doing so ( Anderman and Maehr, 1994 ; Graham, 1994 ; Yeager and Walton, 2011 ). For example, a study by Walton and Spencer (2009) illustrates that under conditions that reduce psychological threat, students for whom a stereotype about their social group exists perform better than nonstereotyped students at the same level of past performance (see Figure 6-1 ).

These findings highlight an important feature of stereotype threat: it is not a characteristic solely of a person or of a context but rather a condition that results from an interaction between the two. To be negatively affected, a person must be exposed to and perceive a potential cue in the environment and be aware of a stereotype about the social group with which he identifies ( Aronson et al., 1999 ). For example, in a study of African American children in an urban elementary school, introduction of a reading test as an index of ability hampered performance only among students who reported being aware of racial stereotypes about intelligence ( Walton and Spencer, 2009 ).

It also appears that the learner must tie her identity to the domain of skills

being tested. For example, students who have a strong academic identity and value academic achievement highly are more vulnerable to academic stereotype threat than are other students ( Aronson et al., 1999 ; Keller, 2007 ; Lawrence et al., 2010 ; Leyens et al., 2000 ; Steele, 1997 ).

Researchers have identified several actions educators can take that may help to manage stereotype threat. One is to remove the social identity characteristic (e.g., race or gender) as an evaluating factor, thereby reducing the possibility of confirming a stereotype ( Steele, 1997 ). This requires bolstering or repositioning dimensions of social identity. Interventions of this sort are likely to work not because they reduce the perception of, or eliminate, stereotype threat, but because they change students responses to the threatening situation ( Aronson et al., 2001 ; Good et al., 2003 ). For example, learners can be repositioned as the bearers of knowledge or expertise, which can facilitate identity shifts that enable learners to open up to opportunities for learning ( Lee, 2012 ). In research that confronted women with negative gender-based stereotypes about their performance in mathematics but prompted them to think of other aspects of their identity, the women performed on par with men and appeared to be buffered against the deleterious effects of gender-based stereotypes. Women who did not receive the encouragement performed worse than their male counterparts ( Gresky et al., 2005 ). Such findings suggest that having opportunities to be reminded of the full range of dimensions of one’s identity may promote resilience against stereotype threats. Notably, interventions that have addressed stereotype threat tend to target and support identity rather than self-esteem. However, clear feedback that sets high expectations and assures a student that he can reach those expectations are also important ( Cohen and Steele, 2002 ; Cohen et al., 1999 ).

Values-affirmation interventions are designed to reduce self-handicapping behavior and increase motivation to perform. Enabling threatened individuals to affirm their talents in other domains through self-affirmations has in some situations strengthened students’ sense of self ( McQueen and Klein, 2006 ). Values-affirmation exercises in which students write about their personal values (e.g., art, sports, music) have bolstered personal identity, reduced threat, and improved academic performance among students experiencing threat ( Cohen et al., 2006 , 2009 ; Martens et al., 2006 ). In randomized field experiments, self-affirmation tasks were associated with better grades for middle school students ( Cohen et al., 2006 , 2009 ) 4 and college students ( Miyake et al., 2010 ). However, other studies have not replicated these findings (e.g., Dee, 2015 ; Hanselman et al., 2017 ), so research is needed to determine for whom and under which conditions values-affirmation approaches may be effective.

Although research suggests steps that educators can take that may help to

4 The 2006 study included 119 African American and 119 European American students; the 2009 study was a 2-year follow-up with the same sample.

eliminate stereotype threat, much of this research has been in highly controlled settings. The full range of factors that may be operating and interacting with one another has yet to be fully examined in real-world environments. However, educators can take into account the influences that research has identified as potentially causing, exacerbating, or ameliorating the effects of stereotype threat on their own students’ motivation, learning, and performance.

INTERVENTIONS TO IMPROVE MOTIVATION

Many students experience a decline in motivation from the primary grades through high school ( Gallup, Inc., 2014 ; Jacobs et al., 2002 ; Lepper et al., 2005 ). Researchers are beginning to develop interventions motivated by theories of motivation to improve student motivation and learning.

Some interventions focus on the psychological mechanisms that affect students’ construal of the learning environment and the goals they develop to adapt to that environment. For example, a brief intervention was designed to enhance student motivation by helping learners to overcome the negative impact of stereotype threat on social belongingness and sense of self ( Yeager et al., 2016 ). In a randomized controlled study, African American and European American college students were asked to write a speech that attributed adversity in learning to a common aspect of the college-adjustment process rather than to personal deficits or their ethnic group ( Walton and Cohen, 2011 ). After 3 years, African American students who had participated in the intervention reported less uncertainty about belonging and showed greater improvement in their grade point averages compared to the European American students.

One group of interventions to address performance setbacks has focused on exercises to help students shift from a fixed view of intelligence to a growth theory of intelligence. For example, in 1-year-long study, middle school students attended an eight-session workshop in which they either learned about study skills alone (control condition) or both study skills and research on how the brain improves and grows by working on challenging tasks (the growth mindset condition). At the end of the year, students in the growth mindset condition had significantly improved their math grades compared to students who only learned about study skills. However, the effect size was small and limited to a small subset of underachieving students ( Blackwell et al., 2007 ).

The subjective and personal nature of the learner’s experiences and the dynamic nature of the learning environment require that motivational interventions be flexible enough to take account of changes in the individual and in the learning environment. Over the past decade, a number of studies have suggested that interventions that enhance both short- and long-term motivation and achievement using brief interventions or exercises can be effective (e.g., Yeager and Walton, 2011 ). The interventions that have shown sustained effects on aspects of motivation and learning are based on relatively brief activities

and exercises that directly target how students interpret their experiences, particularly their challenges in school and during learning.

The effectiveness of brief interventions appears to stem from their impact on the individual’s construal of the situation and the motivational processes they set in motion, which in turn support longer-term achievement. Brief interventions to enhance motivation and achievement appear to share several important characteristics. First, the interventions directly target the psychological mechanisms that affect student motivation rather than academic content. Second, the interventions adopt a student-centric perspective that takes into account the student’s subjective experience in and out of school. Third, the brief interventions are designed to indirectly affect how students think or feel about school or about themselves in school through experience, rather than attempting to persuade them to change their thinking, which is likely to be interpreted as controlling. Fourth, these brief interventions focus on reducing barriers to student motivation rather than directly increasing student motivation. Such interventions appear particularly promising for African American students and other cultural groups who are subjected to negative stereotypes about learning and ability. However, as Yeager and Walton (2011) note, the effectiveness of these interventions appears to depend on both context and implementation.

Studies such as these are grounded in different theories of motivation related to the learners’ cognition, affect, or behavior and are intended to affect different aspects of motivation. Lazowski and Hulleman (2016) conducted a meta-analysis of research on such interventions to identify their effects on outcomes in education settings. The studies included using measures of authentic education outcomes (e.g., standardized test scores, persistence at a task, course choices, or engagement) and showed consistent, small effects across intervention type.

However, this meta-analysis was small: only 74 published and unpublished papers met criteria for inclusion, and the included studies involved a wide range of theoretical perspectives, learner populations, types of interventions, and measured outcomes. These results are not a sufficient basis for conclusions about practice, but further research may help identify which interventions work best for whom and under which conditions, as well as factors that affect implementation (such as dosage, frequency, and timing). Improvements in the ability to clearly define, distinguish among, and measure motivational constructs could improve the validity and usefulness of intervention research.

CONCLUSIONS

When learners want and expect to succeed, they are more likely to value learning, persist at challenging tasks, and perform well. A broad constellation of factors and circumstances may either trigger or undermine students’ desire

to learn and their decisions to expend effort on learning, whether in the moment or over time. These factors include learners’ beliefs and values, personal goals, and social and cultural context. Advances since the publication of HPL I provide robust evidence for the importance of both an individual’s goals in motivation related to learning and the active role of the learner in shaping these goals, based on how that learner conceives the learning context and the experiences that occur during learning. There is also strong evidence for the view that engagement and intrinsic motivation develop and change over time—these are not properties of the individual or the environment alone.

While empirical and theoretical work in this area continues to develop, recent research does strongly support the following conclusion:

CONCLUSION 6-1: Motivation to learn is influenced by the multiple goals that individuals construct for themselves as a result of their life and school experiences and the sociocultural context in which learning takes place. Motivation to learn is fostered for learners of all ages when they perceive the school or learning environment is a place where they “belong” and when the environment promotes their sense of agency and purpose.

More research is needed on instructional methods and how the structure of formal schooling can influence motivational processes. What is already known does support the following general guidance for educators:

CONCLUSION 6-2: Educators may support learners’ motivation by attending to their engagement, persistence, and performance by:

• helping them to set desired learning goals and appropriately challenging goals for performance;
• creating learning experiences that they value;
• supporting their sense of control and autonomy;
• developing their sense of competency by helping them to recognize, monitor, and strategize about their learning progress; and
• creating an emotionally supportive and nonthreatening learning environment where learners feel safe and valued.

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There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy.

In 2000, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition was published and its influence has been wide and deep. The report summarized insights on the nature of learning in school-aged children; described principles for the design of effective learning environments; and provided examples of how that could be implemented in the classroom.

Since then, researchers have continued to investigate the nature of learning and have generated new findings related to the neurological processes involved in learning, individual and cultural variability related to learning, and educational technologies. In addition to expanding scientific understanding of the mechanisms of learning and how the brain adapts throughout the lifespan, there have been important discoveries about influences on learning, particularly sociocultural factors and the structure of learning environments.

How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures provides a much-needed update incorporating insights gained from this research over the past decade. The book expands on the foundation laid out in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning. How People Learn II will become an indispensable resource to understand learning throughout the lifespan for educators of students and adults.

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45 Goal Setting Activities, Exercises & Games (+ PDF)

Creating and setting goals is great, but actually achieving them can be much harder. This is where utilizing some tried and tested goal setting exercises can help you, not only in setting a goal that is achievable but the individual steps and process needed to help you get there.

That’s what we’re taking a look at in this article: how goal setting exercises work, why they’re important, and a whole heap of resources to help you get started.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains:

How goal setting exercises work, what are goal setting tools, 6 useful goal setting tools (pdf), 3 goal setting exercises (pdf), planning with goal setting sheets, 16 useful sheets for setting goals (incl. pdf & word printables), 5 goal setting questions to ask, 3 goal setting workshop activities for adults, 4 helpful goal setting models, do visualization and meditation help goal setting, 3 training games & exercises for goal setting workshops, 3 goal setting exercises for couples, what is group goal setting, creating a goal setting workshop outline, what is a group goal setting questionnaire.

• 4 Group Goal Setting Exercises and Activities (Incl. PDF and worksheets)

A Take-Home Message

The author Annie Dillard once said in her book The Writing Life , ‘How we spend our days is how we spend our life’ and I think this is a great quote to contemplate in the theme of goal setting . How we spend our life – the things we want to do – is made up of all the smaller days in-between, and the same is true of achieving a goal. It’s the small steps in the middle that create success.

Goals are our aspirations. When we set a goal, we create an aim for a set of behaviors (Latham and Locke, 2002). Whether that’s achieving a level of proficiency or skill in an athletic endeavor, a weight-loss goal or paying off financial debt: Creating a goal helps us to know what we’re aiming for in life.

Change rarely happens magically overnight. It happens because we make a daily commitment to adapting our behaviors, mindset, and habits to work towards creating the change we want. Small, daily and consistent changes can lead to big results over time. This is how effective goal setting exercises work.

While goal setting can be short or long term, formal or informal, to really achieve results psychologists have found that goal setting exercises are most effective when the final aim is specific and measurable (Locke and Latham, 1991, Latham, Winter and Locke, 1994, Latham and Locke, 2002).

Locke (1964) came up with the very first Goal Setting Theory , where he focused on goal setting within the workplace. He found that employees were motivated more by clearly set goals and actionable feedback to help them achieve those goals.

While it probably makes a lot of sense today to be told to ‘secure four new clients by the end of the month’ rather than ‘increase the customer base’, this was revolutionary when Locke proposed his first paper. He provided the foundation for modern goal-setting techniques that many use today.

Locke also found that motivation is key to achieving our goals, and we feel more motivated when we’re not 100% certain we can achieve the goal we’ve set for ourselves. Taking on challenges is highly motivational as it allows us to develop our skills, flex our problem-solving muscles, and gain a deeper sense of personal achievement.

Based on Locke’s research, it seems for goal setting exercises to work they need two key things:

• To be small, achievable and measurable over time
• Set specific and clear outcomes

More recently Miner (2005) examined goal setting within organizational behavior and positive leadership strategies. He suggested the following three core principles for how goal-setting works. Goals:

• Motivate individuals to put in the required effort to set tasks
• Motivate individuals to keep persisting in the required behaviors or activities over time
• Motivate individuals to stay focused on the goals and tasks they are trying to achieve, rather than becoming distracted by irrelevant behaviors

While both Locke and Miner have focused on goal setting exercises in a work context, these core principles can be applied to personal goal setting too.

It’s one thing to know about goal setting, and how it can help you, but another entirely to know how to actually set goals and stick with them. Goal setting tools are a great way to help you set goals, keep track of, and stay focused on what you’re trying to achieve.

These tools and can be informal, for example:

• A handwritten diary or journal tracking your goals and smaller daily achievements
• Using your mobile phone to set daily reminders or countdown apps for when you want to achieve certain things by
• Motivational notes and posters set around your home or work desk as friendly reminders
• Telling friends and family what you’re working towards so they can offer support
• Visualization activities including meditation, positive affirmations, and mindfulness

Or they can be formalized, such as:

• Regular meetings/reviews with your line manager at work to keep you accountable (if your goals are work related)
• Joining groups or meet-ups with individuals trying to achieve the same goals (such as weight loss, or athletic groups/fitness classes)
• Working with a peer coach or mentor to help motivate you to stay on track
• Utilizing goal setting software tools and apps to help keep you on track ( Milestone Planner  and GoalScape to name a few)

Which tool is right for you will depend on what you’re specific goals are, how long you want to take to achieve them, and whether it is an individual or group goal.

Download 3 Free Goals Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques for lasting behavior change.

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Below I’ve collated a few useful goal setting tools I’ve found while researching this article. I’ve broken them down into two sections: non-digital goal setting tools and digital goal setting tools. Depending on your preference and goals, you might find one more beneficial than others, or prefer to use a mixture of both mediums.

Non-Digital Goal Setting Tools

1. keep a goal setting journal.

This one is particularly good for personal development goals. Even ten minutes a day to review and write about your goals will help to keep you focused, motivated, and feeling more positive about the journey you’re on (Robinson, 2017).

Keeping a journal allows you to keep a record of your progress, any setbacks you come up against and how to overcome them. It’s a strong visual and physical representation of how far you’ve come already towards achieving your goals.

2. Try Backward Goal Setting

Backward Goal Setting is a nifty tool to try when you’re feeling a bit stuck. It’s all about switching up your perspective and approach, so if you have a goal you failed to achieve before, this could be a great tool to try to switch up how you tackle it.

With Backward Goal Setting, you start with your ultimate end goal (quite similar to traditional goal setting). But instead of thinking about what the first step might be, then the second, third and so on, you start at the end goal and work backward.

Essentially you reverse the process. As mentioned, this can help you think about your goal in more broader terms, and help you identify key milestones that traditional goal setting wouldn’t. Used alongside traditional goal setting tools, it can help you create a strong final plan for achieving success.

3. Get some social support

As a tool for success, nothing beats a good few people you can rely on to keep you motivated and encouraged towards achieving your goals (Adams Miller, 2015). Research has found that the people we surround ourselves with – even distant acquaintances – can have a dramatic impact on our behaviors (Christakis & Fowler, 2009).

By telling those you trust and value about your goals, they’ll respond with actions and behavior that will actively aid you towards success, and be great cheerleaders when your own motivation seems to be waning.

Digital Goal Setting Tools

You probably spend a fair amount of time in the day using your mobile phone, so have you considered how you can use it to help you with key areas in life such as achieving your goals?

Luckily, many app developers have thought about just this thing and there is a multitude of apps and functions on most phones to help you work towards successfully achieving your goals. Below I’ve listed three popular apps that focus on setting and achieving goals:

1. Way of Life

Way of Life is a daily habit tracker app that allows you to create multiple daily goals you’re hoping to achieve and check them off as you achieve them. It’s got a very user-friendly interface and the ability to set yourself reminders.

As a goal-setting tool, it’s great for simple things such as drinking more water, setting time aside to read more or avoiding sugary drinks but for more in-depth or layered goals, this is probably not the best tool to reach for.

2. Coach me Goal Tracking

This app offers more in-depth functionality. Not only can you create goals and milestones, but it also gives you access to a whole community of like-minded people all reaching for goal success.

It allows you to interact and motivate each other and also has professional coaches you can hire via the app for one-to-one support if you need it.

Another great function is the ability to add up to six family members or friends – great for team or group goal work!

3. Momentum

Similar to Way of Life, Momentum helps you create set your goals and create smaller, daily habits to help you work towards achieving them. You can curate your home screen and set reminders to help you stay on track. It’s extremely user-friendly and has previously been rated as one of the ‘Best New Apps’ in the app store. Unfortunately, it’s only designed for iPhone and Macs at the moment.

You might also find this handy Goal Setting Toolkit PDF helpful. Created by Mindtools it’s a comprehensive write up of what makes successful goal setting, and a great resource of different tools you can try.

The tools that are right for you will depend on your specific goals and preferences for tackling them. For me, a handwritten goal journal works really well as I like having something tangible that I can sit down with every day away from digital distractions.

King (2001) asked students to write about a traumatic experience, their best future self, both topics or a non-emotional control topic for twenty minutes a day, across four days.

The student’s mood was measured before and after writing and followed up three weeks after the initial test. King found that writing about life goals – or best possible future self – was associated with a significant increase in feelings of wellbeing compared to writing about trauma.

What this tells us is that writing about positive, self-regulatory topics – such as what we want our future to look like – can be hugely beneficial for our wellbeing. It can also be hugely beneficial in helping us achieve our goals.

Below I’ve outlined three easy to do goal setting writing exercises to help you get started:

1. The ‘Average Perfect Day’ Exercise

You can do this exercise in a journal, blank notebook or on your computer, and as the title suggests it’s pretty straight forward – you write about what your average perfect day looks like.

Focus on what your perfect day looks like without any added extras or surprises (so no winning lottery tickets or surprise romantic getaways). The idea here is to create a detailed list of what an average day looks like, step by step. This could include:

• The perfect time for waking up and what that looks like – do you read for 20 minutes before getting up? Cuddle with your partner? Do a sun salutation or mindfulness to start the day?
• What do you do once you’re out of bed? Do you make coffee and breakfast first, or shower first? Do you pick out your outfit for the day or did you do that the night before? Is there music, the radio, morning TV in the background? Are the curtains or window blinds open fully or do you prefer them closed while you get ready?
• What happens next? Do you go to work – what does that look like? Whom do you engage with? What does your desk look like?
• Are you at home with the kids? What do you get up to? What activities or adventures do you do together?
• What does a nutritious lunch look like and include?

And so on. Create a day you will never get bored of, that you could happily repeat five or seven days a week. Create an ‘Average Perfect Day’ for your work day and your downtime days. With or without your partner or kids.

Really think about the individual behaviors that go into that day. What you’ll begin to see clearly are little habits you can start actioning straight away to get you closer to your idea of a perfectly average day.

2. The ‘One Year from Now’ Exercise

Similar to King’s exercise of asking students to think about and write down what their best possible future self might look like, you can adapt this to think about what your best possible life might look like one year from now.

You can do this exercise alone, with a partner, family or a close friend. It can be really rewarding to share your ideas with someone you trust, who will also challenge you to consider things outside of your comfort zone. Some of the key areas to think about when completing this exercise include:

• Your Work – What job will you be doing? Where will you be working? How will you be working towards what you want this to look like?
• Your Home – Are you hoping to save up to buy a place? Are there some home improvements in your current place you’ve been putting off? Does the garden need some TLC?
• Your Finances – Do you have some debts you want to pay off, once and for all? Are you saving for something in particular? Do you want to get on top of your retirement plans?
• Your Relationships – Are you happy in love? Wanting to get married? How much value do your close friendships bring? Do you need to work more on connecting with people?
• Yourself – How do you want to feel about yourself one year from now? Mentally, physically, socially, personally? What does that look and feel like?

Once you’ve created what one year from now looks like for you, start thinking about the steps required to achieve those things. Be reasonable and don’t try and commit to achieving everything at once. Pick one or two achievable and measurable goals for each area and build a goal-setting plan for each. Include a rough timeline of when you’d like to achieve that by so you can keep yourself accountable.

Again, you can write this down on good old fashioned paper, in a journal, or use a computer – whatever works best for you. Make sure it’s written up somewhere you can refer back to it and add to if needed.

3. The ‘Treasure Mapping’ Exercise

The Treasure Mapping exercise begins with some basic visualization techniques and takes it one step further.

Visualization is a wonderful tool to help you build a picture of what you want certain aspects of your life to look like. When it comes to goal setting, visualization can become tricky as it takes time to concentrate and re-visualize what you’re working towards when you need a quick boost of inspiration and motivation. Visualization is a strong tool and the Treasure Mapping exercise can help to take it to a new level!

With Treasure Mapping, you create a physical representation of your visualization. You can do this with a drawing, painting, collage, or digital art. It serves as a manifestation of your goals and intensifies the work you put into visualizing them in your mind. A few tips on getting started:

• First, clarify the goal you want to work towards. Visualize what this looks and feels like. Is it a personal achievement or more tangible, like running a marathon or paying off your debt?
• Now, write it all down in detail, using visualization as you go to build a clear picture.
• Think about the outcome of achieving your goal: What will you have? What will you be? How do you celebrate? What do your friends and family say?
• Once you have written this all down, it’s time to get creative! Grab your art supplies, a stack of magazines or whatever else you want to use to create your treasure map. At the top of your map create the visual representation of what achieving your goal looks like – this is the treasure you’re working towards.
• Now start thinking about all the steps required from where you are at now, to achieving that ultimate goal. Begin the above process again for each step you can identify and work backward from your ultimate goal, creating a visual manifestation on your map as you go.
• Align your images – drawings or collage – in a way that you can see how they connect. This will help imprint in your mind how you are going to achieve them.

Once finished, place your treasure map in a place where you can see it easily for a regular hit of motivation and inspiration. If you created in using some digital art software, print it or keep it as your background screensaver so you see it daily.

These exercises are just a starting point. Some might work better than others for you, so it’s worth trying a few and getting a feel for what you respond to the most.

This PDF from Act Mindfully titled ‘ The Reality Slap ’ is another great goal-setting resource, despite the title! It contains five short and easy to follow exercises to help you on the way to set some realistic goals.

Why the secret to success is setting the right goals – John Doerr

As we know, achieving our goals successfully is best done when they are specific, clear and measurable (Locke, 1968). We’ve taken a look at some of the tools and exercises that can help you when setting goals, but there’s another resource you can tap into when planning your goals and that’s Goal Setting Sheets.

These are pre-built templates or worksheets readily available on the internet that can help you get over the hurdle of knowing where to start. Instead, you’ll have a simple and easy to use guide for setting your goal and creating your plan of action.

I’ve scoured the internet for a variety of different goal setting sheets and below are some of the easiest, and most user-friendly ones I’ve found. I’ve broken these down into four categories: individuals, couples, families and children, and work/study groups.

Best for Individuals:

• Goal Setting for Self-Esteem
• Setting SMART+R Goals
• Weight Loss Worksheet
• Building New Habits

Best for Couples:

• Of the Hearth – Goal Setting Workbook for Couples
• Live Well Play Together – Goal Setting Worksheet for Couples
• The One Thing – kicks Goal Setting Retreat Planner for Couples
• Nextgen – Career Goal Setting with your Spouse

Best for Families and Children:

• Develop Good Habits – Family Goals Execution Plan
• Develop Good Habits – Children’s Goal Setting Shee t
• Spark Parenting – How to Set Family Goals Plus Worksheet
• Worksheet Place – From Dreams to Goals Simple Worksheet for Children

Best for Work and Study Groups:

• Smartsheet – Project Goals and Objectives
• Smartsheet – Business Goals Worksheet
• Worksheet Place – Better Work Habits Goal Setting Sheet
• Thriving Adolescent – Group Goal Setting Worksheet

Sometimes it can be difficult to pinpoint what you want your goals to look like, and what it is precisely you want to achieve in life. Often, we become so focused on what we’re already doing and it’s easier to stay stuck in the habits we already have, even if deep down we don’t feel they’re what we really want to be doing.

Handy (1996) and Covey (1989) both suggest that at the core of what we all really want is to make a difference and contribute to our wider communities in positive and constructive ways. Handy suggested three steps for achieving a meaningful life:

• You are secure – the fundamental basics of life need to be achieved before you can think about your purpose
• You know who you are – this means you have established a strong sense of identity for yourself, you know the path you want to be on and what this looks like for you
• You can make a difference – once the above two steps are in place, you’ll know the right ways you can contribute and make a difference in the world

You can use goal-setting questions at any of these three steps and drill down to the individual goals you need to set to achieve, to help you move closer to finding more meaning in life. Five great questions to start with could include:

• What are my values?
• What drives me?
• What do I ultimately want to achieve?
• Why do I want to achieve that?
• What would my best friend and/or partner say my goals are?

Take some time and meditate on the above the questions, the first answers that come to mind don’t have to be the final answers but can be great starting points to explore further. The best questions to ask are open-ended – think what, why, when, who and how – as these encourage you to think deeply about the answer.

You’ll probably find once you get started that more questions emerge and that’s great! Keep writing them down and exploring where they take you. Remember you can revisit your answers at any time, and it’s important to review and rethink on them every so often.

Keeping a goal journal or utilizing different templates can help keep you on track to achieving your goals, but it doesn’t have to be a singular effort. A goal-setting workshop with friends, colleagues or peers is a great way to bring people together to explore and share their ideas creatively.

Goal setting activities can inspire and motivate you, and you might even uncover a goal or two you hadn’t considered before. Below are five fun and creative goal setting workshop activities you can try:

1. The Winning Lottery Ticket Activity

This activity is great for giving the mind free reign to think about what you would do if you had no financial constraints. It can be really telling to see what you come up with – most of which can be quite achievable if you start putting in the effort and setting some goals!

The premise is easy: You’ve just won the lottery! The winning amount is $30 million. What is your first reaction? What do you do next? What are some of your key priorities to use the money wisely? What about savings? Whom do you help out?

You can write this down, visualize it, or discuss it openly if you’re doing the exercise with a partner, family or group. Once you’ve done this, restart the exercise, only this time you’ve won half the original amount – $15 million.

Think about what changes you’d make to your original plans (if any). Keep restarting the exercise, each time halving the winning amount. You’ll notice that you start to drill down to your core values and these can inform the goals you need to focus on.

2. The Retirement Party Activity

This activity flips the lottery ticket activity on its head a little bit. Instead of visualizing what you would do, you think about what you would regret not doing.

Visualize the following scenario: Fast forward a few years or so to your own retirement party. You’ve worked hard, held down a steady job and now it’s time to enjoy some free time. You’ve invited all of your close friends, colleagues, and family. You give a speech about all the things you’ve enjoyed in life and then someone asks: What do you regret not doing?

Look back over your life and think about the things you wished you had done but didn’t. Perhaps work got busy so some personal travel goals got pushed to the side. Or maybe you never ended up going back to school to study that degree in creative writing you wanted to. Based on how your life is heading right now, you’ll probably have a good idea of what these regrets might look like.

Now take each regret and rewrite as a positive. You’ve just created a list of goals to work towards.

3. The Six Months Left Activity

While the title of this activity might sound a little morbid, it’s still worth trying! When you think about it, knowing you only have six months left to live can be a freeing feeling: there’s no reason not to go after the things you really want in life and try to make them happen as much as you can. The very worst thing that could happen to you has already happened so what do you have to lose?

What will you do with this newfound courage? Questions to think about could include:

• Where do you want to spend your time? Are there any cities on your bucket list you want to visit?
• Whom do you want to spend this time with? Are there any old connections you want to reach out to?
• How do you spend this time? Relaxing with loved ones or cramming in as much as possible?

The key to this activity is to not spend too long and hard thinking about it. Write down as much and as quickly as possible the first things and ideas that come to mind. Review and reflect on these to help you develop some tangible goals.

All of these activities focus on helping you to get at the core of what your potential goals could be. It’s worth trying a few different activities and seeing what results you get, and especially worth revisiting them over time to see how your ideas change.

Researchers, psychologists, and business leaders have all tackled the topic of goal setting. Over the last few decades, a number of models have been developed to help individuals and teams create successful goals. Below I’ve outlined four of the most popular ones and how they work.

SMART Goal Setting Model

The SMART model is one of the most well-known and used models when it comes to goal setting. It first appeared in 1981 in an article in the Management review (Doran, 1981) and built nicely on the work previously carried out by Locke in the 1960s. It has proven highly successful in its use for both individual and group goal-setting.

Here’s what SMART stands for:

• Specific – Each goal must be specific and as clearly defined as possible. You can have multiple goals, but each one must be clear.
• Measurable – Each goal must also have clearly defined metrics for how it can be measured – either for progress or the end goal.
• Achievable – It can be easy to get carried away when setting goals, but a goal that is ultimately not achievable will deplete your motivation. Keep goals small and achievable. You can always build on and add to them later.
• Relevant – This is where putting some time in to plan your goals can pay off. There’s no point in pursuing a goal that doesn’t add to your core values or ultimate desires for your life. Make sure each goal is relevant to you.
• Time-Bound – This links nicely with the achievable step. Make sure you set yourself realistic deadlines for each goal and it’s required steps to keep you focused and motivated.

The SMART model has been widely accepted as the go-to model and I think that’s because it can be applied to simple and complex goals, work goals, personal goals, individual and group goals. It’s a highly adaptable model with a very clear structure that can be used with other planning and business tools to achieve large goals.

GROW Goal Setting Model

There are a few different claims to the authorship of the GROW model, but most agree that it was created by Business Coaches Graham Alexander, Alan Fine and Sir John Whitmore in the 1980s (Nguyen, 2018). Although developed together, the three went their separate ways soon after and each has continued to develop the model in their own ways (Fine, 2018) but the core of the model still remains the same.

GROW stands for:

• Goal – What do you want to do? What is your ultimate aim?
• Reality – Where are you now? What are some of the barriers preventing you from achieving your goal?
• Options – What could you do? What are the resources available to you? What changes can you make to your own behavior to overcome barriers?
• Will – What will you do? How can you start making changes or tapping into available resources to achieve your goal?

Working through the GROW model allows individuals to build their own self-awareness of:

• Current aspirations
• Current belief and values systems
• Current resources available to them
• The actions and effort required to achieve set goals

CLEAR Goal Setting Model

Kreek (2018) felt that the traditional SMART model for goal setting was too limiting and didn’t meet the needs of modern business environments, so Kreek created a new model. Kreek uses the acronym CLEAR for setting goals. This model has a focus on supporting teams at work to achieve business and organizational goals.

Here’s what CLEAR stands for:

• Collaborative – The desired goal needs to include a team or social element that drives everyone to contribute to success.
• Limited – There must be a set timeframe in which to achieve the goal, and the scope of the goal needs to be achievable within this timeframe.
• Emotional – Goals need to be connected to your core values, as an individual, and as a group. When emotion is attached to a goal, energy and passion become key in achieving it.
• Appreciable – While the end goal can be large, the steps in between need to be small. This way they are highly achievable and appreciation can be shared for their accomplishment.
• Refinable – Things change, sometimes unexpectedly. Your goal needs to have a strong objective but it also needs to be adaptable and fluid to meet new challenges, changes, and information as they arise.

This model takes into account how modern teams often want to focus on their core values (the Emotional step) and how to do this collaboratively, so it could be a great one to use at work or within study/research groups.

SPIRO Goal Setting Model

Pfeiffer and Jones (1972) created the SPIRO model but it was quickly superseded by the SMART model in the early 1980s. It’s still a very comprehensive model, but not one that is used as much today. The model was first published in ‘ The 1972 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators ’ and was aimed at coaching or training facilitators helping individuals to set and achieve goals.

SPIRO stands for:

• Specificity – As with the other models, the first step is to get specific about your goal. Make sure it is clearly defined and understandable.
• Performance – From an individual and a coach/facilitator perspective, what are the measures of performance that indicate the individual is progressing towards their goal?
• Involvement – Again, both the individual and coach/facilitator can agree on what their specific involvement in achieving the goal might be. This could also include looking at what other resources might be needed.
• Realism – As well as ensuring the goal is realistic and manageable within the set timeframe, this is also about ensuring the goal is aligned with personal values and current lifestyle. For example, setting a goal of going to the gym every night when you have childcare issues, study commitments, and other life plans isn’t realistic. Committing to attending three nights a week might be.
• Observability – From an individual perspective, this step includes asking yourself ‘ what does achieving the goal look like externally and feel internally? ’. From a coach/facilitator perspective, this is checking what the achievement of the goal might look like externally to others.

It’s clear the SPIRO model would work well in different group facilitator or coaching paradigms, but it could also be nicely adapted for couples wanting to support and encourage each other with their goals.

Both visualization and meditation have been proven to have a wonderful impact on our overall mood and sense of happiness and fulfillment (Meevissen, Peters, & Alberts, 2011, Peters, Flink, Boersma, & Linton, 2010).

Research has also begun to show that visualization can help to promote and improve goal-setting behaviors (Taylor et al, 1998). Some of the exercises explored earlier in the article, including ‘ The Average Perfect Day ’ and ‘ One Year from Now ’, all use visualization as a core component to aid goal setting.

These exercises help to improve goal-setting behavior by maintaining expectations of success, creating structured plans, and engaging our emotions in achieving our goals.

Emotions play a crucial role in goal setting. Research has shown that when we connect our goals to our values and attach them to emotional outcomes, we’re more motivated to succeed and feel positive about it in the process (Austenfeld, Paolo, & Stanton 2006).

Using mental imagery of what we want our future to look and feel like is also powerful in supporting goal setting. Oyserman, Bybee, and Terry (2006) found that asking participants to use mental imagery to envision their best possible future self-enhanced their motivation to identify the goals needed to create their vision in real life.

Meditation is a core component of visualization so it makes sense that it would also help aid goal setting. Meditation allows us to calm our thoughts and mind, and take stock of our current being and presence. It can be a useful tool when visualizing what you want your goals to look like, but equally beneficial when you might begin to feel overwhelmed.

Our goals can sometimes get the better of us, and if we’re not achieving them exactly as we think we should, the fear of failure can creep in. Meditation is a great way to prevent these negative thoughts creeping in and depleting our motivation. It can allow us to move forward with clarity (Chen, 2015).

Holding a goal-setting workshop can be really valuable. Whether your team manager, teaching a class or working with a group of peers towards a shared goal, a goal-setting workshop can help make sure you tackle the matter productively.

Below are three games and exercises that have been purposefully created for a goal-setting workshop:

1. The ‘Mine Field Goal Obstacles’ game

This is a fun game to use for goal setting with students , or if you want to get more active within your goal setting workshop. It has a focus on communication and trust within a group setting in achieving the desired goal. It requires a bit of preparation but can be a rewarding activity.

You will need:

• Objects and space to create an obstacle course (be as creative and challenging as you like)
• A blindfold
• Pen and paper

How to play:

Step One : You’ll need to create an obstacle course. You can do this outside with basic gym equipment, or inside with office equipment (desks, chairs). The idea is to create a maze or course with obstacles through which participants will need to navigate.

Step Two : Divide your group into pairs or small groups. Within the group, they must decide on how quickly they want to complete the obstacle course. These times can be written up visually and you can create a little competition by challenging the teams to beat each other.

Step Three : One participant from each team is blindfolded. With the verbal queues from their other teammates, they need to try and navigate the obstacle within the time goal they have set.

Step Four : Allow each participant an attempt at beating their time goal, until you have an overall winner.

Purpose of the game:

While fun, this game allows participants to reflect on the different aspects that go into achieving a goal. By creating a timeframe, the group should put in the required effort to achieve this, and use the resources (each other) to do this successfully. Once you’ve finished playing the game, each participant can then reflect on one goal they have and identify the obstacles that may get in the way and the resources around them to help support them.

2. The ‘One, Some, Many’ goal sharing team game

This is a particularly good activity for a goal-setting workshop, as it allows participants time to focus on their own goals and come together to discuss group goals. It can help teams reflect on where there are overlaps in the goals they want to achieve, and how to work collaboratively on them.

• Selection of pens/markers
• A3 paper and a flip chart board or whiteboard you can write on
• Post-it notes

Step One : Focus on the ‘ONE’ part of the activity title. Each participant has a selection of post-it notes and the opportunity to write out their individual goals. Aim for 1-3 goals per person. These can be small goals or long term, but keep them concise when writing them down.

Step Two : Focus on the ‘SOME’ part of the activity title. Participants get into pairs or small groups of three and share the individual goals they have written down. If there are some that are the same, they can combine these to make one shared goal. Ask each group to identify other overlaps and similarities.

Step Three : Now focus on the ‘MANY’ part of the activity title. Using a large piece of paper or whiteboard, ask each team to come and place their post-it notes on the board. This activity should take the longest as participants will need to identify other similarities and overlaps and combine goals. The group can discuss as a whole which goals are the most common and identify how to work on these collaboratively.

This can be a strong team exercise as it demonstrates very clearly and visually how much everyone can be on the same page. There will be goals that aren’t shared and these can be discussed proactively, but the purpose of the game is to identify common group goals and devise a way of achieving them together.

3. Vision Boards Collage Exercise

This exercise can be a lot of fun, while also encouraging group engagement. Vision boards are a great way to create a physical representation of goals and ideas.

• Selection of art materials including pens and pencils
• Selection of old magazines, books or newspapers that can be cut up
• Scissors and glue for all participants
• Paper, cardboard or other material for sticking on

Step One : Begin by asking each participant to practice a simple visualization exercise. Ask them to focus on one goal they would like to achieve and build a visual idea in their mind of what achieving that goal will look and feel like for them. Focus on the mental images that come to mind, and any feelings they anticipate on success.

Step Two : With these images in mind, participants can then look through the old magazines, books or newspapers to collect images, words and visual representations of what their visualization could look like. They can collect as many images as they like.

Step Three : The fun part! Participants can now start creating their boards. A vision board is a very personal thing so encourage participants to create something that represents them and their goal – there is no wrong or right way to do this. The final images they chose should all make them feel and remember their visualization of their goal.

There needs to be a strong emotional connection to the board to help remind and motivate them what they’re trying to achieve. In the end, each participant can share their board with the group if they would like to.

Purpose of the exercise:

This exercise is a fun way to build a physical representation of the desired goal. By starting with a visualization activity, participants can create something they feel connected to, that will help to motivate them when they need it.

Creating shared goals as a couple can be a great way to feel more connected, and secure in your relationship knowing you’re both striving equally towards the same things.

Having clear conversations about what it is you both want to achieve in life and how you can do that together is at the heart of goal setting as a couple, and there are some great exercises alongside the ones already mentioned you can use.

1. The FIRE Drill Exercise

The FIRE Drill exercise is a great one for couples as it allows each partner to reflect on what they want as an individual, their role in the relationship, and what they need from their partner. It allows couples to come together and discuss this without judgment. It is built on one core concept:

You can’t build a healthy relationship if you only focus on fixing what you think is wrong.

Essentially, you have to give the good and the bad in the relationship equal attention and devotion, as individuals and as a couple coming together. FIRE stands for:

• Focus : What do you want to achieve?
• Integrity : How are you showing up in the relationship? Are you who you want to be?
• Reflection : What causes you distress in the relationship? What makes you feel content?
• Encouragement : How do you need to be supported?

Each person works through the exercise as an individual first, thinking about their goals and ideas. Then work through the exercise again thinking first about what you need from your partner, and then what you can give/bring to the relationship. As a couple, share your answers with openness and curiosity. This can help you build better communication and clarity over your individual goals and shared goals.

2. Short Term vs Long Term Goals Exercise

For this exercise, it’s good to know what your long-term goals are. Once you’ve got one or two clearly defined and measurable long-term goals that serve you as a couple, it’s time to break those down into short term goals.

Step One : Work together as a couple to create a list of every small step (or short-term goal) needed to achieve the bigger long term goal. Again, be clear and define each step.

Step Two : Next, review each of the steps you have identified. Start to think about how long each of those steps might take and create a timeline for achieving them.

Step Three : Once you’ve done that, it’s time to think about who will be responsible for ensuring they are achieved. You can assign one partner, or make it a joint responsibility. The idea here is to ensure there is clear and agreed upon accountability for achieving the short-term goals.

Write this up or create a vision board you can keep somewhere visible in the house. As each small step is achieved, tick it off or cross it off the list. You’ll quickly see that you’re both working towards your long-term goals, together.

3. The ‘Less is More’ Exercise

This exercise can help you create more defined goals as individuals within the relationship and as a couple. The idea is to think more about your needs or desires and use these to help you decide on some goals.

Step One : As individuals, write up five things that you want less of within the relationship. These could be anything. For example, you might want less debt, less time working in the evenings, fewer takeaways: anything at all that you think might help to improve your life as an individual.

Step Two : Next, again as individuals, write up five things that you want more of within the relationship. You can keep these a mix of fun or serious things like more sex, more holidays, more time relaxing, more time with friends. Keep a focus on things that you think would help bring you closer as a couple but also add value as individuals.

Step Three : Compare your lists with each other. Really reflect and think about what you have both written down, how you think they could be achieved and how you can support each other to do that. Where are there overlaps? Are there any big surprises? What are the areas you have in common and how can you work on these together?

Step Four : Pick one or two that you want to work on as a priority and set a SMART goal for how you will achieve it.

Remember to keep a defined time frame in mind and review the SMART process you create to keep you on track.

Group goal setting is where a group or team of people come together to agree on a set goal that will benefit them as a group or the wider community that they exist and interacts within. Some examples of groups who might set goals include sports teams, research teams, study groups, work colleagues on a set project or objective, a school class working on a fundraising goal or a community group.

Setting a group goal first requires listening to individual interests and priorities, within the group or from the wider community the group is seeking to serve, and then establishing set and shared actions to help the group achieve the desired end goal.

Creating group goals can be very empowering and motivating. Achieving big changes or results is easier with a strong group of individuals working towards a shared aim, especially when there is shared vision and investment in doing so, just think about sports team who go on to win competitions (Schmoll, 2013).

As you can probably imagine, when it comes to running a goal-setting workshop, it’s very easy to go off track! Once everyone starts thinking more deeply about their goals, it can be difficult to keep everyone on the same page as you go through the workshop.

This is where a workshop outline can come in handy. An outline helps to set a clear structure for the session, alongside any potential learning outcomes or ‘take-aways’ you want participants to have. You can also add time limits for each section, exercise or activity and set a clear plan at the start for everyone to adhere to.

When creating a goal-setting workshop outline, there are a few things to consider:

• How long will the overall workshop be?
• How many activities can you reasonably fit into that timeframe, ensuring they are completed effectively and with value?
• How many participants will be attending your workshop? What are the minimum and maximum numbers required for any activities you want to include?
• What resources do you need for each activity?
• Will you be using one overall goal-setting model or introducing a few different ones? How will your activities need to be adapted to this?
• What are the key learning outcomes/ takeaways participants should leave with? Keep this to a maximum of 3-5 and make sure they are well defined and measurable.

When creating your outline, it’s also important to consider where the workshop will be taking place and the physical space you’ll have to work with. Will you need a board for writing notes on or a computer to show digital presentation slides, videos or images? Do you want to record the workshop?

It’s important to put as much thought into the workshop as possible so you have a strong plan to start with. It’s fine to allow for some flexibility and adaptability, but start strong.

A goal setting questionnaire can be one of two things:

• A questionnaire used to help define and tailor goals within a group setting by asking open questions that are then shared to identify synergies and gaps across the group.
• A questionnaire used by facilitators or researchers to build an idea of participants’ understanding of what goal setting is and what it entails.

Goal setting questionnaires can be particularly useful and meaningful in psychological research so that researchers can know where their participants sit in understanding goal setting and inform further research (Lee, Bobko, Earley & Locke, 1991).

17 Tools To Increase Motivation and Goal Achievement

These 17 Motivation & Goal Achievement Exercises [PDF] contain all you need to help others set meaningful goals, increase self-drive, and experience greater accomplishment and life satisfaction.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

2 Group Goal Setting Exercises and Activities (Incl. PDF and worksheets)

Many of the exercises and activities already described can be adapted and used for group goal-setting workshops or events. Depending on the group dynamics, demographics and desired aims, some exercises will be better suited than some.

Below I’ve collated some additional resources related to group goal-setting exercises and broken them down to be used for work or professional group goal-setting, and school or community group goal-setting.

Goal Setting Exercises for Student or Community Groups:

• This resource from Thriving Adolescent titled ‘ Group Goal Setting Worksheet ’ has been developed for use in student groups, but could also be great for community or workgroups with smaller goals in mind. It’s very easy to use and clear.
• This workbook from Mentoring Pittsburgh titled ‘ Goal Setting and Decision Making ’ contains a selection of exercises that can be completed individually or as a group, and has been specifically developed for students and young people.

The purpose of group goal setting is to bring everyone into alignment, in agreement and clear on what their role might be in moving towards achieving a successful group goal. Group goal setting activities should act as a conduit to achieving this, so it’s a good idea to try out a few different exercises and find the one that works for the group as a whole.

Goal setting has many benefits across both our personal and professional lives. Research has shown time and again taking ownership of our goals is incredibly empowering and rewarding.

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this article, it’s that the resources you have available to you – to help you create strong and achievable goals – are limitless! There are so many great exercises, activities and methods to help you set goals in every area of life. If you try one and it doesn’t quite work for you, make sure you pick another one and keep going until it feels right.

Have you had success in achieving a specific goal? Please feel free to leave me a comment, especially if you used a method not mentioned, I’d love to hear about it!

For additional material on goal setting, read our selection of recommended goal-setting books .

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

• Adams Miller, C (2015). Workbook for Goal-setting and Evidence-based Strategies for Success. Retrieved from: https://wholebeinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/MC-Goal-setting-Workbook-Complete.pdf
• Austenfeld, J. L., Paolo, A. M., & Stanton, A. L. (2006). Effects of writing about emotions versus goals on psychological and physical health among third-year medical students. Journal of Personality 74 (1).
• Chen, C. (2015). How Meditation Helps With Goal Setting. Retrieved from: http://viemeditation.com/my-mind/meditation-helps-goal-setting/
• Christakis, N. & Fowler, J. (2009). Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives — How Your Friends’ Friends’ Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, and Do. Bay Back Books.
• Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People . Simon & Schuster; New York.
• Dillard, A. (1989). The Writing Life . Harper Perennial; New York.
• Doran, G. T. (1981). There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives. Management Review, 70 , 35-36.
• Fine, A. (2018). What is the GROW Model. InsideOut Development. Retrieved from: https://www.insideoutdev.com/about-us/what-is-the-grow-model/
• Handy, C. B. (1996). Understanding Organisations. Retrieved from: https://www.worldcat.org/title/understanding-organizations-charles-b-handy/oclc/17588225
• King, L. A. (2001). The Health Benefits of Writing about Life Goals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27 (7).
• Kreek, A. (2018). CLEAR Goals Are Better Than SMART Goals. Retrieved from: https://www.kreekspeak.com/clear-goal-setting/
• Latham, G. P., Winters, D., & Locke, E. (1994). Cognitive and motivational effects of participation: A mediator study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15 .
• Lee, C., Bobko, P., Earley, P., & Locke, E. A. (1991). An empirical analysis of a goal setting questionnaire. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229736210_An_empirical_analysis_of_a_goal_setting_questionnaire
• Locke, L. A. (1968). Toward a theory of task motivation and incentives. Retrieved from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0030507368900044
• Locke, E.A. & Latham, G.P. (1991). A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance. The Academy of Management Review, 16 . 10.2307/258875.
• Locke, L. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist, 57 (9).
• Meevissen, Y. M. C., Peters, M. L., & Alberts, H. J. E. M. (2011). Become more optimistic by imagining a best possible self: Effects of a two week intervention. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 42 .
• Miner, J. B. (2005). Organizational Behaviour 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership . Oxon: Routledge.
• Nguyen, S. (2018). The G.R.O.W. Model in Business Coaching – Simple, Concise, and Powerful. Retrieved from: https://workplacepsychology.net/2018/03/20/the-grow-model-in-business-coaching-simple-concise-and-powerful/
• Oyserman, D., Bybee, D., & Terry, K. (2006). Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action. Journal of personality and social psychology, 91 (1).
• Peters, M. L., Flink, I. K., Boersma, K., & Linton, S. J. (2010). Manipulating optimism: Can imagining a best possible self be used to increase positive future expectancies? Journal of Positive Psychology, 5 (3).
• Pfeiffer, J. W. & Jones, J. E. (1972). The 1972 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators . San Diego: Pfeiffer and Company.
• Robinson, K. M. (2017). How writing in a journal helps manage depression. WebMD. Retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/writing-your-way-out-of-depression
• Schmoll, F. (2013). Keys to Effective Goal Setting. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/coaching-and-parenting-young-athletes/201311/keys-effective-goal-setting
• Taylor, S. E., Pham, L. B., Rivkin, I. D., & Armor, D. A. (1998). Harnessing the imagination: Mental simulation, self-regulation, and coping. American Psychologist, 53 (4).

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A Non-Digital setting tool is to keep a goal setting journal. This is a good way to keep up with all your goals in life. With writing them down and looking at them every now and then it helps them stay in our memory and keep up to track with all of them. Also with writing them down it helps you see which ones you have succeeded with in the pass, which ones you are striving to have success in and the ones that will start coming up soon. Once you have succeeded them it is good to look at and to add and look at the goals you might need to start working on. A Digital setting tool is Coach me Goal Tracking (an app). This app helps you create goals for yourself, for in the future and for the present. it also helps you find some people that have the same goals that the would like to achieve and get in contact with them.

I think social support is super important! Creating a good system around you will not only impact your mood but also make your work ethic much better. People can change your whole day by just one action so surround yourself with positivity. Goal setting is one of my favorite ways to keep myself accountable. I love writing down what I need or want to do, it gives me something to look back on and check off. Both of these are great ways to improve yourself.

Get some social support- i like thsi one because i realize that it does matter who u surround ur self with. I like to surround myself with determined people that do there work. It influences me to do better and motivates me.

Keep a Goal Setting Journal- i do this in my notes app. I like to look at it when i feel unmotivated. It helps me feel more happy and motivated to do my work. And it keeps me on task

This is a really good respone because it is important to surround yourself with people who you know will benefit you and help you in the long run. Also a goal setting journal is important to motivate and keep you on track. Great study methods.

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3 Goal Achievement Exercises Pack

Should you give job applicants an assignment during the interview process? Be thoughtful about the ask

Hiring is a time-consuming and expensive endeavor. Companies need candidates who offer the right skills and experience for a given role, and who align with their organization’s vision and mission.

To find the best fit, many companies still lean on a strategy that continues to generate debate : the assignment. Some candidates believe their experience and interviews should give prospective employers enough information to determine whether they will fit the role. Employers have to ask themselves whether they are willing to turn off a strong candidate by asking them to do additional work.

Is the assignment valuable enough to the evaluation process that they cannot move someone forward without it? Sometimes it is—sometimes they help an employer decide between two strong candidates. And if they are necessary, how can employers make assignments fair and equitable for the candidate or candidates?

When done right, assignments help assess practical skills and problem-solving abilities, giving a clearer picture of a candidate beyond what their resume or interview reveals. But employers should be thoughtful about the ask. While it may make sense for roles that require specific technical expertise or creative thinking, it isn’t appropriate for all roles—so assignments should always be given with a clear reason for why they are needed.

Plus, they don’t just benefit the employer. For job seekers, an assignment during the interview process might also help them stand out from the competition. It can also offer a window into what their day-to-day in the new role might entail. Remember that the candidate should be interviewing the company, too. Having a test run of the work they’d be asked to do is a great way to see whether they believe the role is a fit.

However, there is a rift in how people perceive the assignment as part of the interview process. Workers today span many generations, each with unique values and expectations. Whereas older workers often prioritize stability and loyalty, younger millennials and Gen Zers are more focused on flexibility and work well-being, Indeed data shows .

This mindset impacts the amount of time and energy a candidate is willing to devote to each application. After multiple rounds of interviews and prep, taking on an in-depth assignment may feel like a bridge too far—especially if the expectations for the assignment are not clearly communicated ahead of time.

Some candidates are wary of providing free labor to a company that may use their work and not hire them. Hiring managers should be clear about how the work will be used. They may also consider offering compensation if the assignment requires more than a couple hours of someone’s time, or if they plan to use the work without hiring the candidate.

The key for early career candidates in particular is to ensure their time and efforts are respected. This is a win-win for employers: By providing clarity and transparency, they not only elicit the additional information they want from candidates, but they demonstrate that the organization is transparent and fair.

Equity is also imperative: Which candidates are being asked to complete assignments? Is the hiring team consistent in giving out assignments across ages, experience levels, and roles? There should always be a process and clear evaluation criteria in place to ensure fairness.

As we adapt to the rapidly evolving world of work, we must continue to think critically about each step in the hiring process. Candidate assignments can be a valuable tool, but only with appropriate respect for job seekers’ time and contributions.

With the right strategy, we can bridge the gap between generations in the workplace and build a hiring culture that values efficiency, talent, and integrity.

Eoin Driver is the global vice president of talent at Indeed.

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