Say When.

Can I put this graph in my cover letter? It would suggest that my competitive edge is the top option. Hire me and your student’s test scores will increase dramatically! 

 Although the context of this graph was elementary testing, it could be a general study, I’m not sure.

@rbvandijk was musing about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on twitter while I was trying to remember some stuff from my educational psychology class from Fall 2007 with Stephen Hoover. I got rather excited for no particular reason. I am intrinsically motivated to learn about motivation, and I am extrinsically motivated by a variety of factors. Professor Hoover however taught the self-determination model of motivation, which he was a big fan of, if I remember correctly. So I’ve been mulling this over and finally remembered Hoover’s example as @rbvandijk posted intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. It is accurate graph but I thought Hoover’s example might be still more useful to help students, especially if we know their hobbies and goals. So I wrote this response to try to be helpful:

Intrinsic does not mean “wants to do it” but that I want to do it for its own sake. Furthermore, just because I don’t want to do something doesn’t mean it’s extrinsic exactly. (example borrowed from Stephen Hoover’s CEEP class)

• Consider the idea that I’d never just want to jog for jogging sake. I kinda dislike jogging.
• But, I can value jogging because it improves my health – that’s extrinsic but an internally regulated idea.
• I can value jogging because it seems attractive to women – that’s extrinsic and based on external social comparisons.
• I can value jogging because it gets me away from housework, that’s extrinsic.
• Maybe I jog because I want to be a police officer – this is not intrinsic either, but also extrinsic motivation.
• The only intrinsic motivation is if, I jog because I love jogging for jogging sake. If that’s the only tool I have to motivate my students, I’ll be sunk.  

If anyone knows of a good online resource that explains this better, please leave a link.  The sites I’ve found so far are academic psychology papers.  

Hoover’s other example was a science student who loved snakes and wanted to be a snake studying specialist. This students couldn’t care less about anything else in science, but if Hoover could explain how another aspect of science was attached to his interests and goals, then he could extrinsically motivate the student.

In sum, extrinsic motivation is an essential and nuanced tool that goes beyond the carrot and the stick.