First off, this was the first RSAnimate I have ever seen. It is amazing! I was so fascinated and captivated by the animation and it really increased my enjoyment while listening to the author. Also, it helped me comprehend what was being said because I was hearing and seeing it. I definitely want to explore what other animates are out there.
That being said, the content of Dan Pink's work is intriguing and believe has strong implications on the teaching profession. He talks about research that has been done to test the relationship between motivation (work output) and monetary reward. Surprisingly, it has been found that increased reward actually decreases motivation. In the animate, he doesn't really explore possible reasons for the results (maybe he does in the book), but the results are fascinating none-the-less.
Why would it be that people become less motivated with higher rewards? I contemplated this question for awhile after watching the animate and haven't come up with anything concrete. But my thought was that when people are so dependent on their work performance to make the money the need/deserve for their work, stress begins to crush motivation. Anger toward the employer builds, employees reach a stage where they hate (or dislike) going into work everyday, job satisfaction diminishes, and creativity and work quality suffer.. How could someone stay motivated given all of that? I don't know if this truly explains the results of the research or if there is research out there that explores this question, but that was my thought. Any insight???
Reasons for the results aside, what are the implications on the profession? Dan Pink suggests that if you pay people enough base salary to take the money issue off the table, then 3 factors contribute to increased motivation and job satisfaction: autonomy (the desire to be self directed and direct our own lives), mastery (the urge to get better at things), and purpose. (You should really watch the animate the listen to all of the interesting things that he says about these factors.) What does this mean? I believe that if we are to expect education in our country to improve, which it definitely needs to do, than teachers need to be paid more. I'm not one to be tied to any profession because of the money, but I believe that if we want to get good teachers in the system and get teachers to be motivated to improve methods and devote energy improving education, that salary needs to be increased so that issue (and major stressor) is taken off the table. In addition, more autonomy, in some cases, needs to be given to teachers to try new things and do their own research. I'm not saying the research has to be done individually, but as a department, school or district. Something needs to be done to improve education and I believe Dan Pink is on to something.
After watching the animate, I also felt that these same principles could be applied to the classroom. Why not increase autonomy and purpose in the activities that we give students in order to increase their motivation? Research has shown this, but why aren't all teachers doing it?!
Education is ready for a revolution (and I believe one has begun) and I believe motivation needs to be at the center. This issue has been a passion of mine and I was glad to be shown Dan Pink's work by our professor. I plan to read the book and encourage all of you to at least watch the animate!
Until next time.....
Focusing on your question 'why would motivation drop if base pay is increased?' I think that base pay being higher isn't actually a reward in the sense that it is there no matter what quality of job is being done. If the pay was based on some type of merit then I think it could be considered more of a motivational tool. I have no idea if that would be a legitimate solution to your question but that's the idea that immediately jumped out to me when dealing with he monetary side of motivation. A question that I had of my own answer is how would a merit pay would be distributed?
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that teachers need to be paid more if people expect education in the U.S. to improve. There are a lot of jobs people are pulled toward simply because of the pay and by raising teachers salaries more quality future teachers will start to consider teaching as a career choice.
Stacey,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that finding a way to motivate my students is at the top of my priority list. Interestingly, rewards & punishments work to control behavior,not motivation. To attempt to answer your question, what the studies measured was not motivation, but performance. I think you hit it on the head that the decrease in performance (when it came to cognitive tasks) was the interference of stress and anxiety (or even excitement) on the person's ability to think. Tasks that do not require much cognition can be thought of as more behavioral in nature, making them good candidates for rewards and punishments. Motivation is much harder to measure.
As capitalists (a bad word in my book, although it's in response to socialism being a bad word in America) who's source of income was trading profits for the past twenty years, we incentivized our employees with more pay for better performance. However, if too much pay was involved, it would cause unscrupulous behavior. But, if we gave them enough, coupled with ownership in our company (purpose), the freedom to work when they wanted (autonomy), and proper challenges and the support they needed to improve (mastery), we found that these employees/partners were honest, ethical, hard working, and cooperative. So, I totally agree with Pink's assessment that taking money off the table and motivating people through autonomy, mastery, and purpose is the way to go.
It's important to note that according to Pink, we need to pay people "enough" to begin with. Smart, talented people need to make good middle-class salaries in order to stay in the game.
ReplyDeleteThat said, he is right, for students and for teachers who are motivated already, it is possible to destroy that motivation by linking rewards to actions. We can become conditioned to cease striving unless there is a reward offered. And so can our students.
We'll talk in class about offering opportunities for "celebration" (eating a snack together to celebrate a win in class) versus simply offering a prize/payment. It's all about how we frame our view of work/play/rewards/motivation.
Glad you liked Pink's video! It's really something, huh? He is basing his ideas on Carol Dweck (read Mindsets sometime) and Edward Deci, both of whom are geniuses of Educ. Psych.
You bring up a great point. Setting up an environment of autonomy in the classroom is a great way to increase student motivation. Students, like anyone else, want to have their own opinions and have their opinions be valid. In a classroom, sometimes adjusting an assignment to allow for students to include their own thoughts and opinions is a great motivational tool.
ReplyDelete