| Concept | Definition phrased in terms of learning | Definition phrased in terms of motivation | Classroom example |
| Operant | Behavior that becomes more likely because of reinforcement | Behavior that suggests an increase in motivation | Student listens to teacher’s comments during lecture or discussion |
| Reinforcement | Stimulus that increases likelihood of a behavior | Stimulus that motivates | Teacher praises student for listening |
| Positive reinforcement | Stimulus that increases likelihood of a behavior by being introduced or added to a situation | Stimulus that motivates by its presence ; an “incentive” | Teacher makes encouraging remarks about student’s homework |
| Negative reinforcement | Stimulus that increases the likelihood of a behavior by being removed or taken away from a situation | Stimulus that motivates by its absence or avoidance | Teacher stops nagging student about late homework |
| Punishment | Stimulus that decreases the likelihood of a behavior by being introduced or added to a situation | Stimulus that decreases motivation by its presence | Teacher deducts points for late homework |
| Extinction | Removal of reinforcement for a behavior | Removal of motivating stimulus that leads to decrease in motivation | Teacher stops commenting altogether about student’s homework |
| Shaping successive approximations | Reinforcements for behaviors that gradually resemble (approximate) a final goal behavior | Stimuli that gradually shift motivation toward a final goal motivation | Teacher praises student for returning homework a bit closer to the deadline; gradually she praises for actually being on time |
| Continuous reinforcement | Reinforcement that occurs each time that an operant behavior occurs | Motivator that occurs each time that a behavioral sign of motivation occurs | Teacher praises highly active student for every time he works for five minutes without interruption |
| Intermittent reinforcement | Reinforcement that sometimes occurs following an operant behavior, but not on every occasion | Motivator that occurs sometimes when a behavioral sign of motivation occurs, but not on every occasion | Teacher praises highly active student sometimes when he works without interruption, but not every time |
Cautions about behavioral perspectives on motivation
As we mentioned, behaviorist perspectives about motivation do reflect a classroom reality: that teachers sometimes lack time and therefore must focus simply on students’ appropriate outward behavior. But there are nonetheless cautions about adopting this view. An obvious one is the ambiguity of students’ specific behaviors; what looks like a sign of one motive to the teacher may in fact be a sign of some other motive to the student (DeGrandpre, 2000). If a student looks at the teacher intently while she is speaking, does it mean the student is motivated to learn, or only that the student is daydreaming? If a student invariably looks away while the teacher is speaking, does it mean that the student is disrespectful of the teacher, or that student comes from a family or cultural group where avoiding eye contact actually shows more respect for a speaker than direct eye contact?
Another concern about behaviorist perspectives, including operant conditioning, is that it leads teachers to ignore students’ choices and preferences, and to “play God” by making choices on their behalf (Kohn, 1996). According to this criticism, the distinction between “inner” motives and expressions of motives in outward behavior does not disappear just because a teacher (or a psychological theory) chooses to treat a motive and the behavioral expression of a motive as equivalent. Students usually do know what they want or desire, and their wants or desires may not always correspond to what a teacher chooses to reinforce or ignore. This, in a new guise, is once again the issue of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation that we discussed in [link] . Approaches that are exclusively behavioral, it is argued, are not sensitive enough to students’ intrinsic, self-sustaining motivations.
As we pointed out in [link] , there is truth to this allegation if a teacher actually does rely on rewarding behaviors that she alone has chosen, or even if she persists in reinforcing behaviors that students already find motivating without external reinforcement. In those cases reinforcements can backfire: instead of serving as an incentive to desired behavior, reinforcement can become a reminder of the teacher’s power and of students’ lack of control over their own actions. A classic research study of intrinsic motivation illustrated the problem nicely. In the study, researchers rewarded university students for two activities—solving puzzles and writing newspaper headlines—that they already found interesting. Some of the students, however, were paid to do these activities, whereas others were not. Under these conditions, the students who were paid were less likely to engage in the activities following the experiment than were the students who were not paid, even though both groups had been equally interested in the activities to begin with (Deci, 1971). The extrinsic reward of payment, it seemed, interfered with the intrinsic reward of working the puzzles.
Later studies confirmed this effect in numerous situations, though they have also found certain conditions where extrinsic rewards do not reduce intrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards are not as harmful, for example, if a person is paid “by the hour” (i.e. by a flat rate) rather than piecemeal (by the number of items completed) (Cameron&Pierce, 1994; Eisenberger&Cameron, 1996). They also are less harmful if the task itself is relatively well-defined (like working math problems or playing solitaire) and high-quality performance is expected at all times. So there are still times and ways when externally determined reinforcements are useful and effective. In general, however, extrinsic rewards do seem to undermine intrinsic motivation often enough that they need to be used selectively and thoughtfully (Deci, Koestner,&Ryan, 2001). As it happens, help with being selective and thoughtful can be found in the other, more cognitively oriented theories of motivation. These use the goals, interests, and beliefs of students as ways of explaining differences in students’ motives and in how the motives affect engagement with school. We turn to these cognitively oriented theories next, beginning with those focused on students’ goals.