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Intrinsic Motivation

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Intrinsic motivation, also known as self-motivation, refers to influences that originate from within a person to choose a task, get energized about it, and persist until they accomplish it successfully, regardless of whether it brings an immediate reward. This includes self-esteem, self-fulfillment, self-determination, self- efficacy, and attributions for success and failure. Intrinsic learners actively seek out and participate in activities without having to be rewarded by materials or activities outside the learning task. For example, the fourth-grader who puts together puzzles of states and countries because she likes to see the finished product and wants to learn the names of the capital cities is intrinsically motivated. Another example of intrinsic motivation can be of a student who studies really hard, not to get good grades, but because he or she is really interested in that subject. In such a case, even if the student fails or gets less marks, he or she continues to study that subject and takes failures as learning lessons. Both are examples of intrinsically motivated children who experience more enjoyment from learning, gain greater knowledge and insight, feel better about themselves and are more likely to persist in goal- directed activities (Barrett & Morgan, 1995; Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991; Ford & Tompson, 1985; Harter, 1978; Pintrich & Schunk, 1996). For years, researchers and psychologists have been studying this type of motivation. From the perspective of humanistic and cognitive motivation theories, the central question in the classroom is how to maintain or enhance children’s intrinsic motivation for learning. Humanistic interpretations of motivation emphasize such intrinsic sources of motivation as a person’s needs of “self actualization” (Maslow, 1968, 1970), the inborn actualizing tendency” (Rogers

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