Meaning of Motivation

The term motivation or motivation is used as a synonym for motivation in the English language. The word ‘motivation‘ is derived from the Latin mottum metal, which means move or insight to action. Thus, motivation is an operation which stimulates or provokes the organism towards action.

In order to clarify the meaning of motivation, we must clearly understand desires and motivators. When we need something, a desire arises within us, as a result of which energy is generated, which makes the motive force dynamic.

Motivation is the result of these desires and the collective power of inner motivators and action. By awakening the motivator energy and desire arise, which is necessary for behavior.

Higher motivation requires a higher desire, which produces more energy resulting in over-mobility. Behaviour can be made more firm by motivation.

Motivation refers to those activities that human beings perceive as good or bad. Those which a person considers good, desires to attain, and those which he considers bad, desires to be removed. Everyone’s goal is not just to get money. Apart from this, various types of things like promotion, winning elections, getting respect from your colleagues and friends, etc. are also included.

Wide Meaning of Motivation

Many words are used for motivation. There are many words of motivation that have different meanings. The explanation of all these terms is given below-

1. Motive: It is called by the name of motivator. It motivates the psycho-physical condition present inside the person for a particular task.
2. Drive – Propulsion is related to the needs of the body. The needs of every human being motivate him to act. Hunger and thirst of man is a sign of this.
3. Incentive: Everyone strives to achieve certain things. It is believed to be related to the external environment.
4. Curiosity – Through eagerness, a person is motivated to complete a task. It is not possible to accomplish any work without being eager. Curiosity leads to success in a person’s quest and effort to know.
5. Interest – Not everyone is interested in every task. Everybody’s interest is different. According to the interest, the person decides the success of his work. Hence, interest becomes synonymous with motivation.
6. Goals – The goal informs the person about the outcome. It is received by the person in a conscious state.

Definitions of Motivation

The definitions of motivation have been given by the following educationists:

1. According to Frendson, “Successful learning experiences inspire more learning.” (In learning, successful experiences motivates more for learning.)
2. According to Guilford, “Motivation is an internal condition or factor which tends to initiate or sustain an action.” (A motive is any particular internal factor or condition that leads to initiate and to sustain activity.)
3. According to Good, “Motivation is the process of initiating, continuing and regularizing something.” (Motivation is the process to start any work, continue and regulize.)
4. According to Lovell, “Motivation is a psychophysiological or internal process that arises in the presence of a need.” It moves towards an action that satisfies the need. (Motivation may be defined more for psychological or internal process initiated by some need, which leads to activity which will satisfy that need.)
5. According to Johnson, “Motivation is the effect of normal actions which lead the individual’s behaviour along an appropriate path.” (Motivation is be influence of general pattern of activities indicating and directing the behaviour of the organism.)
6. Woodworth has presented the equation regarding motivation, “Achievement = Ability + Motivation“.

Nature of Motivation

Motivation is a psychophysiological suffix or internal process that initiates, directs and carries forward actions. This is the primary requirement of learning.

There are many internal factors of motivation that encourage and sustain the organism to perform actions, but needs are of special importance in human learning.

Lovell mentions the need for intrinsic factors for motivation. Motivation is the psycho-physiological or internal process that begins with needs, which continues an action and which leads to the satisfaction of the need.

In brief, the nature of motivation can be seen as follows:

1. Motivation is a psycho-physiological and internal process.
2. This internal process arises in the presence of a need.
3. This internal process of the body is oriented towards some activity, which satisfies the need.
4. According to Drever, “Motivation is a conscious or unconscious dominant functional element that drives the behaviour of an individual towards a purpose.” “
5. Morgan described motivation as the choice of action or readiness to act in a specified direction.
6. Motivation is innate and acquired.
7. Motivation includes all kinds of internal and external stimuli that govern the behaviour of the organism.
8. Motivation also includes the driver.
9. Motivation has a greater effect than driver or motivation, as a result of which the person leads to success.
10. This power is awakened from within.
11. Motivation is the state of a person which directs the achievement of some objectives.

Significance of Motivation in Education

The process of learning of children proceeds only through motivation. Interest in the work of education can be created in the students only by motivation and they become conflicted.

Thomson has defined the importance of motivation as “motivation is an art. It creates a tendency towards reading in those students who lack this type of interest. Where children are interested in reading, but they do not experience it, they are made to experience it through motivation. In addition, motivation also creates interest of students towards specific curricula. ”

Therefore, the role or importance of motivation in the field of education is shown as follows:

1. Learning

The main basis of learning is motivation. The ‘law of consequence‘ acts as a motivator in the process of learning. The work that gives happiness, the person does it again and leaves it when he is unhappy. That’s the law of consequence.

Therefore, even after praise of the child by parents, other children and the teacher, he gets motivated and thus he keeps moving forward, but on punishment or reprimand, he becomes frustrated and he becomes discouraged for the future.

2. To gain the object

Just as a child has a goal in life, in the same way school also has a goal. Motivation plays a key role in achieving this goal. All these goals are achieved by natural motivators. Here artificial motivators fail.

3. Character formation

Character-building is the best quality of education. It inculcates morality and inculcates and creates good thoughts and values. Motivation also has a prominent place in the formation of good values.

4. Attention

For successful teaching, it is necessary that the attention of the students remains towards the lesson. How aware the student is about the lesson in the class depends on motivation. In the absence of motivation, there will be no attention towards the lesson and the student will not be able to concentrate the mind.

5. Teaching methods

In teaching, many teaching methods have to be used according to the situation. Motivation also occupies a prominent place in the teaching method used. Motivation can make lessons interesting and teaching successful.

6. Curriculum

Motivation also has a prominent place in the curriculum formation of students. Therefore, such topics should be given place in the curriculum, which can generate motivation and interest in the students, only then the learning environment will be created.

7. Discipline

In the present era, we are seeing the problem of discipline at every level. If proper motivations are used in the school, the problem of discipline can be solved to a considerable extent. Therefore, motivation is also important for discipline.

Kinds of Motivation

Motivation is divided into two parts:

1. Intrinsic motivations
2. Extrinsic motivations

1. Intrinsic motivations

Many of those factors which stimulate a person to do something such as his desires, aspirations, interests and thoughts etc. are intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is also called natural of motivation or primary motivation. These are related to innate attitudes.

When there is an intuition to do an action even in the absence of any external stimulus or agent, then internal motivation comes into play where an action itself becomes inspirational or pleasurable. In this type of natural behaviour, the learning process is rapid and interest remains till the end.

This type of natural motivation includes physical motivation, instinctive motivation and emotional motivation etc.

Internal motivation reduces internal pull by reducing the power of the drive. As a result, internal equilibrium is established and the desire to learn for the achievement of individual goals arises.

Internal motivations are as follows:

1. Psycho-physio motivations

These motivations are related to the human body and mind. Such motivations are necessary for man’s survival; Such as eating, drinking, work, consciousness, habit, emotion and emotional motivation etc.

2. Social motivations

Man is a social animal. The society in which man lives determines the behavior of the individual. Social motivations are learned in the environment of the society itself; Such as affection, love, respect, knowledge, position, leadership and fame etc. These motivations are aroused to satisfy social needs.

3. Individual motivations

Every living being is born with special powers. These powers are transferred to them from their parents and ancestors. At the same time, the characteristics of the environment also leave their impact on the development of the students. Environment helps in making the physical appearance of children shapely and normal.

Individual motives differ on the basis of individual differences. These include interests, attitudes, self-righteousness, moral values, sports, sports, prestige, self-revelation, other exemplary examples, aspirations, etc.

2. Extrinsic motivations

All those external factors such as incentives, promotions, economic gains, etc., by which a person feels satisfaction and joy, are external motives.

Extrinsic motivation is also called artificial motivation or secondary motivation, which is related to environmental factors.

Rewards, punishments, goals, material and monetary benefits, praise and good marks in examinations, etc., external benefits or rewards are examples of extrinsic motivation.

External motivations are found in the following ways:

1. Punishment and prize

Punishments and rewards have special importance in motivating students in school work. Punishment is a positive motivation. This is in the interest of the students. The award is an affirmative motivation. It can also be physical, social and moral. It is very dear to children. As a result, teachers should keep using it continuously so that students prove to be good citizens in future.

2. Co-operation

Cooperation is a strong motivator, so education should be imparted through this. The use of the project method awakens the spirit of cooperation among the students.

3. Aims, ideals and aimful attempts

Every task should have a target to generate motivation. The goal should be clear, attractive, lively, detailed and ideal, to achieve which students should be attracted towards purposeful effort.

4. Maturation in motivation

In order to create motivation in the students, it is necessary to keep in mind their physical, mental, social and economic maturity, so that they can get motivated and get proper education.

5. Knowledge of motivation and result

In order to make motivation more and more intense, it is necessary that from time to time the students should be made aware of the progress made in the work done by them, so that they can work more enthusiastically.

6. To engage the whole personality

The achievement of the goal through motivation should not satisfy any particular emotion but the satisfaction of the whole personality. Engaging the overall personality in any work is a very good means of generating motivation.

7. Opportunity for participation

Students have a natural tendency to get involved in some work, so they should be given an opportunity to work. This motivates them towards learning.

8. Individual work motivation and group work motivation

Initially, individual motivation should be converted into motivation and then collective motivation, because individual progress is ultimately collective progress.

9. Law of effect

The main purpose of man is the experience of pleasure. Therefore, the theory of ‘laws of influence’ in psychology should be used more for motivation.

Sources of Motivation

There are four sources of motivation:

1. Requirements
2. driver
3. flaming
4. inspiring

1. Requirements

Everyone has certain needs. They must be fulfilled in order to survive. When a person feels a need, tension arises in his body. To overcome this stress, the person tries to fulfill that need. When the individual’s need is satisfied. So the tension of his body goes away. In this way, the need and the effort to fulfill it motivates the person to work.

2. Driver

The needs of a person give rise to the drivers related to them. The need to calm hunger gives rise to a hunger driver. Similarly, other needs give rise to other drivers. The driver induces a person to perform a particular type of action.

3. Insentiive

Any human need is fulfilled by something. The need for hunger is fulfilled by food, thirst by ‘water‘, the need for sex by ‘person of the opposite sex‘. These objects or persons are called stimulus.

Boring et al. have defined a stimulus as “a stimulus can be defined as that object, situation or action that stimulates, excites and directs the behaviour of an individual.” ”

4. Motive

It is a very broad word. It can include conductors, stress, need, etc., apart from stimulus. Motivators are the physical and psychological conditions within a person that motivate him to act according to certain methods. Some scholars consider motivators to be innate or acquired powers. Motivators stimulate a person to perform a particular action or behaviour.

Methods of Motivation

Motivation is very important in classroom teaching. Students should be constantly motivated to study in the classroom. In the process of motivation, they perform many tasks, as a result of which the behavior of different students becomes different; For example, social and economic conditions, past experiences, age and classroom environment, etc., all contribute to the process of motivation.