EHE News
How to motivate adolescents: Unlocking the secrets, supporting our country's future
DeLeon Gray
12-1-11
Originally from Temple Hills, Md., DeLeon Gray is a doctoral candidate in educational psychology. To support his graduate career, he received a Dai Ho Chun Fellowship and a Marilyn Ruth Hathaway Education Scholarship from the college for 2011-12. Working under his advisor, Eric Anderman, professor of educational psychology and an expert on adolescent motivation, Gray also received a highly competitive Spencer Dissertation Fellowship to support his dissertation research. This year, the coveted fellowship was awarded to only 3 percent of applicants from universities nationwide.
For many adults, school social experiences during adolescence are burned into our brains. DeLeon Gray tells us this is because we were still in the stage of life when we were exploring our identities. Social interactions were important for determining how we felt about ourselves and how we understood the world around us.
"We want to motivate students to choose STEM careers, underachieving gifted students to achieve and students with language barriers to adapt," Gray said. "But for students who are in the process of identity exploration, social issues like fitting in or standing out can take priority.
"Motivation research is critical so we can understand and influence students' choices. Our success has implications for our country's future."
Linking academic goals to the need to fit in and stand out
As a teenager, Gray first noticed that two of his friends adopted distinctively different strategies to either blend in or stand out at school.
In middle school, highly intelligent Jonathan did nothing to stand out. He reinvented himself in high school by pushing to excel and capture attention. He made excellent grades, and he not only won cross country relay races, he teased his opponents. First he would pretend to be tired, letting the closest runner almost catch up, then he would sprint ahead to win, brandishing the baton.
In middle school, Aaron was so different--in dress, in behavior, in high intelligence--he stuck out like a sore thumb. In high school, he worked to disappear in the crowd. He strove for only average grades, although he was capable of stellar. He dressed, spoke and behaved like everyone else so he could blend in.
To examine what moves adolescents like Aaron or Jonathan, Gray conducted a study of 700 high school English students to see how much their English course satisfied their need to fit in or stand out.
From the results, he constructed psychological profiles based on personality types. One group, which he named the optimal balance group, was made up of students who seemed to have their need to fit in and stand out satisfied at the same time.
Gray found that the more the English students said both of these needs were satisfied by the course, the more they saw it as important to be a student in that course.
"I also found students expressed greater pride about being members of that course and expressed greater excitement about coming to each class session," he said. "They also experienced less boredom, anxiety and frustration."
Most important to his study, the students were more motivated to study English.
Educational strategies for channeling student behavior
Gray next asked, Can we use this knowledge to move students from underachieving to achieving? His next study looked at whether tasks that satisfy the need to fit in or stand out could make students decide to perform better and persist in those tasks.
Sixty-eight undergraduate students took part in the online experiment. He first gave subjects an exercise that heightened their need to either blend in or stand out.
They then played an online version of the word game Boggle. In the instructions, half of the participants who took the exercise to heighten their need to stand out were subsequently told good Boggle players have the trait of uniqueness or quirkiness. They stand out from others. The other half of these participants were not given these instructions.
In contrast, half of the participants who took the exercise to heighten their need to blend in were subsequently told good Boggle players have the trait of blendability. They fit in well with others. Again, the other half of these participants were not given these instructions.
Gray found that students who believed Boggle satisfied their heightened social need not only generated more words, but also spent more time playing Boggle. This was in contrast to the students who were not led to believe that achievement on Boggle could meet their social needs.
He proposes that teachers can motivate students by guiding their social interpretations of academic tasks. Teachers also can guide students to persuade themselves about the social value of certain academic tasks.
For example, a student might be asked to write a persuasive essay to a student at another school. In it, she could explain how doing certain things, such as presenting in class or helping other students, can help one fit in with or stand out among other students.
"The most interesting parts of school for me, and for most of us, were interactions with people," Gray said. "Schools are such complex social institutions. Being average or being special can really take priority, especially when you're young and your focus is on the short term.
"If we can link students' short-term social needs with long-term academic goals so they're compatible, it could be a powerful resource that impacts the structure of education."
Writer: Janet Kiplinger Ciccone, Office of Advancement, College of Education and Human Ecology
© 2011 The Ohio State University - College of Education and Human Ecology. All Rights Reserved.
If you have trouble accessing this page and need to request an alternate format, contact the webmaster.