Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Classroom Applications of Cognitive Theories of Motivation

  • Published:
Educational Psychology Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article examines cognitive theories of motivation and their application to classroom experiences of students and teachers. Students' explanations of their school experiences are considered within the frameworks of expectancy × value theory, self-efficacy theory, goal orientation theory, and attribution theory. These same theories are used as lens through which teachers' classroom behaviors are viewed. Suggestions are offer for incorporating cognitive theories of motivation into pre-service and in-service programs for teachers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Ames, C. (1984). Achievement attributions and self-instructions under competitive and individualistic goal structures. J. Educat. Psychol. 76: 478-487.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ames, C., and Archer, J. (1988). Achievement goals in the classroom: Students' learning strategies and motivation processes. J. Educat. Psychol. 80: 260-267.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ames, C. A. (1990). Motivation: What teachers need to know. Teachers College Record 91: 409-421.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderman, E. M., and Maehr, M. L. (1994). Motivation and schooling in the middle grades. Rev. Educat. Res. 64: 287-309.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, R., Greene, M., and Loewen, P. (1988). Relationships among teachers' and students' thinking skills, sense of efficacy, and student achievement. Alberta J. Educat. Res. 34: 148-165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Armor, D., Conroy-Osequera, P., Cox, M., King, N., McDonnell, L., Pascal, A., Pauly, E., and Zellman, G. (1976). Analysis of the school referred reading programs in selected Los Angeles minority schools (Rep. No. R-2007-LAUSD). Santa Monica CA: RAND (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. 130-243).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ashton, P., and Webb, R. (1986). Making a Difference: Teachers' Sense of Efficacy and Student Achievement, Longman, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, G., and Graham, S. (1987). Developmental study of praise and blame as attributional cues. J. Educat. Psychol. 79: 62-66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychol. Rev. 84: 191-215.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bandura, A. (1988). Self-regulation of motivation and action through goal systems. In Hamilton, V., Bower, G. H., and Frijda, N. H. (eds.), Cognitive Perspectives on Emotion and Motivation, Kluwer, Dordrecht, the Netherlands, pp. 37-61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educat. Psychol. 28: 117-148.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bar-Tal, D., and Guttmann, J. (1981). A comparison of teachers', pupils', and parents' attributions regarding pupils'' academic achievement. Br. J. Educat. Psychol. 51: 301-311.

    Google Scholar 

  • Battle, E. (1966). Motivational determinants of academic competence. J. Personal. Social Psychol. 4: 634-642.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brophy, J. E., and Good, T. L. (1970). Teachers' communication of differential expectations for children's classroom performance: Some behavioral data. J. Educat. Psychol. 61: 365-374.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brophy, J., and Rohrkemper, M. (1981). The influence of problem ownership on teachers' perception of and strategies for coping with problem students. J. Educat. Psychol. 73: 295-311.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, R. (1989). Mastery versus ability appraisal: A developmental study of children's observations of peers' work. Child Develop. 60: 934-943.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, R. (1999). Information seeking and achievement motivation in middle childhood and adolescence: The role of conceptions of ability. Develop. Psychol. 35: 146-163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development. (1989). Turning Points: Preparing American Youth for the 21st Century, The Carnegie Corporation, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapin, M., and Dych, E. B. (1976). Persistence of children's reading behavior as a function of n length and attribution retraining. J. Abnormal Psychol. 85: 511-515.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, H. M., and Good, T. L. (1983). Pygmalion Grows Up: Studies in the Expectation Communication Process, Longman, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Covington, M. V., and Omelich, C. L. (1979). Effort: The double-edged sword in school achievement. J. Educat. Psychol. 71: 169-182.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, G. A., and Thomas, M. A. (1989). Effective Schools and Effective Teachers, Allyn & Bacon, Needham Heights, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dweck, C. S. (1978). Achievement. In Lamb, M. E. (ed.), Social and Personality Development, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dweck, C. S. (1985). Intrinsic motivation, perceived control, and self-evaluation maintenance: An achievement goal analysis. In Ames, C., and Ames, R. (eds.), Research on Motivation in Education, Academic Press, Orlando, FL, pp. 289-305.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dweck, C. S. (1986). Motivational processes affecting learning. Am. Psychol 41: 1040-1048.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eccles (Parsons), J. S. (1983). Teacher expectations and student motivation. In Dusek, J. B. (ed.), Achievement and Achievement Motivation, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eccles, J. S., and Wigfield, A. (1985). Teacher expectations and student motivations, In Dusek, J. B. (ed.), Teacher Expectancies, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 185-217.

  • Elliot, E. S., and Dweck, C. S. (1988). Goals: An approach to motivation and achievement. J. Personal. Social Psychol. 54: 5-12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erb, T. O. (1987). What team organization can do for teachers. Middle School J. 18: 3-6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feather, N. T. (1969). Attribution of responsibility and valence of success and failure in relation to initial confidence and task performance. J. Personal. Social Psychol. 13: 129-144.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleming, K. K. (1995). The effect of self-efficacy and goal orientation on student effort expenditures. Unpublished master's thesis, The University of Kansas.

  • Forsterling, F. (1985). Attributional retraining: A review. Psychol. Bull. 98: 495-512.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Karns, K., Hamlett, C. L., Katzaroff, M., and Dutka, S. (1997). Effects of task-focused goals on low-achieving students with and without learning disabilities. Am. Educat. Res. J. 34: 513-543.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, S., and Dembo, M. (1984). Teacher efficacy:Aconstruct validation. J. Educat. Psychol. 76: 569-582.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graham, S., and Barker, G. P. (1990). The down-side of help: An attributional-developmental analysis of helping behavior as a low-ability cue. J. Educat. Psychol. 82: 7-14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heider, F. (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations, Wiley, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jagacinski, C. M. (1992). The effects of task involvement and ego involvement on achievement-related cognitions and behaviors. In Schunk, D. H., and Meece, J. L. (eds.), Student Perceptions in the Classroom, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 307-326.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jagacinski, C. M., and Nicholls, J. G. (1990). Reducing effort to protect perceived ability: They'd do it but I wouldn't. J. Educat. Psychol. 82: 15-21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelley, H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In Levine, D. (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelley, H. (1972). Causal schemata an the attribution process. In Jones, E., Kanouse, D., Kelley, H., Nisbett, R., Valins, S., and Weiner, B. (eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior, General Learning Press, Morristown, NJ, pp. 151-174.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levine, D. U., and Lezotte, L. W. (1995). Effective schools research. In Banks, J. A., and Banks, C. A. M. (eds.), Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education, Macmillan, New York, pp. 525-547.

    Google Scholar 

  • Little, J. W., and McLaughlin, M. W. (Eds.) (1993). Teachers' Work: Individuals, Colleagues, and Contexts, Teachers College Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lortie, D. C. (1975). Schoolteacher, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

    Google Scholar 

  • Louis, K. S., Marks, H. M., and Kruse, S. (1996). Teachers' professional community in restructuring schools. Am. Educat. Res. J. 33: 757-798

    Google Scholar 

  • MacIver, D. J., Stipek, D. J., and Daniels, D. H. (1991). Explaining within-semester changes in student effort in junior high school and senior high school courses. J. Educat. Psychol. 83: 210-211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls, J. G. (1975). Causal attributions and other achievement related cognitions: Effects of task outcome, attainment, value, and sex. J. Personal. Social Psychol. 31: 379-389.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls, J. G. (1978). The development of the concepts of effort and ability, perception of own attainment and the understanding that difficult tasks require more ability. Child Develop. 49: 800-814.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls, J. G. (1984). Achievement motivation: Conceptions of ability, subjective experience, task choice, and performance. Psychol. Rev. 91: 328-346.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls, J. G., and Miller, A. T. (1983). The differentiation of the concepts of difficulty and ability. Child Develop. 54: 951-959.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pintrich, P. R., and DeGroot, E. V. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. J. Educat. Psychol. 82: 33-40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Powell, R. R., and Mills, R. (1994). Five types of mentoring build knowledge on interdisciplinary teams. Middle School J. 26: 24-30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parawatt, R. S. (1992). From individual differences to learning communities: Our changing focus. Educat. Leadership 49: 9-13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, J. A. (1992). Teacher efficacy and the effect of coaching on student achievement. Can. J. Educat. 17: 51-65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skinner, E. A. (1996). A guide to constructs of control. J. Personal. Social Psychol. 71: 549-570.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thorkildsen, T. A., and Nicholls, J. G. (1998). Fifth graders' achievement orientations and beliefs: Individual and classroom differences. J. Educat. Psychol. 90: 179-201.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tschannen-Moran, M. Woolfold Hoy, A., and Hoy, W. K. (1998). Teacher efficacy: Its meaning and measure. Rev. Educat. Res. 68: 202-248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vollmer, F. (1986). The relationship between expectancy and academic achievement-How can it be explained? Br. J. Educat. Psychol. 56: 65-74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, B. (1979). A theory of motivation for some classroom experiences. J. Educat. Psychol. 71: 3-25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, B. (1986). An Attributional Analysis of Achievement Motivation, Springer Verlag, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, B. (1994). Integrating social and personal theories of achievement striving. Rev. Educat. Res. 64: 557-573.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, B. (2000). Intrapersonal and interpersonal theories of motivation from an attributional perspective. Educat. Psychol. Rev. 12: 1-14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, B., Heckhausen, H., Meyer. W., and Cook, R. E. (1972). Causal ascriptions and achievement behavior: The conceptual analysis of effort. J. Personal. Social Psychol. 21: 239-248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiner, B., and Kukla, A. (1970). An attributional analysis of achievement motivation. J. Personal. Social Psychol. 15: 1-20.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology and Research in Education, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas

    Nona Tollefson

Authors
  1. Nona Tollefson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Tollefson, N. Classroom Applications of Cognitive Theories of Motivation. Educational Psychology Review 12, 63–83 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009085017100

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009085017100

Search

Navigation