«We are happy to make an effort if we are interested in the subject matter»

Education researcher Ulrich Trautwein on the desire to learn, what parents and teachers can do when motivation is lacking, and why children should not be made to cram.

Image: Rawpixel / Berthold Steinhilber

Interview: Claudia Füssler

Mr Trautwein, when do we find learning easy?

When we experience learning as a process controlled by ourselves. Science calls this state «intrinsic motivation». Then the time we spend learning flies by. However, it has been observed that for many children, learning is often not driven by intrinsic motivation, but rather by extrinsic, i.e. external, incentives and rewards. Teaching should always aim to increase the proportion of intrinsically motivated learning time.

Ulrich Trautwein is Professor of Empirical Educational Research at the University of Tübingen. His research topics include the effectiveness of the education system, the quality of teaching, the effects of assigning and completing homework and the development of interest and self-concept.

How can this be achieved?

There are two questions that a child should be able to answer in the affirmative so that learning is more or less automatic. Firstly: «Can I do it?» It is important that lessons are organised in such a way that children feel that they can successfully complete the tasks if they make a little effort. Secondly: «Does it do me any good?» Whether a child comes to the conclusion that learning is of benefit to them depends primarily on three aspects.

When we understand why a subject is useful to us, we are willing to put in the effort.

What are they?

Firstly, there is the immediate experience of the joy of learning. Very young pupils in particular usually have a lot of fun learning; almost everything is interesting and exciting for them. Over the years, they develop favourite subjects for which they particularly enjoy learning. Secondly, we are happy to learn if it is about something that is important to us personally. For example, if I'm interested in environmental protection, I enjoy learning about it, even if it's difficult material.

The third aspect is about the usefulness of what I am supposed to learn: I may not enjoy the subject matter or find it important, but I know that it will help me in my career, for example: If you want to study psychology, you need maths. If you want to travel around the world, you should be able to speak English. When we understand why a subject is useful to us, we are willing to put in the effort.

Setting appropriately difficult tasks that seem meaningful to the child - is that enough?

Then there is the greatest likelihood that learning will work by itself. It is part of the teacher's job to help children experience such motivating factors. However, it would be completely unrealistic to assume that all pupils are intrinsically motivated to learn all the time.

A very important point is the role model function: parents and teachers should show how they themselves overcome motivational problems.

And then we should - to put it provocatively - simply make the boys and girls sit down and study?

We could, but they wouldn't learn very much that way. We have to create a state in which the child experiences what is known as cognitive activation. They have to actively deal with the knowledge, because all learning involves a constructive effort in the brain. New knowledge hardly sticks there if it is not linked to something existing. So we may be able to force listening, but not active construction, and therefore not in-depth learning. It doesn't always have to be a burning interest in a topic, but the child should at least be able to get involved in the subject.

What if I have to learn something that is neither fun nor of any other recognisable benefit to me?

In this situation, learning strategies are needed to help me overcome the motivational hurdles. The question is: How do I manage to turn things that are uninteresting for me - or the child - into something that is fun or at least useful? This works, although not always. The strategy of gamification, for example, is very well known: you turn learning into a game, so to speak. I may not be interested in a topic, but I engage in a kind of competition with myself and try to learn the paragraph or lesson as quickly as possible.

In order to really know what can help a child who doesn't like learning, a proper assessment is needed.

How can teachers and parents help when there is a lack of motivation?

A very important point is the role model function: parents and teachers should show how they themselves overcome motivation problems. They can model similar situations in which they explain their actions and think out loud, so to speak: «Actually, I don't really feel like doing this right now, but I know it's important, so I'm getting myself together.» Implicit and explicit strategy training can also take place. Implicit strategies are taught by simply integrating them into the learning process. For example: every day at 4 p.m., the exercise book is opened as a matter of course and homework is due. At some point, this becomes automatic and routine, without the child asking themselves every time: Why am I doing this now?

Explicit strategy training, on the other hand, is more suitable for older children and young people, with whom you can openly discuss the problem and look for solutions: What can you do if you have difficulty motivating yourself to learn a subject? If the solution is to sit down for half an hour and reward yourself with something sweet afterwards, that's fine. And if nothing else helps, you need to think about how you can create extrinsic incentives for learning for a while - with the aim of being able to do without these extrinsic incentives again as soon as possible.

Do you have any specific tips on what is particularly effective in motivating a child to learn?

There are umpteen parenting guides that do just that, but I would caution against very specific instructions. There is nothing that is automatically successful for all children: what helps one child may be irrelevant or even harmful for another. What you can't go far wrong with is demonstrating educational proximity. A home where books are on the shelves, where reading is important, where people talk to each other at the kitchen table about what's going on in the world - these are good prerequisites. To really know what can help a child who doesn't like to learn, you need a proper assessment and an understanding of the processes involved in learning. However, most parents have never learnt how to do this.

So what do I do if I realise that my child is having serious problems learning?

Before you start doing anything, you should first analyse and diagnose. Is it «just» a lack of motivation? Is the child over- or underchallenged? Is the learning environment the problem? It is best to do this together with specialists such as counselling teachers, school psychologists or specialised counselling centres.