Which comes first, motivation or success?

How would you define motivation?

TuongVan Vu: That's harder than many people think. Back in the 1980s, there were already more than 100 definitions of motivation. While the definition varies depending on the theory, we define motivation as the state that drives our behaviour. Our research focuses in particular on learning behaviour.

Does motivation change when transitioning from learning as a child to learning as an adult?

Martijn Meeter: In most countries, young children are highly motivated when they start school. Over the years, however, their motivation steadily declines. Every change – such as the transition from primary to secondary school – brings a small boost in motivation. This creates the illusion that «everything will be better now and school will stop being boring». But instead, the downward spiral continues.

In addition, the effect of previous performance becomes much greater with age. Young children do not care about their grades and usually do not know where they stand in comparison to other students. They only know that they can do more than before, which makes them feel pretty good about themselves.

Around the middle of primary school, they start comparing themselves to their classmates. If they do well, they feel great and that motivates them. If they do poorly, it can feel like they are forcing themselves to do something they are not good at. The older the students are, the stronger the link between past performance and motivation.

The more you consider yourself to be good at learning, the better you learn.

Tuong Van Vu

Does motivation increase performance, or is it the other way around?

Vu: Motivation influences performance, but performance also influences motivation. Over time, a feedback loop develops. The question is: where does it start? From our point of view, external influences such as the quality of teaching, external pressure and cultural and social influences drive this loop.

I find the idea that academic self-concept influences academic performance very interesting. It means that the more you think you are good at learning, the better you learn. It's almost like magic – because you see yourself as a good student, you actually become better.

There are two fundamentally different paths from motivation to performance. The first is based on self-esteem and self-efficacy. How you think about yourself determines what you do. If you believe you are good at learning, you will try harder because that is in line with your expectations of yourself.

The second way is through value as a motivational construct. Since you recognise the value of learning, learning becomes more enjoyable and you put more effort into it.

If the school system primarily determines how much time you spend studying, motivation plays a less significant role.

Martijn Meeter

What role does culture play?

Meeter: Learning probably has a huge cultural component, but we don't really know what that is because virtually all motivation studies have been conducted in so-called WEIRD countries. WEIRD stands for Western, educated, industrialised, wealthy and democratic.

In some cultures and at certain levels, children are very free to decide how many hours they spend on schoolwork. Motivation is important here. If the school system mainly determines how much time is spent on learning, motivation plays a less significant role.

We have found that motivation is not a major factor in how well you do in formal education. Other factors, such as background, genes, the quality of the school or pressure from parents, probably influence learning more than motivation.

How do researchers investigate motivation?

Vu: Motivation has been studied for 30 years. In the beginning, researchers mostly used cross-sectional data. The method was prone to error because children are so different. Today, we are seeing a shift towards longitudinal studies, in which a group of students is observed over several years.

Researchers have sought more creative ways to study motivation. These include a mobile app for collecting experiences and a virtual environment such as Maths Garden, which enable motivation to be observed in real time without interrupting learning activities.

We believe that motivation is an essential part of a person, but we also recognise that the school structure and environment are also important motivating factors.

Tuong Van Vu

Another change is that physiological measurements are now receiving more attention. Researchers can measure electrical brain activity or heart rate variability to find out how focused a person is on a particular learning task or how much effort they are putting in. This approach has great potential for future research. However, validating this approach requires a lot of work to prove that the results actually provide new insights into motivation.

What does the future hold for this research?

Vu: Researchers have looked at motivation at the individual level, but are now beginning to consider the environment. We believe that motivation is an essential part of a person, but we also recognise that school structure and environment are important motivating factors. Future research should definitely explore this area.