Nurturing Student Motivation Beyond Grades

A common concern among parents and tutors is how to keep students motivated in the classroom. While this is a complex issue with many layers, today we'll focus on one aspect: addressing a decline in a child's motivation for classroom learning.

You've likely witnessed it: at the start of the school year, your child is engaged or even excited about learning, but as time progresses, their enthusiasm dips, and their interest in certain subjects diminishes.

Why does this happen, and what can parents and tutors do to help?

Firstly, it's crucial to understand that the responsibility for igniting motivation doesn't solely rest on the student. As teachers, we are taught that fostering interest in a subject is a collaborative effort between teachers and students. When this dynamic is successful, students are more likely to remain motivated to excel.

Before we illustrate this with an example from one of our schools, we thought it is important to introduce a theory that often guides our motivational practices in the classroom.

Vroom’s expectancy theory states that “the intensity of the work put in (by the student) will depend on the perception that the student’s effort will result in a desired outcome.” Simply put, if a student is already interested in a subject and sees an achievable target ahead of him, he’ll continue to be motivated to perform to reach this goal.

Let’s look at an example from a Primary Four class that one of us took back in 2019:

Sarah* had never been good at Maths but in P4, she was lucky enough to have an excellent Maths teacher, Ms Ng*.

(*names changed)

Ms Ng helped the class become interested in Maths through a series of activities, bringing the practical uses of Maths in real life into the classroom. (One morning, she had a few of the students visit the wet market with her to teach a lesson on mental sums and money).

Sarah therefore enjoyed Maths and did relatively well in the first term. However, in the second term, Ms Ng went on maternity leave and the relief teacher conducted lessons differently.

Sarah began to lose interest in Maths, and started to fail her class tests consistently. Needless to say, her motivation in Maths was at a low, and, as is often the case, this de-motivation had a trickle-down effect and impacted her other subjects as well. (In May, her scores were ranging between 25/100 and 35/100 for Maths and Science).

Her parents met us during a meet-the-parents session and shared that they were worried about her grades and were doing everything they could to help her. She was going for tuition and was being pushed to complete lots of homework and other assessment books in order to help her pass her failing subjects once again. Nothing worked; and this sadly impacted her parents’ mental health too.

Ms Ng returned towards the end of Term 3, caught up with Sarah and her situation, and immediately devised a plan. She came up with achievable goals for Sarah. Instead of trying to help her hit a passing grade of 50/100 right away, she told Sarah that all she needed to do was to make it to 40/100 for the next class test, and if she could hit that, then 45/100 for the next one and so on.

In line with the belief that teachers are first and foremost responsible for sparking interest in a subject, Ms Ng began creative methods of bringing Math back to life again.

Sarah’s confidence & trust in Ms Ng, as well as her renewed interest in Math and the belief that 40/100 seemed achievable, led her to put in effort bit by bit and she saw drastic improvements in her Math and Science test scores by the end of Term 4.

She kept up her interest in Math with the help of Ms Ng, and eventually excelled in it in the PSLE. This result was not achieved in a day, but was a journey that took 3 years.

---

For this post, the takeaway messages from us to parents and tutors are the following:

1. Where possible, try to take a longer-term approach and prioritise building confidence and interest in your child or tutee over immediate performance goals. Taking the time to nurture a child's motivation with achievable milestones can lead to more sustainable success in our experience.

2. Encourage real-life applications of classroom concepts at home. Whether through involving your younger child in baking activities to reinforce fractions (“1/2 cup flour”) or involving your older children in financial planning to understand compound interest, connecting learning to everyday experiences enhances understanding and relevance, which tends to sustain their motivation and interest in the classroom.

However, we cannot emphasise enough that these are not magic solutions.

Motivation is a nuanced subject with various underlying factors, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Each child's journey is unique, but by fostering a collaborative approach between educators, parents, and students, we can cultivate a more motivating learning environment.

We will keep this page updated with more insights on motivation, but in the meantime, please feel free to reach out with any classroom-related topics you'd like us to explore further.