Lazowski & Hulleman (2016). Motivation interventions in education: A meta-analytic review.” – Article summary

Intervention studies facilitate our understanding about which interventions are most effective in improving educational outcomes.

Theories of motivation regard the energization and direction of behaviour. Social-cognitive theories of motivation include theories focusing on achievement motives and needs (1), perceived ability and self-concept (2), perceived value for and interest in an activity (3), goals (4), attributions about success and failure (5), emotions (6) and potential future identities (7). Motivation refers to processes that are affective, behavioural and/or cognitive and energize and direct behaviour.

Student motivation is essential for learning. Motivated students learn more (1), persist longer (2), produce higher quality work (3) and score higher on tests (4). This is especially the case if they are motivated by relatively intrinsic as compared with extrinsic motivation. Declines in student motivation are a common problem and threaten educational equity. Schools do not seem to be enhancing or maintaining motivation to learn in school at a systematic level.

There are three dimensions of naturalness:

1. Natural treatments
   This refers to naturally occurring events to which the participant is exposed (e.g. curriculum).
2. Natural settings
   This refers to settings that are not established for the purposes of research.
3. Natural behaviour
   This refers to behaviour which occurs without experimental intervention (e.g. centralized exams).

A more natural intervention is more likely to generalize to other settings. There are several theories on motivation:

1. Achievement emotions theory
   This theory leads to interventions that hold that reducing worries about test-taking through expressive writing or enhancing happiness and well-being through personal improvement exercises can improve motivation and achievement.
2. Achievement goal theory
   This theory leads to interventions that encourage students to adopt mastery goals for learning and to value the process of learning as much as the product.
3. Attribution theory
   This theory leads to interventions that help students attribute academic struggles to lack of effort through individual and group activities.
4. Expectancy-value theory
   This theory leads to interventions that help students discover the relevance of academic material to their lives through writing exercises.
5. Goal setting theory
   This theory leads to interventions that help students set specific and realistic academic goals through direct instruction.
6. Implicit theories of intelligence
   This theory leads to interventions that help students realize they can become smarter by tackling challenges.
7. Interest theory
   This theory leads to interventions that excite and engage students in a topic through expressive writing and providing stimulating learning activities.
8. Need for achievement theory
   This theory leads to interventions that encourage students to strive for high achievement through direct instruction in understanding achievement-related emotions and cognitions and adopting higher standards and action strategies.
9. Possible selves theory
   This theory leads to interventions that help students draw connections between successful future selves and current school involvement through interactive activities and written reflections.
10. Self-affirmation theory
    This theory leads to interventions that help students maintain self-integrity by affirming important values in writing exercises.
11. Self-confrontation theory
    This theory leads to interventions that encourage students to adopt behaviours that enable them to achieve outcomes consistent with their core values through confronting students with values discrepancies between themselves and other successful students. It holds that motivation to change is elicited when students perceive that their behaviours and values differ from their self-conception.
12. Self-confirmation theory
    This theory leads to interventions that help students perceive more choice and control in the learning setting by helping teachers use instructional practices that support student autonomy.
13. Self-efficacy theory
    This theory leads to interventions that help students perceive that they can successfully complete the specific tasks and activities required for learning (e.g. setting and achieving realistic study goals).
14. Social belongingness theory
    This theory leads to interventions that help students perceive stronger connections between themselves and important others in the learning context and to reduce feelings of uncertainty about belonging.
15. Transformative experience theory
    This theory leads to interventions that encourage teachers to reframe learning in a way that enhances value of the content to students’ everyday experience through various instructional strategies.

Motivation interventions have promising results for enhancing educational outcomes. Overall, motivation interventions are effective. It is not significantly impacted by moderators (e.g. age of participants; theoretical framework; socioeconomic status). Motivation can be a key process or mechanism for enhancing student learning outcomes. Motivation enables learning.