L13 - The impact of Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation

Question 1

What is Ed Deci’s fundamental question?

(give some examples)

Answer 1

why do people stop pursuing activities that formerly seemed to be highly self-rewarding?

Examples:
- childhood sport
- musical instrument
- reading for pleasure

Question 2

What is intrinsic motivation?

Answer 2

The natural propensity to engage one’s interest and exercise one’s capacities

Question 3

Describe Koester’s Reading Trajectory

Answer 3

Discuss use of rewards in class to promote reading = Kerbies

His teacher would give Kerbies as prizes for the one who read the most books from the school library

He won, but by finding a loophole; he realized that he just had to log out as many books as possible without reading them, since the teacher would only look at the students’ loan histories to give out the Kerbie

Demonstrates that rewards hinder people’s intrinsic motivation to do the things they already enjoyed
– makes them lose interest, quickly

Question 4

Describe Pizza Hut’s Program “BOOK IT”.

Answer 4

Eighteen years ago, Pizza Hut created a reading motivation program for children in grades K-6 called the BOOK IT! National Reading INcentive Program

More than 20 million students participate in the program every year, which rewards them for their reading accomplishments with free pizza, praise and recognition

Question 5

Describe Lepper et al.’s Free Choice Paradigm (1973)

Answer 5

Pre-test to identify intrinsic activity

Random assignment to Control vs. Reward

Performance Period

Explicit Ending of Required Activity

Free Choice Period (with observation)

Results:
- % Time played during free choice
– no reward: 17%
– reward: 9%
– unexpected reward: 18%
- # pictures drawn
– no reward: 2.33
– reward: 2.61
– unexpected reward: 2.44
- Quality (1-5)
– no reward: 2.69
– reward: 2.18
– unexpected reward: 2.85

Question 6

Describe Deci, Koestner, & Ryan’s follow-up study on expectancy of rewards (1999)

Answer 6

Limiting condition
- age
- culture
- type of activity
- expectancy
- salience
- type of reward
– tangible vs. symbolic
– physical vs. verbal

meta-analysis results
- verbal rewards
– k = 21
– +0.33
- tangible
– k = 92
– -0.34
- expected
– k = 92
– -0.36
- unexpectted
– k = 9
– 0.01
- non-contingent
– k = 7
– -0.14
- engagement
– k = 55
– -0.40
- completion
– k = 19
– -0.44
- quality
– k =32
– -0.28

Question 7

What are some other correlates and some other underminers of child intrinsic motivation?

Answer 7

other correlates
- enjoyment
- pursuit of challenge
- cognitive flexibility and creativity
- spontaneity and expressiveness
- positive emotion tone in relating to others

other underminers
- threats of negative consequences
- surveillance
- deadlines
- evaluation
- goal imposition
- competition

Question 8

What is the cognitive evaluation theory?

Answer 8

1. IM varies with perceived autonomy
2. IM varies with perceived competence
3. External events can have 1 of 3 meaning:
   – information
   – controlling
   – amotivating

Question 9

What happens to IM for reading in school?

Answer 9

rewards
punishment
negative reinforcement (threats)
surveillance
deadlines
evaluation
goal imposition
competition

Question 10

Describe Harter’s research on the impact of school on children’s intrinsic motivation

Answer 10

surveys of children curiosity/interest (vs. pleasing teacher and getting grades)

does child work to satisfy own interest and curiosity or does child work to satisfy teacher, get marks and grades?

the level of curiosity dropped when students reached junior high, why?
- more evaluative
- more competitive
- more impersonal
- more formal

Question 11

Describe the refinement of Harter’s research done by Lepper et al. (2005)

Answer 11

large, culturally diverse sample

examine relations to school performance

results
- intrinsic motivation also dropped significantly from 3rd grade to 8th (from mean motivation of ~4 to mean motivation of ~3.5)

Question 12

What about children who do not like to read? Wouldn’t it be okay to use a reward to get them interested?

Answer 12

the importance of third grade: from “learning to read” to “reading to learn”

Question 13

What are some instructional practices that promote reading motivation (and comprehension)?

(Guthrie et al., 2006)

Answer 13

encouraging choice

providing interesting, relevant texts

facilitating social interaction around books

using hands-on activities to spark interest

Question 14

Describe the study showing that giving kids books is the key

(Allington et al., 2010)

Answer 14

addressing summer reading setback among economically disadvantaged elementary students

The Summer Slide
- 1000 1st graders assigned to book fair condition
– pick 12 books from wide variety - Pop Culture #1
- 500 in contorl group get puzzle books
- Dependent variable: reading achievement 3 years later
- Result: significant positive effect of books, especially for low SES
- and “quality” of books did not matter

Most popular book
- Britney spears
- and the second most popular book Britney Spears again

Question 15

Is there any way for me to find my intrinsic motivation for reading again?

Answer 15

look for the spark of interest
don’t judge your reading
- try different formats
– ebooks
– graphic books
– audiobooks
trust that intrinsic motivation will lead to challenge

a progression?
- harry potter series
- artemis fowl series
– Eoin Cofer
- the golden compass series
– Philip Pullman
- barthemeus trilogy
– Jonathan Stroud
- the hunger games trilogy
- Jonathan Strange and Mrs Norrell
– Susanna Clarke