You are a third-grade teacher, and you would like to encourage the children in your class to enjoy reading. Suggest ways that you might use extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to their maximal advantage. Compare the pros and cons of each.

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The Answer is The answer should indicate that extrinsic motivation arranges rewards to reinforce a particular behavior (e.g., reading). For example, you might provide students with gold stars on a reading chart every time they bring back a book they've completed. Perhaps these stars can be exchanged for even bigger rewards once enough stars are accumulated. The danger, of course, is that they may come to resent reading when they are not rewarded for it. However, you can argue that once the children are competent readers, the sheer pleasure of reading will take over and provide the intrinsic motivation they need to continue. Intrinsic motivation is a motivation to take actions that are rewarding in themselves. As a teacher, you might choose books for the children that are about topics they already like; for example, the child who loves horses will be much more interested in reading if the chosen book is a story about a horse. In general, extrinsic motivation is useful to employ when you want to establish a behavior or increase a low-probability behavior. If the children are rarely reading, extrinsic rewards will get them to do so and hopefully foster contact with the intrinsic rewards of reading. Relying solely on intrinsic rewards at this early stage will not work because students simply are not contacting them or have not yet learned to appreciate them. If behavior is already being maintained by intrinsic rewards, it would be counterproductive to try to increase extrinsic motivation for that behavior. Paying avid readers to read will actually decrease the enjoyment associated with reading.

You Are a Third-Grade Teacher, and You Would Like to Encourage