Why do we not apply the science of human behaviour to what we do in our schools?

Motivation and learning. We have it all wrong.

The importance of education, while undisputed, is not well understood by children who are often forced to study by their parents. While we, as parents and teachers, understand the value of education and learning, it is how we depict it to children that matters. Is our focus on studying for good grades or knowledge mastery?

The direction we take to motivate our children can mean the difference between influencing lifelong learning or instigating a mechanical relationship with education. When used effectively, motivation can be the driving force for their actions and a key factor in enabling their success. However, to do that, we need a deeper understanding of motivation.

Essentially, motivation can be broken down into three categories: play, purpose and potential.

· Play motivates children to take action simply because it is fun to do so. They might be curious and enjoy experimenting, or simply eager to learn or adapt. It is why they will spend time enjoying a hobby, solving crossword puzzles or listening to music. We should try to include as much play motivation as we can in children’s lives.

· Purpose will motivate children to do something because they value the outcome and impact of their actions.

· Potential motivates children when they value the indirect outcomes of a certain activity. For example, we think that our actions will lead to something important, such as fulfilling a long-term goal, like eradicating hunger or changing the way people view education.

The primary motivation we employ for children is achieving good grades, which is extrinsic and purposeful, but also counter-intuitive. It often fails to ignite the intrinsic spark that drives children to study and learn on their own.

Pushing children for good grades is short-term focused and serves only to please the standards of institutions and society; it finds little use in the long run. However, mastery-based motivation, which is based on intrinsic potential, supports long-term learning. It is the need of the hour in a world where lifelong learning is essential.

It always bewildered me as to why we do not apply research and the findings of neuroscience to academic learning. Academics have studied why people work for nearly a century, but a major breakthrough happened in the 1980s when professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan from the University of Rochester distinguished the main reasons why people work — the self-determination theory.

Professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s self-determination theory emphasized that all humans have a basic need for autonomy and competence. So, why do we not apply the same understanding to our children?

Studies show that intrinsic motivation and academic achievement share a significant and positive correlation. Intrinsic motivation helps students transcend the ordinary to achieve greatness. The curiosity and motivation to learn become a force that enables children to seek out intellectual and experiential novelty. It encourages them to participate in academic activities to experience the fun, the challenge and the novelty away from any external pressure or compulsion. As students, they are able to approach unfamiliar circumstances with the anticipation of growth and success.

Children who exhibit low levels of an intrinsic motivation to learn will often depend on rewards to encourage them to participate in activities they may not find enjoyable. Although extrinsic motivation can initially spark a high level of will power and engagement, it does not encourage perseverance and does not last. External rewards or compliments undermine the possibility that children will engage in the educational activities for their own sake or to master skills or knowledge. Intrinsic goals and motivation, on the other hand, leads to greater achievement and better academic performance. It helps children find the process of learning enjoyable without expecting any external rewards.

The research on motivation and goal achievement recognizes two primarily and distinctly different types of goals: mastery and performance. So, it depends on whether we want our children to be driven to master materials, skills, and develop their competence or to strive to perform well in comparison to others.

In a research study, a batch of students, who were engaged in a problem-solving exercise, received a surprise test related to the task.

· Half the students were told that this test was about learning, understanding and mastery.

· The other half were told that the objective was to demonstrate their ability relative to other participants — to compete.

Students in the competitive externally-driven mode showed better performance on an immediate test, but when tested a week later it was the students who were told that this was about self-mastery that outperformed those who were motivated by competition.

Do we want our children to learn for the short or long term?

It is all a matter of how we motivate our children to study. To nurture an inside-out approach to learning, we need to start with making changes in our schools and in how we parent our children.

In the recent past, there are examples of a few companies that encourage their employees through intrinsic motivation. Google, for example, relies on individual self-organization of working time, and their employees can spend 20 per cent of their time on developing their own innovative ideas. The success of this motivation strategy speaks for itself. The workers of Google have developed hits such as Google News and Google Mail.

In my schools, I had created a similar concept called ‘Genius Hour’, where kids were allowed to devote time to what interested them. They were given the time to solve things that they saw as problems and indulge in things that they were passionate about, and it worked. Letting children pursue what interested them helped them remain more engaged in learning and stay motivated to achieve success.

Tomorrow’s world, with regards to education, will follow an inside-outside model of learning, rather than an outside-in approach. High-engagement and high-learning will be the focus of future education, and EQ will be as important, if not more, than IQ. Moreover, grades will not have the same importance as we currently give them. So, if we want to motivate our children academically, we need to move on from the current focus on grades and rank. We need to dig deeper to help our children discover what intrinsically motivates them and support them in their journey through learning and life.