Prospect Theory and Student Motivation

I know I promised to talk about the behaviourist approach to discipline, but I just had to say something about the recent BBC Horizon programme - "How to Make Better Decisions".

Part of the program went into an area of behavioural psychology called Prospect Theory. Although students motivation was not the subject of discussion I could see definate connections between students decisions to work or not and Prospect Theory.

So what is Prospect Theory?

Prospect theory basically explains how human motivation is altered depending on a persons perceptions of risk. Simply it says - people are more likely to take action to avoid a loss, than they are to take action to recieve a gain.

(You can read more on Wikipedia, or for a more succinct article, on EconPort.)

It took me about half a second to make a connection between this and my own student's motivation.

Impact on student's motivation

My hypothesis is that education, in the student's mind, is more about recieving a gain than it is about avoiding a loss. Their qualification is seen as something that they currently don't posess. Likewise improved job prospects, possibility of increased earnings etc. are all future events - 'maybes' that they currently don't own. They lose nothing that is currently theirs if they fail. This is particularly true if the student already has low self-esteem - then they can't even lose that.

On the flip side, students do own some things that do stimulate more vigorous action.

Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is one example. Students who recieve EMA feel a definate sense of ownership. If their EMA is paid late even by one day, students rarely fail to take up the issue with their tutors. On one occasion a student, mistakenly thinking that certain college employees are to blame, even spoke about making complaints against those staff members they percieved were to blame. I say this because it is important in illustrating the students sense of ownership. Prospect Theory says these students are more likely to take action to avoid a percieved loss. This is born out in practice - and as I just mentioned, even motivates potentially more drastic action.

In some class situations (thankfully not mine) the students most prized possesion may be the respect of their peers. If so, Prospect Theory says, they will take more drastic action to keep that peer respect than they will to do anything the teacher asks.

Owning the future

Assuming the above is true (and I believe it is), solutions are both obvious and difficult. One solution I have begun to adopt with my students, is to help them to take ownership of their future. They need to feel that their next step, whether employment, whether university, (whatever it is), is something that they own right now - and by implication, something that they can lose. When a student takes ownership in this way, Prospect Theory says they will be more likely to take action to prevent the loss of their future dream.

So how are we doing it? I, along with my team, have adopted a strategy that introduces students to their next step almost as soon as they start with us. We do this by taking students to open days at universities, by inviting in speakers from universities, by getting the students to start deciding straight away what their next step will be. To have an aspiration that they own.

True, their future next step is 2 years away. But it is that very idea that we need to change in the minds of our students. By owning their future next step now, Prospect Theory becomes an advantage to our students, and not a distraction.