How Equitable Instruction Impacts Student Motivation and Achievement

Overall, student achievement has decreased for students nationwide. Studies have shown that student’s motivation has been correlated to the importance of assessments students are required to take. Findings have found that student performance results indicate that if students do not perceive importance or usefulness of an exam, their effort suffers and so does their test score.

Further, studies have shown that students’ motivational beliefs are significantly related to their academic achievement. However, to judge the relative importance of motivation constructs for academic achievement, studies need (1) to investigate diverse motivational constructs in one sample and (2) to consider students’ cognitive abilities and their prior achievement, too, because the latter are among the best single predictors of academic success.

With the work of equity, it has been proven to be imperative that students are motivated and feel like they are included in the classroom. Research has shown that in order to help motivate students, students’ achievement as well as motivational beliefs and task values were assessed domain-specifically (e.g., math grades, math self-concept, math task values), whereas students’ goals were only measured for school in general ,and students’ achievement motives were only measured on a domain-general level. Hence, students must feel like they can achieve when in the classroom. This is scaffolded by help of their teachers and peers.

Understanding tasks at hand has also imperative for student engagement and student achievement. Studies show that even though basic achievement motives are equally important at abstract and specific achievement levels, task values and learning goals release their full explanatory power with increasing context-specificity as they affect students’ concrete actions in a given school subject. Hence, as students understand concepts and have goals established for tasks assigned to them, that stimulates their ability to perform and achieve in the classroom. However, these results can only happen as equitable instruction is at hand. Teachers must be intentional when helping students understand tasks, doing whatever it takes, i.e. explaining the problem more than once, writing out instructions, providing feedback, checking for understanding and more.

As teachers implement equitable practice, it helps enhance student achievement. In addition, when students are convinced that they can achieve, it motivates their academic success. Studies have shown that as students’ ability self-concept showed a high relative importance above and beyond intelligence, with few exceptions, each of the remaining motivation constructs explained less than 5% of the variance in students’ academic achievement in the full model including intelligence measures. This also led the reality that students’ ability self-concept turned out to be the most important motivational predictor of students’ grades above and beyond differences in their intelligence and prior grades, even when all predictors were assessed domain-specifically, and that there is strong evidence that believing in own competencies is advantageous with respect to academic achievement.

Student Motivation and Test Performance

When students feel motivated, it helps enhance their performance on standardized tests. One consistent finding from these studies is that motivation is correlated with test performance. For instance, O’Neil, Sugrue, and Baker (1995/1996) found that student effort was significantly correlated with grade 8 and 12 Math performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (.24 and .22, respectively).

Also, the financial incentives group reported significantly higher levels of effort than the other groups.

Here are some pointers to keep in mind as you cultivate Equity in your classroom and throughout your school.

1.   Encourage peer-to-peer motivation – Allow student collaboration on rubric based projects so students can scaffold each other through success

2.   Encourage Positive Self-Talk- As students focus on positive messages that they tell themselves; they will have a positive self-fulfilling prophecy. They will truly succeed.

3.   Highlight diverse points of view – If students find multiple ways to solve a problem, explain and celebrate each way, making sure students understand that it is acceptable to approach the math in various ways.

Conclusion

Student motivation is imperative for academic achievement in the classroom. However, this motivation is cultivated by teacher encouragement, and self-belief in the individual student that they are competent enough to achieve success in tasks assigned to them. Hence, as teachers continue equitable instruction through encouraging peer-to-peer motivation, highlighting diverse points of view and encouraging positive self-talk, students will continue to believe in themselves and succeed in the classroom. I wish you the ultimate success as you continue to cultivate motivation and academic achievement of each student in your classroom.