Evaluating Research on Motivation: Generating More Heat Than Light?

This paper evaluates the usefulness for teachers of research in motivation. It outlines developments in motivational theory and highlights a widespread misconception of motivation as a unitary concept. Critical issues such as the developmental roots of motivation, the age at which motivation becomes important, the impact of curriculum and pedagogic processes upon motivation and the role of schools and teachers in developing effective and continued motivation to learn in their pupils are examined. On a conceptual level, motivation seems to be generating more heat than light. This paper calls for approaches to the study of motivation which tap the phenomenology of the construct.