Instructor Clarity and Student Motivation: Academic Performance as A Product of Students’ Ability and Motivation to Process Instructional Material

This study tested the notion that the effect of instructor clarity on learning is conditioned upon students’ motivation. We randomly assigned 128 participants to a video of a clear or an unclear lecture and asked them to report their motivation to deeply process lecture material. Results indicated that even with clear instruction, test scores were not increased when students’ motivation to process was low. However, when students’ motivation to process was high, motivation interacted with instructor clarity to increase test scores. Under conditions of high clarity, participants who were highly motivated to think deeply about the lecture scored 71% compared with their less motivated counterparts who scored 49%—the academic difference between a passing and a failing grade.