Sensitive Periods and Motivation: towards an educational theory of motivation

Education lacks any useful theory of motivation; it even lacks a sense of what an educationally useful theory of motivation might look like. At present, theories of motivation are borrowed from Psychology, and ineffectual attempts are made to extrapolate from these to the phenomena of immediate interest to Education. For example, ideas about 'need reduction' or 'extinction of orienting reflexes' are examined, and some tenuous connections are spun towards the behaviour of groups of children sitting in classrooms. The practical results of this kind of activity are recommendations about teacher behaviours which are truisms to anyone with half a grain of common sense. A common conclusion of this kind of activity in Educational Psychology texts is that 'more research is needed.' I want to suggest here that what Education more urgently needs is not more research based on psychological theories but an educational theory upon which educationally productive research may be based. We need a theory of motivation that is drawn from and relates back to the kinds of behaviours that are of direct concern to educators.