Intrinsic Motivation: An Overlooked Component for Student Success

Intrinsic motivation to learn involves engaging in learning opportunities because they are seen as enjoyable, interesting, or relevant to meeting one's core psychological needs. As a result, intrinsic motivation is associated with high levels of effort and task performance. Students with greate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Advances in physiology education 2016-12, Vol.40 (4), p.465-466
Main Authors: Augustyniak, Robert A, Ables, Adrienne Z, Guilford, Philip, Lujan, Heidi L, Cortright, Ronald N, DiCarlo, Stephen E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
College students
Correlation
Creativity
Curricula
Educational Measurement - methods
Female
High Achievement
Humans
Learning
Learning Motivation
Male
Medical Education
Medical Students
Memory
Motivation
Physiology
Pleasure
Psychological tests
Reliability
Student Interests
Student Motivation
Students, Medical - psychology
Surveys
Surveys and Questionnaires
Validity
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Items that cite this one
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Summary:Intrinsic motivation to learn involves engaging in learning opportunities because they are seen as enjoyable, interesting, or relevant to meeting one's core psychological needs. As a result, intrinsic motivation is associated with high levels of effort and task performance. Students with greater levels of intrinsic motivation demonstrate strong conceptual learning, improved memory, and high overall achievement in school. Because intrinsic motivation has such a positive impact on school performance, administration of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI), a survey that assesses levels of intrinsic motivation, followed the traditional course in renal physiology taken by second-year medical students. The tool assessed students' interest and enjoyment, perceived competence, perceived choice, and relatedness while performing a specific activity. There is strong support for use of this assessment tool to evaluate an individual's intrinsic motivation in terms of both the validity and reliability, and educators are profoundly interested in how to motivate individuals they educate to mobilize their efforts and persist at tasks inside and outside the classroom. Although students are often moved by external rewards such as grades or evaluations, students are motivated mainly from within by interests and curiosity. These intrinsic motivations can sustain passions, creativity, and efforts toward learning.
ISSN:1043-4046
1522-1229
DOI:10.1152/advan.00072.2016