Motivation; feedback/ reinforcement

During class (Basic course) I also observed episodes affected by a negative attitude, but they were clearly in the minority (Observation: A1, B1). In the technical courses I asked the facilitators if they had similar negative attitudes among their learners, and all of them claimed it was a positive learning atmosphere in their class, where learners easily followed instructions (Questionnaire: FA).

person must have some incentives (motivation) that s/he envisions, and that these incentives act as reinforcement.

Facilitator’s motivation I have observed a facilitator who repeated a topic or a calculation over and over again. She spent a lot of time going through earlier explained material by using different learning methods. Still, learners often failed their work when asked to

perform a task⁶. This is an episode from a class which demonstrates how dedicated a

facilitator has to be to accomplish a Basic course at this level (Observation: A3):

A new test is coming up, and this time it is English. Before they start the facilitator hands out a picture and explains to them how and what to do. Underneath the picture there are different words, and they are supposed to circle the word that corresponds to the picture.

A situation from the classroom

“Everybody understand”?

“Yes miss”.

She repeats to them three times. After 10-15 minutes the facilitator

observes a learner (L5) who is circling the picture instead of the word. She stops the test to explain once more and this time she uses the board to

visualize it.

“Have you all understood what to do?”

“Yes miss”.

“L5, can you explain to me what to do?”

“And she does“.

This example expresses a calm and patient facilitator with a desire to see her students correctly complete the task. I asked her about this and similar episodes during class, because I believed this would tell me something about her motivation.

She said it was a challenge now and then, but she liked being a teacher.

“It gives me a sense of satisfaction that I can help somebody, give back some of what I have been given...it is just to know that I came up to the system and I was fortunate to go through and then I can give back the little I know to those who are less fortunate” (Interview: FA1).

6 This example is only meant to illustrate the facilitators’ patience and dedication. Relevant factors as basis knowledge, language, hearing and sight, etc. are not the scope her.

I followed up the question and asked her and the other facilitators at the technical courses if they felt enriched by teaching, and they all replied yes (Interview: FA1, Questionnaire: L).

In my interview with the adult education officer at NELP, he confirmed that most of the facilitators at the unit did not become a facilitator because of the money or the prestige. Instead they had a commitment and an interest in teaching and in the community as a whole (Interview: AEO). In view of the two parts of motivation, we can see that the facilitators express an intrinsic motivation where satisfaction, enrichment, commitment, and interest in teaching and the community are the most important. Their motivation has its origin in personal growth and development (Rogers 1983), esteem and self-actualisation (Maslow's hierarchy of needs).

Learner’s motivation

Most of the learners at the Basic course are eager to learn. They really try to focus and concentrate, but often they do not manage to do so and they fail to understand.

They are dropouts, leftovers and elderly people with bad eyesight and hearing that make learning difficult and unpleasant, while sitting on a chair for hours. But still, they do not give up. What makes them continue?

During my interviews with the learners I tried to grasp their motivations to sign up for this course. Most of them were strong and clear about their reasons, while some were vague and not sure. The learners who expressed a strong reason were those who were job-motivated or read-a-book motivated (Interview: L1-L4). The ones

(Interview: L5) who were vaguer expressed a humanitarian concern (care-motivated).

What they all had in common was their wish to take a step in a new direction where personal growth and development would put them in a better position in the future (Rogers 1983). There was especially one learner who was very conscious about developing himself. He told me the reason to sign up for this course was: “to open up my brain a little more” (Interview: L3). I also asked the learners if they were interested in continuing on in school after this course, and they all smiled and said they wanted to go to the next level or take another course (Interview: L1-5).

Below I will present two episodes (“dancing” and “flash of insight”) that gave me the possibility to see how authentic emotions in ”a learning situation” can be a catalyst for motivation to a learner:

“Dancing”

“He turns around and gives us a great smiling face. He has done it right and he will not let go of the moment. So, he starts to dance in front of the class and say aloud to everybody: It is no problem! We all start to laugh.

He has obviously done his homework this time, because he has never volunteered, or done it right before” (Observation: A2).

“Flash of insight”

“One of the learners tries and tries, but she does not manage…after a while another facilitator enters the room and sits beside her all the time.

She explains the steps one more time in Kwéyól and they practice

together. Suddenly she manages, and her toothless smile and rubber face explodes in happiness, while her books and pencil flies in the air. From this point she does all the calculations and has hardly any mistakes”

(Observation: A2).

Not only is this an example of what motivates a learner, it is also a god example of Kohler’s (1925) theory “A flash of insight”.

Feedback/ reinforcement

I discussed in chapter two how especially the behaviourist made use of feedback (response) and reinforcement to explain learning. Feedback is information given back to a learner as a response, while reinforcement affects the tendency of a response to happen again.

Feedback can be positive (praise), negative (critique) or neutral (no information).

Reinforcement is either positive (you add a stimulus) or negative (you remove a stimulus). Feedback is almost always considered external while reinforcement can be external or intrinsic (Skinner 1971, Pavlov 1927, Hull 1943 and Thorndike 1928).

What we know is that adult learners respond well to and need reinforcement. They prefer to know how their effort measures up when compared with the objectives of the instructional program. Positive feedback may be seen as the key to motivate adult learners and to help them through negative experiences.

When I asked the participants of the Basic course about feedback, none of the

learners understood what I was talking about. Only when I reformulated my question, some of them managed to understand what I meant. L1 told me that the facilitator gave him praising words and told him that he was good (Interview: L1). On the other hand, since the facilitator expressed herself with calling out: “Give me proper work!”

many of the learners did not receive the motivation they hoped for. At the Garment course I often observed the facilitator encouraging the learners with nice feedback as:

“You are good to sew, now I can have a new pair of trousers at Christmas”

she jokes (Observation: C1).