"Motivation consists of the amount of effort a person is willing to exert in pursuit of a goal; hence, motivation has magnitude and direction. Consequently, motivational design is concerned with connecting instruction to the goals of learners, providing stimulation and appropriate levels of challenge, and influencing how the learners will feel following successful goal accomplishment, or even following failure"(Keller, 2006).
An effective instructor must not only gain a learner's attention but hold it throughout a course or lesson. John Keller synthesized existing research on psychological motivation and created the ARCS model (Keller, 1987). ARCS stands for Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction.
The ARCS motivational design process is a systematic problem solving approach that requires knowledge of human motivation and progresses from learner analysis to solution design. More specifically, the process includes:
- Knowing and identifying the elements of human motivation,
- Analyzing audience characteristics to determine motivational requirements,
- Identifying characteristics of instructional materials and processes that stimulate motivation,
- Selecting appropriate motivational tactics, and
- Applying and evaluating appropriate tactics.
Keller's ARCS Model
Attention
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- Incongruity and Conflict: Use contradictions, play "devil’s advocate"
- Concreteness: Use visual representations, anecdotes and biographies
- Variability: Change—tone of voice, movements, instructional format, media, layout & design of instructional material, and interaction patterns
- Humor: Use puns, humorous analogies & anecdotes, and jokes (w/moderation)
- Inquiry: Use problem-solving activities and constructive practices
- Participation: Use games, simulations, role-playing, etc.
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Relevance
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- Experience:
- Tell learners how new learning will use existing skills
- Use analogies to relate current learning to prior experience
- Relate to learner interests
- Present Worth: Explicitly state the current value of instruction
- Future Usefulness: Relate instruction to future goals (have students participate in this)
- Need Matching: Give students the opportunity to achieve, exercising responsibility, authority, and influence
- Modeling: Use enthusiasm, peer-modeling, etc.
- Choice: (student choice)
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Confidence
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- Learning Requirements: Advise students of requirements (goals & objectives).
- Difficulty: Sequence activities in increasing difficulty w/continual but reasonable challenge.
- Expectations: Use metacognition to forecast outcomes based upon effort; set realistic goals.
- Attributions: Encourage students to internalize locus of control by attributing success to themselves
- Self-Confidence: Foster using confidence strategies
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Satisfaction
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- Natural Consequences: Allow students to use newly acquired skills in realistic, successful settings
- Unexpected Rewards: Include student expectation of extrinsic reward (for boring tasks) or use a surprise reward
- Positive Outcomes: Provide feedback—praise, personal attention, motivation—immediately
- Avoidance of Negative Influences: Don’t use threats, surveillance practices and total external evaluation
- Scheduling: Repeat reinforcement at fluctuating, non-predictable intervals
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