The teacher s job was to present the information and guide the students through the exercises. Those do not seem to work anymore. Both teachers and parents have to constantly come up with new strategies to ensure good academic performance of the students. It seems that they even have to resort to bribes sometimes. Perhaps part of the problem is the lack of understanding of what really motivates students.
Motivation is a difficult concept to define or explain.
Motivation is generally understood as what arouses and sustains a particular behaviour. However, it is agreed that, for school purposes at least, there are two types of motivation- the extrinsic motivation and the intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation usually derives from external rewards- prizes, grades, tokens and wanting to do better than others. This leads to students performing solely for these rewards or to avoid shame or embarrassment. Intrinsic motivation comes from within.