attitudes
Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the teacher’s role in relation to the affective outcomes of learning: the feelings and emotions attached to learning in general and learning science in particular. Attitudes, meaning readiness or willingness to act in a certain way in particular circumstances, fall into this category. In Chapter 6 (Box 6.4) we identified two attitudes that seem to be particularly important in learning science. They are not, however, the only relevant attitudes, since attitudes that influence learning in general also need to be taken into account. Moreover, the extent to which children are motivated to learn will have an overarching influence on all learning. In this chapter we consider how children’s learning can be motivated and how positive attitudes that help learning can be fostered. We begin by looking at the broad context of motivation, then suggest some general strategies for developing positive attitudes that help learning in general and finally some specific actions for developing scientific attitudes.
Encouraging motivation for learning
One of the key aspects of a teacher’s role is to encourage motivation for learning;
since positive attitudes are encouraged within an ethos that promotes motivation.
But all behaviour and learning is motivated in some way so it is necessary to distinguish different kinds of motivation. The idea of motivating learning through rewards and punishments is the basis for the approach to learning known as ‘behaviourism’ (Skinner 1974). The underlying theory is that behaviours that are regularly rewarded will be reinforced and those that are repeatedly punished will disappear. However, this is completely contrary to the view of learning as being constructed through the mental activity of learners, linking new and previous experience, as we have attempted to convey it in this book. We do not find support for motivating learning with understanding by rewards and punishment, so we have to conceive of motivation in different ways.
Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
The two main kinds of motivation for learning identified by psychologists are intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Some (e.g. McMeniman 1989) also add achievement motivation to these, but it is generally agreed that the chief distinctions to be made are between intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation means that someone engages in an activity because of the satisfaction that is derived from doing it. When there is extrinsic motivation the satisfaction comes from a result that has little to do with the activity: a new bicycle for passing an examination or an ice cream for finishing homework. Some main characteristics of extrinsically and intrinsically motivated learners are given in Box 11.1. From this we can see that intrinsic motivation in clearly desirable, since it leads to self-motivated and sustained learning. It is particularly relevant to learning to make sense of things and not being satisfied until they are understood.
Box 11.1 Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for learning
Learners who are intrinsically motivated:
■ find interest and satisfaction in what they learn and in the learning process;
■ are ‘motivated from within’ and do not need external incentives to engage with learning;
■ recognise their own role in the learning and so take responsibility for it;
■ seek out information, identify their learning goals and persevere;
■ know that what they achieve depends on their effort.
Learners who are extrinsically motivated:
■ engage in learning mainly because of external incentives such as gold stars and high marks;
■ may cease to learn, or at least decrease effort, in the absence of these external factors, learning only what is closely related to the behaviour that is rewarded;
■ put effort into learning the things not because they have value for developing understanding, but in order to gain praise, reward or privilege.
An important part of the emotional context of learning is how children see themselves as learners and how they attribute their success or failure. Those who attribute their successes to their ability and hard work recognise that their learning is within their own control. When they are challenged by difficulty they try hard and when they fail they consider that they could succeed if they try hard enough. So failure does not damage their self-esteem. The reverse is the case for those who attribute their success to circumstances outside themselves, to chance, Helping the development of attitudes 111
to luck or to their teachers. For these learners, experience of failure leads to loss of confidence, for they do not feel they are in control of whether they succeed or fail. Such learners try to protect their self-esteem by avoiding the risk of failure through selecting tasks well within their grasp.
Encouraging intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation is implicit in positive attitudes towards learning. But how is it to be encouraged? Experience from a range of studies of learning across the curriculum suggests that there are things that a teacher can do and things to avoid in creating the climate to foster intrinsic motivation.
Positive action This includes:
■ Providing some choice of activities. This does not mean a free choice to do anything but a choice from among carefully devised alternatives, all seen by the children as having some relevance to them. The act of choosing gives the children some ownership of the activity and transfers some responsibility to them to undertake it seriously and complete it to the best of their ability.
■ Involving children in identifying some reasonable objectives for the activity and some ways of achieving these objectives.
■ Helping them to assess their own progress, using approaches such as the ones suggested in Chapter 17.
■ Setting up activities in a way that requires genuine collaboration in pairs or small groups, so that the effort of all those involved matters and all are obliged to pull their weight.
■ Showing confidence that children will do well; having high expectations.
■ Encouraging pride in having tried and made a good effort.
This sets up a ‘virtuous’ circle, where children try harder and as result succeed, which raises their self-esteem. By the same reasoning, it is important to avoid the vicious circle or self-fulfilling prophecy whereby children see themselves as failing even before they begin a task and therefore make little effort, leading to failure that confirms their judgement of themselves. Again, we can identify actions that should be avoided.
Things to avoid These include:
■ Labelling children either as groups or as individuals. This can happen con-sciously, as when children are streamed or grouped by ability and are referred
to by a label, or unconsciously. It is difficult to imagine that being labelled ‘the B stream’, reinforced by the uniformly low level of work expected, does not transfer to the children’s self-image. Children are acutely sensitive to being treated in different ways and are not deceived by being described as the ‘green’
group when this means that they are the ‘slow’ ones.
■ Making comparisons between children. This encourages competition and detracts from each child working towards his or her own objectives.
Caring for children’s feelings about their work
Children have well-formed views about the work they are given, about their teacher and those around them. For example, many children, like eight-year-old Christopher, find school ‘boring’:
When the book says ‘write the answer’, I have to write the whole sum because Mrs X says it will help my writing . . . but it takes so long.
It’s so boring going over things on the board until all the class knows it. She just goes on and on.
When you write a word and you know it’s wrong, you cross it out and try again. Then you have to copy it out because it’s messy. You have to copy out all the work, not just the bit where you made a mistake.
They are also sensitive to remarks about their work which seem to be public ridicule. ‘When she sees a bit of my writing, she says “Look at that i. It’s not like an i, it’s like a funny little man.” She tells all the class and they laugh.’
So, given that children do have clear ideas about their work, one important thing that a teacher can do is to find out what these are. Just showing interest in how the children feel about their work is in itself significant in signalling the importance the teacher attaches to providing work that children will put effort into.
Christopher’s remarks were made to a sympathetic outsider to the school and it may be difficult for the teacher to obtain such frank statements in discussion with an individual, although this may be possible in some cases. The idea of a regular
‘review’ involving children in discussions with teachers about their work, proposed as part of some schemes of records of achievement at the secondary level, has been suggested at the primary level (Conner 1991).
Interest in children’s feelings and views on their learning has to be sincere.
Children are not taken in by the superficial interest of their teacher, for it will be betrayed by manner and tone of voice as well as by whether anything happens as a result. A genuine interest creates an atmosphere in which children’s own ideas are encouraged and taken as a starting point, where effort is praised rather than only achievement, where value is attached to each child’s endeavours. In this atmosphere, a child who does not achieve as well as others will not be ridiculed.
The range of activities available makes allowances for differences in the ability of Helping the development of attitudes 113
children and the teacher’s interest and approach results in the involvement of children in their work and their own learning.
General approaches to the development of attitudes Attitudes and learning
Attitudes show not in what children can do or know but in their willingness to use their knowledge or skills where appropriate. They are outcomes of learning that result from a range of experiences across which there is some pattern. For instance, an attitude of willingness to take account of evidence does not result from a single activity or even several activities around a topic. Instead it may result from extended experience in which the value of using evidence has been clear or from the example over a period of time of someone who showed this attitude in their behaviour. In other words, attitudes are picked up from across a range of experience; they are ‘caught’ rather than ‘taught’, particularly from influential adults. Thus showing an example of the behaviour is a key action that teachers can take. Others are providing opportunities for children to make the choices that enable them to develop attitudes, reinforcing positive attitudes and discussing attitude-related behaviour.
Showing an example
Given that attitudes are ‘caught’, showing an example is probably the most important of the positive things that teachers can do. For a teacher to make a point of revealing that his or her own ideas have changed, for instance, can have a significant impact on children’s willingness to change their ideas. ‘I used to think that trees died after dropping their leaves, until . . . ’, ‘I didn’t realise that there were different kinds of woodlice’, ‘I thought that it was easier to float in deep water than in shallow water but the investigations showed that it didn’t make any difference.’
The old adage that ‘actions speak louder than words’ means that such comments will not be convincing by themselves. It is important for teachers to show attitudes in what they do, not just what they say, by, for example:
■ showing interest in new things (which the children may have brought in) by giving them attention, if not immediately, then at some planned time later, and displaying them for others to see, if appropriate;
■ helping to find out about new or unusual things by searching books, the Internet or other information sources with the children;
■ being self-critical, admitting mistakes and taking steps to make amends.
In a classroom where useful ideas are pursued as they arise and activities extend beyond well-beaten tracks, there are bound to be opportunities for these teacher
behaviours to be displayed. Situations in which the teacher just doesn’t know, or that bring surprises or something completely new, should be looked upon not as problems, but as opportunities for transmitting attitudes through example.
Providing opportunity
Since attitudes show in willingness to act in certain ways, there have to be opportunities for children to have the choice of doing so. If their actions are closely controlled by rules or highly structured lesson procedures, then there is little opportunity to develop and show certain attitudes (except perhaps willingness to conform). Providing new and unusual objects in the classroom gives children the opportunity to show and satisfy – and so develop – curiosity.
Discussing activities while they are in progress or after they have been completed gives encouragement to reflect critically, but unless such occasions are provided, the attitudes cannot be fostered.
Reinforcing positive attitudes
Children pick up attitudes not only from examples but also from how others respond to their own behaviour. When children show indications of positive attitudes, it is important to reinforce these behaviours by approval of the behaviour. There is an important distinction here between praising the individual and reinforcing the behaviour. It is important not to adopt a behaviourist approach of giving general praise as a reward for behaving in a certain way, which can reinforce the behaviour without an understanding of why it is desirable. As in the case of feedback to children about their work (see Chapter 16), feedback about attitude-related behaviour should avoid judgement of the person.
For example, if critical reflection leads to children realising that they did not make fair comparisons in their experiment, the teacher’s reaction could be ‘well you should have thought of that before’ or, alternatively, ‘you’ve learned something important about this kind of investigation’. The latter is clearly more likely to encourage reflection and the admission of fault on future occasions. Moreover, if this approval is consistent it eventually becomes part of the classroom climate and children will begin to reinforce the attitudes for themselves and for each other. Those who have not developed positive attitudes will be able to recognise what these are from the approval given to others.
Discussing attitude-related behaviour
Attitudes can only be said to exist when they are aspects of a wide range of behaviour. In this regard they are highly abstract and intangible. Identifying them Helping the development of attitudes 115
involves a degree of abstract thinking, which makes them difficult to discuss, particularly with young children. However, as children become more mature they are more able to reflect on their own behaviour and motivations. It then becomes possible to discuss examples of attitudes in action and to help them to identify the way they affect behaviour explicitly. When some ten-year-olds read in a book that snails eat strawberries, they tested this out and came to the conclusion that
‘as far as our snails are concerned, the book is wrong’. Their teacher discussed with them how the author of the book might have come to a different conclusion from them and whether both the author and the children might gather more evidence before arriving at their conclusions. The children not only recognised that what was concluded depended on the attitudes to evidence but also that the conclusions were open to challenge from further evidence, thus developing their own ‘respect for evidence’.
Ways of developing scientific attitudes
The attitudes of science that we have identified are a subset of attitudes that apply to learning more widely (such as curiosity, perseverance, flexibility). The general points discussed above can readily be applied to the specifically scientific attitudes that we have identified, leading to the action suggested in Boxes 11.2 and 11.3.
Box 11.2 Developing willingness to consider evidence and change ideas
Actions that the teacher can take:
■ protect time for discussing and interpreting evidence, thus conveying how important this is;
■ pay attention to the evidence children gather and make sure that none is ignored, thus setting the expectation of taking note of evidence;
■ provide an example, by talking about how the teacher’s own ideas have been changed by evidence;
■ acknowledge when evidence does require a change of ideas (‘we need to think again about this’);
■ reinforce the importance of not rushing to conclusions with inadequate evidence by approval when children suggest that more evidence is needed before they can come to a conclusion.
Box 11.3 Developing sensitivity to living things and the environment
Actions that the teacher can take:
■ provide an example of responsibility for living things by checking on the health of animals and plants in the classroom, even if children have been assigned to look after them;
■ give opportunities for children to care for living things, temporarily brought into the classroom (but check on their welfare, as just suggested above);
■ discuss the care that should be taken when exploring the natural environment, such as replacing stones to preserve habitats;
■ show approval of thoughtful behaviour to living things;
■ ensure that living things taken into the classroom for study are replaced afterwards, where possible;
■ provide bins for recycling that are used by staff and children.
Summary
In this chapter we have considered how teachers can help the development of motivation towards learning and positive attitudes that promote learning in general and science learning in particular. The main points have been:
■ Attitudes are ways of describing a willingness or preference to behave in certain ways. They reflect ways in which people are motivated to learn.
■ Attitudes that help learning in science imply motivation that comes from interest and satisfaction in making sense of the world around; that is, intrinsic motivation.
■ Teachers can encourage this type of motivation by providing some choice in activities, leading to ownership, involving children in identifying and working towards clear goals and assessing their own progress, setting up situations for genuinely collaborative work and raising children’s expectations of themselves.
■ It is important that teachers show real interest in how children feel about their work and set up a supportive classroom atmosphere.
■ Attitudes in general and scientific attitudes in particular can be encouraged by showing examples in teachers’ own behaviour, ensuring opportunities for children to make decisions and form their own ideas, reinforcing relevant behaviours and discussing the value of behaviours that lead to self-motivated learning.
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