You Can Do It! Using Metacognitive Strategies to Support Student Motivation

Understanding student motivation is a complex challenge. Factors such as mindset, personal values, anticipated outcomes, environment, and external expectations all impact motivation—which, in turn, impacts learning. While we cannot control many of these intersecting factors, faculty are uniquely positioned to help students develop and strengthen academic motivation. In Teach Students How to Learn, Saundra McGuire offers several insights into how we might accomplish this task:  

Express Belief  

Student motivation correlates with self-efficacy—belief in the ability to successfully accomplish a task or goal. Offering encouraging words or sharing success stories from students who have done well in the class can help bolster motivation, especially for learners who question their ability to succeed. You can set the tone on the first day of class with a metacognitive icebreaker, asking questions like: 

• What is something you are good at? How did you get good? Can you apply some of those strategies to this course?
• What qualities do you think a student would need to be successful in this course? How can you develop/strengthen those qualities?
•  What’s your plan for achieving success in this course? What trusted strategies do you plan to use? What will you do if your old strategies are not working? How would you go about modifying them? What new strategies might you need to develop?

Promote Autonomy

When students have choices, their intrinsic motivation grows. Do you give students autonomy in your classroom?  Can they select topics for papers, projects, or discussions? Or perhaps choose the format of a project, deciding between an essay, a podcast, or video? You can also promote autonomy by encouraging students to articulate, track, and reflect on daily/weekly/monthly learning goals. Goal-setting activities do double pedagogical duty by developing metacognitive awareness while boosting academic motivation.  

Enhance Competence

Students are more likely to be motivated if they experience early success in a course. To enhance student competence, faculty can:  

• Provide early opportunities for success by offering manageable, low-stakes assignments early in the term.   
• Test early and often, so that students have lots of data and feedback. (You don’t have to grade every low-stakes assessment—feedback is more important than grades for ongoing practice!) It is also helpful to provide detailed rubrics, grading schemas, and exemplars. These tools help students to gauge their level of competence and assess the task before them—a critical step in their metacognitive process.  
• Offer opportunities for reflection, including reflection on how students used previous feedback to adjust their approach to subsequent tasks.  
• After an early test, devote class time to explicitly discussing metacognition and learning strategies, so that students can adjust the way they learn. Bonus tip – invite your partners in the Center for Learning and Academic Success Services (CLASS) to come to class and take part in this discussion, so students become familiar with academic support services on campus!   

Articulate Value

At times, students struggle to maintain their motivation because they lose sight of the value of what they are working toward. How can you help students see the value of the hard work they are putting into your class? Your enthusiasm for the subject certainly helps—as do authentic assignments and testimonials. Finally, you can ask students to articulate the value of your class themselves, by connecting studied material to real-life applications (co-ops, professional experiences, community engagement) as well as their personal values.