Individual Difference and Change Term Paper

Individual Difference

Critique on Regulation of Motivation:

Evaluating an Underemphasized Aspect of Self-Regulated Learning

In self-regulated learning, students combine the functions of motivation, cognitive strategies, and metacognition to support their way to make achievements. To achieve educational goals, self-regulated learners have the ability to recognize what they aim, what it takes to accomplish a goal, the process they need to go through, and the control of endurance in their whole efforts.

Besides those factors, regulation of motivation also plays an important role in self-regulated learning. Motivation is important to provide the foundation to start the learning and achieving process. Motivation can be viewed as "product" or "process" (Winne & Mark, 1989 in Wolters, 2003). Wolters states, as a product, motivation means "willingness to persist in a task." As a "process," students experience different levels of motivation from many causes and conditions. To be able to accomplish the goals, students need to maintain the motivation in high level, regain it when the motivation level drops, and rework it when it is necessary to switch from a certain angle of motivation to another one.

Wolters defines regulation of motivation as "activities through which individuals purposefully act to initiate, maintain, or supplement their willingness to start, to provide work toward, or to complete a particular activity or goal (i.e., their level of motivation)." In other words, regulation of motivation is the awareness of self-regulated learners to control and make adjustment to their type and level of motivation if necessary. Regulation of motivation deals with the cognitive strategies learners use to build their motivation, understand factors that affect their motivation, what turns their motivation down, what may excel it, what types of motivation work in synergy to support each other, and how they can continuously rekindle the motivation throughout the efforts they perform toward the academic goals.

Self-regulated learners have many options of cognitive strategies, and apply the appropriate ones when they have to deal with a lot of academic task models. In real life, educational counselors can introduce students to those cognitive strategies, let students choose the most appropriate ones they can apply to themselves and if essential, help the students invent new ones suitable for their personalities and circumstances. Counselors may set several goals for the students and explain how they can monitor their own learning process, as educators apply various lesson plans and assessment methods in class.

Wolter suggests that it is necessary to examine "thoughts or believes that can be categorized as knowledge of motivation, when this knowledge develops, and how this knowledge influences students' cognition and motivation."

Applying similar approach to introduce cognitive strategies, counselors can also introduce regulation of motivation to students. It is necessary that learners not only understand motivation as "product" but also understand it as "process." In this case, counselors can help learners to find out how learners need to go through the uneven movement of motivation, further to…