Enhanced Motivation Among Students: Consuming Simplified Mathematical Problems May Bolster Pupil Inspiration
In a groundbreaking study published in 2024, David Miele, program director of Applied Developmental & Educational Psychology at Boston College, and his colleagues, including Bridgid Finn, investigated the remembered success effect in children. The study involved 570 third- and sixth-graders, aiming to understand how recalling past successes can boost motivation for tackling challenging tasks.
The study followed an innovative approach. Students were given an assessment containing 10 difficult math problems, with some students also receiving additional easier questions. Interestingly, the task with the additional easier questions took longer to complete, but students didn't perceive it as such.
The remembered success effect, as Miele refers to it, capitalises on memory's role in motivation and self-efficacy. By encouraging students to actively recall and reflect on previous achievements before engaging with difficult material, teachers can enhance students' confidence to persist without compromising academic rigor.
Miele's key strategies for leveraging this effect include:
- Encourage active recall of previous successes: Before starting a difficult task, have students deliberately retrieve memories of past successful experiences related to similar challenges. This retrieval strengthens confidence and perceived competence, which increases motivation to try harder tasks.
- Frame success around mastery and accuracy: Make clear that success involves correctly understanding or solving problems, rather than merely completing them. Studies show motivation and accuracy improve when success is defined as correct completion rather than just finishing tasks.
- Use specific, memorable positive feedback and messages: Memorable positive messages from teachers, praising past achievements and effort, can reinforce motivation and improve future performance without lowering standards.
- Integrate active recall techniques: Apply active recall methods such as self-quizzing or explaining prior successes, which are shown to strengthen memory and build connections between prior knowledge and new tasks. This keeps rigor high since students engage cognitively rather than rely on passive review.
- Balance challenge and support: Present tasks that are challenging but achievable with effort, emphasizing growth through effort and strategy. This maintains academic rigor while leveraging motivation from remembered success.
Miele is currently working on further studies to fine-tune how teachers can best use the remembered success effect. He advises teachers to be mindful of potential fatigue effects when planning follow-up activities or multiple activities. The remembered success effect is most effective when easier questions are placed at the beginning or end of the assignment.
Research has shown that as school tasks become more difficult, student motivation can decrease due to encounters with failure. However, providing opportunities for success, such as easier math questions, can counteract this decrease in motivation. This research offers simple ways teachers can motivate student activity without decreasing academic rigor, with implications for how teachers can motivate students through difficult tasks without watering them down.
- Teachers can enhance students' motivation for tackling challenging tasks by encouraging active recall of previous successes, as suggested by David Miele in his study on the remembered success effect.
- By integrating active recall techniques such as self-quizzing or explaining prior successes, teachers can strengthen memory and build connections between past achievements and new learning, thereby maintaining academic rigor.
- In Miele's study, the use of intermediate easier questions was found to have a positive effect on motivation, despite taking longer to complete, suggesting that a balanced approach of challenge and support can be beneficial in education-and-self-development.
- The remembered success effect may hold the potential for increasing student engagement in difficult subjects like math, as it offers a way to motivate students through success without compromising academic standards.
