At Motivate Lab, we've dedicated ourselves to learning what motivates students and helping educators leverage that knowledge to improve student success. Our research suggests three fundamental questions need to be addressed for students to be optimally motivated.  While these three questions can be used to understand motivation in any educational context, specific tips on how to improve motivation may vary by educational context (e.g., teaching online vs. face-to-face).

So below, in response to the rapid shift to online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we've created a list of tips to address each of the three fundamental questions when teaching online.

Three Fundamental Questions of Student Motivation

Please click on the questions below to learn more about how you can support the motivation of online learners.

Do your students believe that they can do the task?

Do your students want to do the task?

do your students have barriers preventing them from doing the task? (COMING soon)

An important message about equity

The unanticipated disruption to regular learning brought on by the pandemic disproportionally impacts low-income students and students from traditionally marginalized backgrounds, including Black and LatinX students (Kuhfeld et al., 2020). Furthermore, even in the best of times, online learning environments have been shown to increase opportunity gaps for low-income and underrepresented minority students (Figlio, Rush, & Yin, 2013; Protopsaltis & Baum, 2019). Therefore, it is now more imperative than ever that instructors consider consider how to design their learning experiences to support student motivation. The guidance above is intended to help instructors in these efforts.