Motivation in educational neuroscience perspective: Applications and challenges
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National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Human motivation is important, as it is one’s intrinsic desire to learn and obtain information. This presentation attempts to draw on the motivation theories, together with contemporary ideas in neuroscience, and outlines the potential for neuroscientific research in education and its challenges. It will review some of the theoretical frameworks on motivation, such as growth mindset and intrinsic motivation, and how they are supported to neuroscientific evidence. Educational neuroscience research may impact teaching and learning, providing a better understanding of the neuroscientific interplay between students’ motivation and their subject or task learning. Neuroscience methods such as electroencephalography (EEG) could complement the existing behavioural methods of motivational regulation. For instance, dopamine is considered a key substrate of intrinsic motivation (Baik, 2013). Midbrain dopamine neurones transmit signals in response to rewarding and non-rewarding salient experiences (Bromberg-Martin, Matsumoto, & Hikosaka, 2010). As such, dopamine can be used as an indicator of learning experiences and behaviour. An enhanced activity within the dopaminergic value system would indicate intrinsic motivation when an individual engages in learning activities or tasks (i.e., involvement). Furthermore, increased dopamine levels in the striatum and prefrontal cortex are associated with positive affect and volitional action control (Rigoni, Demanet, & Sartori, 2015). Future educational neuroscience research could include classroom interventions such as decision-making in task learning or provision of motivational feedback, and investigate how it leads to the neuroscience of intrinsic motivation. It is thereby important to understand if the changes in our motivational regulation when undergoing the classroom interventions. Thus, it may be an avenue worth pursuing for educators who hope to make the best of their students with regard to their learning and personal growth. The bridge between neuroscience and education is highlighted in these two aspects: (i) understanding the brain structures that are responsible for educational processes like reading, attention or memory, and (ii) the way in which motivational processes affect the learner’s brain structure and function. The research in educational neuroscience has potential advantages to learning disabilities or difficulties. For instance, neuroscience findings suggest that there are connections between the striatum and the prefrontal cortex in determining the learning outcome; decreased activation of the striatum and midbrain when the subjects do not understand the task value, as well as decreased activation of the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) when they are not motivated to show cognitive engagement with the task. As such, neuroscience has the potential link of the “science” of teaching and the “how”, that is, understanding the learning mechanism and why are the approaches effective. School teachers and leaders should be empowered to learn the “why” and how educational neuroscience could be an effective bridge in understanding the learners’ needs. At present, school teachers know the “how” to apply approaches because they are practitioners in the field of education. Understanding the neuroscience of learning definitely will help to make teaching and learning more effective and memorable. Schrodera et al. (2017) demonstrated the combined role of growth mindset and neural mechanisms of enhanced attention to mistakes (i.e., attending to and making sense of mistakes). Their neuro-behavioral findings suggest that growth mindset could impact the motivational processes following setbacks and mistakes as well as resilience in learning. In addition, neuroscience research has the potential to support and refine models of motivation and cognitive skills. Knowing the key brain regions that are associated with motivation, researchers and practitioners could work together to investigate the granular processes of motivation towards classroom learning. It may also play a pivotal role in developing classroom interventions and understanding emotional regulation skills, supporting existing research or revealing new research findings that could further develop the basis of empirical findings related to education. There are challenges in designing neuropsychological studies as they require interdisciplinary effort and team. Integrating neuroscience methods into behavioural and educational research, we have to collaborate across multi-disciplines, in particular the neurocognitive scientists, educational researchers and educators. Next, neuroscience methods are expensive to apply in educational settings. Unless there are government agencies who advocate for such research, educationally relevant neuroscience proposals might not be awarded grant funding.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my special thanks to Gloria Ho for her gracious support and feedback.
References
References
Baik, J. H. (2013). Dopamine signaling in reward-related behaviors. Frontiers in neural circuits, 7, 152.
Bromberg-Martin, E. S., Matsumoto, M., & Hikosaka, O. (2010). Dopamine in motivational control: rewarding, aversive, and alerting. Neuron, 68(5), 815-834.
Rigoni, D., Demanet, J., & Sartori, G. (2015). Happiness in action: The impact of positive affect on the time of the conscious intention to act. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1307.
Schrodera, H. S., Fishera, M. E., Lina, Y., Loa, S. L., Danovitchb, J. H., Moser, J. S. (2017). Neural evidence for enhanced attention to mistakes among school-aged children with a growth mindset.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 24, 42-50.
Keywords:
Motivation,
growth mindset,
neuroscience methods,
intervention,
cognitive
Conference:
4th International Conference on Educational Neuroscience, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 10 Mar - 11 Mar, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation (invited speakers only)
Topic:
Educational Neuroscience
Citation:
Ng
B
(2019). Motivation in educational neuroscience perspective: Applications and challenges.
Conference Abstract:
4th International Conference on Educational Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.229.00005
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Received:
10 Feb 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Betsy Ng, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore, betsy.ng@nie.edu.sg