What can you learn when you reach out to 66,000 students to find out what motivates them?

For one, students who have a sense of purpose are 18 times as likely to be motivated to do their schoolwork as those who do not. Students who find their schoolwork engaging are 16 times as likely to be academically motivated as those who do not.

Russ Quaglia and the Qisa institute’s 2014 study on student voice analyzed student responses about Self Worth, Engagement, Purpose, Teacher Support, and Peer Support and cross-referenced the responses against Academic Motivation.

Below is a chart showing the increased likelihood of academic motivation based on students who feel they have the specific attribute. Thus, students who feel they have teacher support are 8 times as likely to be motivated to do their schoolwork than students who do not.

A second measurement determined the percent of students who did not have a particular attribute, shown in the table below:

Thus, more than half of all students reported that they had little peer support for studying.

Thus, if a teacher wanted to increase the motivations of the most students, she would find interventions that would encourage students to support each other in studying.

Or, if a teacher wanted to have the greatest effect on specific students, she might help those students who needed it (about 15% of the students) find a purpose.

What are the interventions that have the largest effect?

While there may not be one right answer, it’s something that is worth discussing.