This week’s required readings got us off to a roaring start
by plunging us headfirst into the work of John M. Keller, a noted motivational
designer and theorist. While some of the
other readings focused more on a psychological view of motivation by detailing
information on the multitude of relevant theories, other articles focused on
the instructional designer’s perspective by marrying motivation theory to
instructional design and related outputs.
The latter is where Keller’s work became the “star of the show.”
Keller’s macro theory on motivation, performance and
instructional influence takes a holistic approach to defining multiple
variables that effect learning and performance.
His theory includes “person inputs” and “environmental inputs” that
create outputs of effort and performance followed by consequences that circle back into feeding
new inputs. The readings provide some detail on how many theories support the
“person inputs.” Keller explains that the
notion of expectancy is supported by
research on many ideas of locus of control, attributions, self-efficacy, success
vs. failure, and learned helplessness to name a few. Keller’s theory is robust and comprehensive
in its inclusive nature. It also
represents a continuous process as consequences contribute to the next
learning. Depending on the
circumstances, this could contribute to either self-fulfilling prophecy or
continuous improvement.
However, Keller takes his theory to another level by adding
another contribution to the field of instructional design. His corresponding
motivation design model, articulated more fully as the ARCS (i.e., categorized
by attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction) Model, provides an
approachable, useable tool for new and veteran instructional designers alike to
create or improve, respectively, their instructional products. The additional
articles outline not only specific instructional strategies that support each
category within the model, but self-help questions the designer can use as a
check for success. Personally, I thought
the approachability of the model was either the mark of genius or the work of
someone devoted to a lifetime of research.
However, Ruth Small challenged my perhaps overly enthusiastic view of
Keller’s work by outlining others who have provided additional insight into
this area including Dodge, Brophy, Kuhlthau, and Burdick.
The final required reading about Abraham Maslow provided me
with some new insight on self-actualization.
Some of the B-needs (i.e., being needs) seemed to correlate with
Keller’s “people inputs” and were perhaps foundations for Keller’s value category. Although alluded to in our first Keller
reading, Maslow’s contribution to Keller’s work was just brushed on. Having studied Maslow’s work previously, I
was unclear how it led to Keller’s work, but the discussion on B-needs filled
in the blanks. The discussion and
criticism that ended the article was interesting in terms of challenging
Maslow’s basic premise that lower needs in his pyramid needed to be satisfied
before higher level needs motivate.
Examples of starving artists and victims of war in Victor Fankl’s work
seemed to debunk my previous notions of the hierarchy of needs. But, again, as Keller mentioned in our first
reading, Motivational Design of Instruction, we are dealing here with difficult
stuff to measure.
From these readings, so far I feel like a journeyman in the
later days of my apprenticeship to become a professional instructional
designer. This time, I am working under the master craftsman, John M. Keller to
ingest his vast wisdom on answering the question, “what are the keys to motivating
individuals to learn, and how does an instructional designer operationalize
those keys in the design process?” With
several of the IDDE courses behind me, the information and concepts I am
learning are building on one and other, and the satisfaction is increasing with
every course I take. Perhaps I am
actually experiencing the relevance, confidence, and satisfaction that Keller
has so aptly described.
