Understanding the case #3

Over the last few interactions with Rishi, my understanding of his intrinsic motivation has evolved. I have found that that he has begun to identify with the objectives of this project for him. He values the objectives as he believes they will help him in his life and career. So when the college recently organized personality development sessions for all students, he was very keen on them and he says that he participated in them enthusiastically. Somewhere this shows a conscious valuing of the activity that is being conducted as being beneficial for the goal that he has set for himself. This shows that he has reached the level of identification where he understands that the objective that he has set for himself has a utility value for him and he is willing to put in the effort to try and achieve that. This shows that he is moving from an extrinsic motivation for being a part of this project towards a more intrinsic motivation.

Anand meanwhile seems to be disinterested in the personality development program being offered and is not so enthusiastic. At this stage he seems to think that this project and activities like the personality development program may be irrelevant for him. This could also partially be because he is facing exams in the last week and that has led to an increased cognitive load because of which he is unable or unwilling to look at any other activities with any interest. The use of the app duolingo for English learning has also been limited for him and he hasn’t gone beyond the initial trial phase. I sometimes get the feeling that he perceives these tasks as being extremely challenging. There seems to be a resignation to not try some of these things which might be coming out of an inferior self-concept. I see it as a failure on my part that I may have not been able to provide an optimal challenge that could actually help him to enhance his own perceived competence. Here, by imposing some activities on him simply because that was what his friend was also doing, and not letting him choose, I may have not used control well as a source of intrinsic motivation.

Divya is doing her best to try and grapple with her technology learning issues as far as creating a blog is concerned. She is seeking help and working towards finding ways to solve her problems. I think a major part of her motivation to develop her skills as a poet and to express it in a public online medium has to do with self-determination theory. She has shown development of capacity beliefs in realizing that she is now capable of creating a blog on her own.  This is how she sees herself but this is not how everyone sees her. She is aware that perhaps, most people are not even aware that this is what she is passionate across. She sees herself as a poet who says and expresses things well and is independent and that is her biggest motivation.