Study Motivation online - understand how to Motivate People

• Learn what motivates different people.

• Understand what represents rewards to people, as well as understanding the nature of negative motivators.

• Learn about setting expectations and goal setting.

• Complete your studies with a PBL (Problem Based Learning) applying what you have learned to a hypothetical (or real world) situation.
  
  

Course Structure and Lesson Content

This course contains eight lessons, as follows:

1. Introduction

   • How important is the study of motivation

   • What is motivation

   • Maslow's theory of motivation

   • Incentives

   • Internal or intrinsic incentives

   • Incentives external to the working environment

   • The relational character of incentives

   • Social reinforcers

2. Awareness

   • Motivation and goals

   • Motivation and distress

   • Reinforcement

   • Classical conditioning

   • Operant conditioning

3. 

   Tangible Rewards

   • Self determination theory

   • Hygiene and motivation theory

   • Tangible rewards

4. Intangible Rewards

   • Intrinsic motivation

   • Security -Cultural, Production of community, Gender, Age, Vocation, Education, etc

   • Ethics

   • Gratitude

   • Belief systems

   • Peer pressure

   • Extrinsic and intrinsic reinforcement at work

5. Negative Motivators

   • Punishment

   • Pain

   • Suffering

   • Discipline

   • Threat

6. Initiating Motivation

   • Explain how to initiate motivation with an individual or group for a situation not previously confronted.

7. Maintaining Motivation

   • Goal setting

   • Influence of Groups on individual motivation

   • Social loafing

   • Employee motivation in the workplace by managers

   • Expectations

   • Job design

   • Motivation for a personal trainer

8. Applications

   • Space management

   • Time management

   • Staff appraisals

   • Expectations

   • Vicious and virtuous cycles

   • PBL Project: Create and present a plan with specific strategies for improving the employee’s motivation in the workplace, based on a clear understanding of the person’s needs, values and situation.

Course Aims

• 

  Describe the nature and scope of motivation.

• Identify the differences between people that distinguish the application of motivational skills.

• Explain the significance of knowledge and understanding to motivation.

• Explain the effects of Tangible Rewards (e.g. Money, Services, Goods) as a major motivator.

• Explain the effect of intangible Rewards (e.g. Security, Ethics, Gratitude, Belief Systems/Religion, Peer Pressure) as a major motivator.

• Explain how actions can be motivated by negative motivators such as pain, suffering, discipline, threat), and distinguish this type of motivation from positive motivation.

• Explain how to initiate motivation with an individual or group in a situation not previously confronted.

• Explain how motivation can be maintained or increased in both successful and unsuccessful environments.

• Identify a range of situations where motivational skills can be applied, and determine an appropriate way to initiate and maintain motivation in each of those situations.

Course Duration: 100 hours.

Nurture Awareness for Improved Motivation

For some people, motivation seems to come easy. Maybe somewhere along the line, they learned to value achievement, and their central role in gaining it. Perhaps motivation, and the desire for increased productivity or success that drives it, have become internalised, so that their motivating ‘motor’ on always on. Many others, however, continually strive to become more motivated, to sustain their initial level of motivation as it wanes, or to motivate others. They might think of the obvious rewards (for example, improved health from stopping smoking; a promotion for working hard and being creative), but unless they have a good idea of what actually motives individuals, and what might de-motivate them, their approach to motivation will be based on stereotypes, assumptions and a lot of wishful thinking.

The key ingredient for successful motivation is awareness. This includes learning to become aware of what motivates a particular individual (including yourself), what de-motivates them, or inhibits their motivation, what environmental factors may be affecting motivation, the individual’s general attitude and beliefs about success and achievement, and other factors. In other words, to motivate others, you need to take a learning and enquiry approach to finding what works, and what doesn’t. Awareness also includes knowing why the task is worth doing well (or quickly and well), where it fits into the realisation of business, workplace, study or other goals, and what difference the motivation will make.

Motivation and Goals

Cattell and Child (1975) argued that when considering motivation, it is important to consider its strength and the goals involved. Maslow, in his famous paper of 1943, “A Theory of Human Motivation”, describes goals as “centering principle in motivation theory”.

… It will be observed that the basic principle in our classification [Maslow’s hierarchy] has been neither the instigation nor the motivated behaviour but rather the functions, effects, purposes, or goals of the behaviour It has been proven sufficiently by various people that this is the most suitable point for centering in any motivation theory.

What we call a hierarchy or needs is really a hierarchy of goals that is not as rigid as students often assume. Sometimes, these goals take precedence in the reverse order, and in some cases, “an individual may permanently lose the higher wants in the hierarchy under special conditions” (Maslow, 1943).

Cattell calls the goals of motivated behaviours “ergs”. These are similar to instincts, such as food seeking, sex etc. Ergs are culturally universal as they are biological, but the means to satisfy ergs vary from culture to culture. Cattell wondered why some people find cooking a chore, but others find it a wonderful experience. Some interests may be equally strong, whilst others reflect different aspects of motivation. Cattell considered motivation strength using objective tests and found that three main factors of motivational strength emerged, which roughly corresponded to Freud’s id, ego and superego. Motivation consists of three parts – id interest (I want), ego interest (I choose to want) and superego interest (I ought to want).

Maslow, on the other hand, relates the strength of motivator on its “relative importance to the basic goals” (1943). Successful motivation, therefore, requires that we identify the basic goals of an individual (or ourselves, if we are seeking to become self-motivated).

One difficulty in identifying motivating factors is that although motivation is associated with desire, they are not the same thing, even if they have the same effect on a person’s behaviour. For instance, a person might desire marriage in order to gain social standing and recognition. The real motivating factor may not be the desire for marriage, but the goal of increasing the person’s prestige as a ‘solid’ or ‘stable’ member of society. Also, we are usually moved to act by a combination of motivations rather than one factor. The person contemplating marriage might also be seeking to satisfy a need (goal) for financial security, a desire to be cared for and relieved of onerous housekeeping tasks, and also, to end family pressure to settle down and marry.

We may also be motivated to behave in certain ways by other factors, such as convenience, apathy, laziness, boredom, peer influence, group influences, and a desire to conceal true motives, sublimation of our true motives and so on. These interacting influences on our behaviour make motivation a complicated and challenging concept that cannot always be reduced to a simple action-reward formula. Workplace motivation strategies that are based on simplistic assumptions about what drives individuals often do not work because they are based on desires rather than goals.

What are your goals?

Where do you want to be?

Enrol Today

If you are a manager, a supervisor, coach, business owner or working in any role where you are overseeing other members of staff Motivation is a great course to study. 

Learn how to make staff happier in their roles, increase their productivity - improve the success of your workplace.

You can enrol at any time. If you have any questions or want to know more, then please get in touch with us, by - 

Phone (International) +61 7 5562 1088, or (in Australia) 07 5562 1088, or

Email us at admin@acs.edu.au, or use our FREE COURSE COUNSELLING SERVICE.