Christy M.Y.
Siu
Psychology Department
The Chinese University of
Hong Kong
Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong
(4845 words)
Abstract
A
consistent body of research conducted in North America indicates that trait
intrinsic motivation facilitates creativity and academic performance, whereas
extrinsic motivation hinders creativity but has no effect on academic
performance. We examined the effects of trait intrinsic and extrinsic
motivations in Hong Kong college students. In study 1, on a sample of 127
year-1 students, trait intrinsic motivation
correlated negatively with year-1 self-reported GPA, whereas trait extrinsic
motivation correlated positively. In study 2, on a sample of 38 students
engaged in experimental conditions resembling those of an in-class creative
writing task, trait intrinsic
motivation correlated positively with creativity of the story, whereas trait
extrinsic motivation did not. Findings suggest that the Hong Kong college
environment (a) constrains and/or penalizes the expression of intrinsic
motivation and, thus, creativity, and (b) facilitates and/or rewards the
expression of extrinsic motivation and, thus, means-end opportunism. The negative
consequences of this situation on students' development and quality of learning
are discussed, and possible remedies are outlined.
Keywords
Intrinsic
motivation, extrinsic motivation, state, trait, reward, Hong Kong Advanced
Level Examination, GPA, algorithmic task, heuristic task, creativity
Introduction
How do people who are high in intrinsic
motivation differ from those who are low? They do not differ in selfishness,
readiness to cooperate with others, or obedience. Yet, they behave in very
different ways when they face a special type of situation. When given an
interesting task or assignment without
being promised reward or punishment upon completion of the task, persons high
in intrinsic motivation continue working on the task, whereas persons low in
intrinsic motivation stop working. Thus, intrinsic motivation is analogous to
an emergency battery that provides energy to action in case of blackout.
Furthermore, in absence of incentives, persons high in intrinsic motivation
proactively explore the environment seeking interesting stimuli and
opportunities for action, whereas persons low in intrinsic motivation come to a
halt and remain passive until the environment provides them with incentives.
How do people who are high in extrinsic
motivation differ from those who are low? People who are high in extrinsic motivation typically do not enjoy what
they do while they are doing it and,
thus, enjoyment does not energize their work. Yet, their minds look ahead and
anticipate the rewards or punishments (the “carrot” or the “stick”) that will
be received upon completion of the task or failure to complete the task,
respectively. The anticipation of the consequences of one’s actions is the
“fuel” used by the extrinsically motivated person. Persons high in extrinsic
motivation tend to engage the shortest and easiest path to the end, and enjoy work only after its completion, when they can savor the reward or celebrate
the avoidance of punishment. By contrast, persons low in extrinsic motivation
tend to ignore incentives and are less likely to undertake actions in order to
obtain rewards or avoid punishments.
As
state variables, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations have been traditionally
considered opposite to each other. In particular, the introduction of extrinsic
incentives, such as money and praise, in interesting tasks has been
systematically found to reduce intrinsic motivation (see review by Deci &
Ryan, 1985). However, as trait variables, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations
are reciprocally independent (Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, & Tighe, 1994); so that, some individuals
are high in both, others low in both, and some high in one and low in the other
one.
There is incomplete empirical evidence on
how trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interact with each other in
driving a person's behavior. Conceptually both forms of motivation should
result in higher overall performance, be it in school or work. Thus, from the
point of view of performance, the single most negative personal disposition is
the absence of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, that is, the lack of
motivation.
Our goal was to examine whether intrinsic
and extrinsic motivations are as predictive of academic performance and
creativity in Hong Kong as they are in North America. In study 1, we examined
the relationship between motivations and academic performance by conducting an
observational study of year-1 college students. In study 2, we examined the
relationship between motivations and creativity among college students in
experimental conditions resembling those of an in-class creative writing task.
Study 1
In
1999/2000, 127 year-1 undergraduate students, 40 males and 87 females, at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong were recruited through the General Psychology classes from a wide
range of departments. Participants were first asked to report their attained
grades in the Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE). Then, they
completed a kit of personality inventories. In the following months,
participants were contacted by phone and asked to report the grades they
attained in the first and second semester of their first year in college.
The kit of personality inventories
contained, among others, a Chinese translation (So, 1999) of the Work
Preference Inventory (WPI) (Amabile et al., 1994), measuring trait intrinsic
and extrinsic motivations, and a Chinese translation (So, 1999; Moneta &
Wong, in press) of selected scales from the Personality Research Form, Form E
(Jackson, 1989), measuring other trait motivations including the need for
achievement, the aspiration to accomplish difficult tasks and willingness to
put forth effort to attain excellence (McClelland, 1985).
Based on an analysis of the construct
validity of the Chinese translation of the WPI (Moneta, 2001; Moneta &
Wong, 2001), we selected a subset of 18 items out of the 30 contained in the
WPI, of which 9 measured trait intrinsic motivation (e.g., "I enjoy tackling problems that are completely new
to me") and 9 trait extrinsic motivation (e.g., "I am strongly motivated by the recognition I can
earn from other people") rated on a scale ranging from 1 ("Never or
almost never") to 4 ("Always or almost always").
In the
statistical analysis, we first estimated the correlation coefficients involving
trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, on one hand, and year-1 GPA, on the
other. Then, we performed a regression analysis wherein year-1 GPA is the
dependent variable and trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, achievement
motivation, and GPA in HKALE were the independent variables. This second
analysis allowed us to estimate the linear relationships between the two key
motivations and GPA controlling for the possible confounding of overall
academic ability and achievement motivation.
Surprisingly,
intrinsic motivation correlated negatively with year-1 self-reported GPA (r= -.24, p<.009), while extrinsic motivation correlated positively (r=.33, p<.001). These results indicate that the more intrinsically
motivated a student is, the lower his or her academic performance, and the more
extrinsically motivated a student is, the higher his or her performance. Thus,
the students who attain the highest levels of academic performance are those
who are simultaneously low in intrinsic motivation and high in extrinsic
motivation, and the students who attain the lowest levels of academic
performance are those who are simultaneously high in intrinsic motivation and
low in extrinsic motivation.
Can these
paradoxical results be an artifact of confounding by academic ability or
achievement motivation? For example, could it be that the students who score
higher in intrinsic motivation are also less academically skillful? If so, that
confounding could explain why intrinsic motivation is associated with lower
performance.
We
investigated this possibility first by estimating simple correlations. GPA in
HKALE was positively and significantly correlated with extrinsic motivation (r=.38, p<.001) and negatively but nonsignificantly with intrinsic
motivation (r=-.12, p<.17). In turn, GPA in HKALE was
positively and significantly correlated with year-1 GPA (r=.38, p<.001). This
pattern of correlations reveals that there is some degree of confounding.
However, when
we controlled statistically for GPA in HKALE and achievement motivation by
regression analysis the results did not change: intrinsic motivation still was
a significant, negative predictor of GPA, and extrinsic motivation still was a
significant, positive predictor of GPA. In addition, GPA HKALE was also
positively and significantly associated with GPA, whereas achievement
motivation was positively but nonsignificantly associated with GPA.
This study
provided findings that are diametrical to those obtained in North American
colleges (Amabile et al., 1994). Whereas in North America trait intrinsic
motivation is conducive to higher pre-enrollment academic ability scores and
course grades, in our college environment intrinsic motivation is unrelated to
pre-enrollment academic ability scores (perhaps negatively related) and is
conducive to lower course grades. Furthermore, whereas in North America
extrinsic motivation is unrelated to both pre-enrollment academic ability
scores and course grades, in our college environment extrinsic motivation is
conducive to higher pre-enrollment scores and course grades. These findings
suggest that Hong Kong college environment penalizes self-motivation and
rewards "carrot-stick" motivation.
Is this
problem specific to college or was it inherited from secondary school? It is important to note that
trait extrinsic motivation was also significantly correlated with the HKALE
composite score of pre-enrollment academic ability. This finding indicates that
trait extrinsic motivation is rewarded by the education system prior to
entering college. The positive effect of trait extrinsic motivation on college
GPA was estimated controlling statistically for the HKALE score. Thus, the
positive effect of trait extrinsic motivation in college is independent,
additional to the positive effect that trait extrinsic motivation has prior to
entering college. In sum, college seems to reward extrinsic motivation to a
greater extent than secondary school.
It is also important to note that trait
intrinsic motivation was not significantly related to the HKALE score, while it
predicted negatively college GPA. Thus, secondary school seems neither reward
nor penalize trait intrinsic motivation, whereas college seems to penalize
trait intrinsic motivation.
On the whole,
the findings are surprising and counterintuitive. If they are indeed valid and
replicable, they unequivocally indicate the presence of problems in our college
environment. Yet, before engaging in speculative interpretations, we wanted to
be more confident about the validity of our study. The crucial question was:
Did we actually measure intrinsic and extrinsic motivations?
Although prior
validation work indicated that the connotations of trait intrinsic and
extrinsic motivations in Chinese are very similar to the connotations that
these traits have in North America (Moneta, 2001; Moneta & Wong, 2001),
still nothing was known about their functional significance. What is the main
function of intrinsic motivation in North American students? That of
facilitating creativity. Thus, we set out to investigate whether or not trait
intrinsic motivation facilitates creativity also in Chinese students.
Study
2
The
participants of study 1 were a sub-sample of a larger pool of 292 undergraduate
students from all levels of seniority that participated in the College
Experience Study (CES) (Moneta, 2000). For all 292 students, we had measures of
trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. In the fall 2000/2001, we conducted
an experiment with a sub-sample of the CES of 38 students. In order to optimize
statistical efficiency, we selected participants that were maximally different
in the two motivations forming four groups: high/high, high/low/ low/high, and
high/high.
Participants were invited individually to a
lab, shown a 7' movie clip, and asked to write a story "as dramatic and
creative as you can" based on it in 35'. Participants were asked to tell
what has led up to the event shown in the movie clip, to describe what was
happening at the moment, what the characters were feeling and thinking, and to
give an outcome.
The movie clip was extracted
from Tom & Viv (Samuelson,
Samuelson, Kass, & Gilbert, 1996),
and portrayed a marital discussion followed by a sequence of surprising and
amusing events open to multiple interpretations. We selected this movie
clip because of its non-academic, relational, and real life content. Thus, we
presumed that traditional facets of academic ability, such as competence and
intelligence, would not have markedly influenced the creativity of the story.
Furthermore, we selected this movie clip because it leaves ample space for
conjectures as to what caused the marital problem and how the life story of
this couple may evolve and end. Thus, we presumed that this stimulus was
interesting and ambiguous enough to allow the expression of intrinsic
motivation and, thus, creativity.
Participants typed their stories on a word
processor, and the entire process was recorded to allow a wide range of
analyses fully reported in Siu (2001). In this paper, we focus only on the end
product of the process, the creativity of the stories.
In assessing the creativity of the
stories we adopted Amabile's (1996) consensual definition of creativity
according to which a product is creative if
independent experts concur in recognizing it as creative, and the task is
heuristic rather than algorithmic. A task is algorithmic if it has a clearly
identifiable goal and a straightforward path to a solution. A task is heuristic
if it has neither a clearly identifiable goal nor a straightforward path to a solution.
In a heuristic task, people have to figure out on their own the exact goal and
the path to a solution. The nature of the task depends on the person: if the person is not informed of the
existing goal and algorithmic solution, it is still considered a heuristic
task.
In North American studies, experts' ratings typically exceed
correlation coefficients of .8. In this study, however, we were concerned with
breadth of creative expression more than with consistency between judges. We
therefore used two as independent as possible judges: the first, non-Chinese
author of this paper and a Chinese undergraduate student who took one class in
creativity and studied independently two books on the topic (Amabile, 1996;
Csikszentmihalyi, 1997).
Stories were evaluated blindly and
independently by the teacher and the peer on the item "How individual
originality compare with other students in the group" ranging from 1
("Low") to 5 ("High"). As inter-rater agreement was high (r= .70, p<.001), we based the analysis on the average of the two
ratings.
Trait intrinsic motivation correlated
positively with creativity (r=.36, p<.026), while extrinsic motivation
did not correlate. Thus, students who scored higher in intrinsic motivation
also tended to produce more original stories.
This study reinforced our confidence in the
validity of the measurement. As it is with North American students, also with
Chinese students trait intrinsic motivation facilitates creativity. Thus, also
in Chinese students trait intrinsic motivation is a positive feature, a
potential that, if encouraged and let free to express, produces what is perhaps
the utmost human ability.
Discussion
The
observational study provided findings that are diametrical to those obtained in
North America, while the experimental study, wherein students tackled a
creative task and were validly assessed, confirmed the expected relationship
between intrinsic motivation and creativity. On the whole, this study suggests
that the Hong Kong college environment discourages intrinsic motivation and
creativity, and it encourages extrinsic motivation.
Before analyzing the practical implications
of these findings, we emphasize two main limitations of this study. First, the
observational study was conducted in 1999/2000. As it is for vintage, it could
be that that year was a bad one for our college. We have extended the
observational study to additional 88 year-1 students who entered college in
2000/2001. We are now in the process of collecting the GPA of their first year
of study. We will soon be able to test whether or not the results reported in
this paper are confirmed one year later.
Second, the observational study focused only
on year-1 GPA. A key question is: Do intrinsic and extrinsic motivation keep
having the same effects on academic performance in the following years? We keep
monitoring all the participants and, in two years time, we will be able to
answer the question.
While we wait for the evidence, however, we
are compelled to take the findings seriously and raise several questions. The
first question is: Why are these findings disturbing? We propose three answers.
First, they are disturbing because they reveal a fundamental injustice in the
system. Why should intrinsic motivation, an extremely positive human potential
that promotes exploration and innovation, be penalized? Why should extrinsic
motivation, an opportunistic tendency to exploit the environment by seizing all
possible shortcuts to a personal end, be rewarded? It just does not look right.
The second answer concerns the effects that
penalizing intrinsic motivation and rewarding extrinsic motivation have on the
motivational development of our students. We lack scientific evidence as to (a)
the extent to which trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivation change over long
periods of time, and (b) whether grades received affect this change. It could
be that students do not change their intrinsic and extrinsic orientations, and
that the effect of receiving good or bad grades "washes out" by
itself. Yet, there is a large body of evidence (see review by Deci & Ryan,
1985) indicating that state intrinsic
motivation can be easily turned off by simple but very effective methods. For
example, intrinsic motivation is reduced by rewards administered for completing
a task no matter how, rather than for completing the task well. Thus, our
findings are disturbing because they open the possibility that the current
reward system may actually turn off intrinsic motivation and promote extrinsic
motivation.
The third answer concerns the effects that
penalizing intrinsic motivation and rewarding extrinsic motivation have on our
students' quality of learning. Kahoe and McFarland (1975) found that trait
intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interact with perceived difficulty of
course in determining GPA: whereas intrinsic motivation predicts higher GPA in
high challenge courses, extrinsic motivation predicts higher GPA in low
challenge courses. Thus, it is possible that intrinsic motivation facilitates
performance when facing complex learning tasks, whereas extrinsic motivation
facilitates performance when facing simple learning tasks. Furthermore, temporarily induced states of
extrinsic motivation result in poorer concept attainment (McCullers &
Martin, 1971) and impaired problem solving (Glucksberg, 1962). Pooling these
findings together suggests that learning is more efficient, deeper, and
enjoyable when we are intrinsically motivated than when we are extrinsically
motivated. Thus, our findings are disturbing because they open the possibility
that the current reward system may actually encourage surface learning and
discourage higher-order learning.
The second question is: Why does our
college environment penalize intrinsic motivation and reward extrinsic
motivation? What is the cause of the problem? Our findings do not give us
specific indications. However, based on what is known about the link between
motivations and performance in study and work contexts, we can identify four
areas of potential problems: course interestingness-complexity, heuristic value
of assignments, completeness-validity of assessments, and shortcuts-to-grades.
First, if the curriculum and teaching methods fail arousing students' interest,
then intrinsic motivation is a useless asset. Complexity is an important
component of "interestingness". If the course contents are too easy,
given students' ability, then learning becomes fundamentally uninteresting. If
that is the case, extrinsic motivation is the only source of energy that students
can draw and benefit from. Thus, it could be that, at least in the first year
of college, courses tend not to be sufficiently challenging.
Second, if the assignments do not allow
sufficient autonomy and exploration, and require mostly execution of
step-by-step procedures, then the more intrinsically motivated students will
not have opportunities to profit from their orientation. They may actually
experience a certain frustration, redirect their intrinsic motivation toward
extra-curricular activities and, thus, attain a comparatively lower academic
performance. Thus, it could be that, at least in the first year of college,
assignments tend to be too algorithmic and not sufficiently heuristic in
Amabile's (1996) terminology.
Third, if the assessments do not validly
recognize and reward students' creative output, then the practical value of
intrinsic motivation is wasted. More
dramatically, an excessive focus on "model answers" penalizes
students' creative output because, by definition, any novel idea involves some
degree of deviation from the most common answer or the ideal answer expected by
the teacher. If this penalization
actually happens, it contributes to the found negative relationship between
intrinsic motivation and academic performance. Thus, it could be that, at least
in the first year of college, course assessments tend to be biased toward
memorization of factual content at the expense of creativity.
Last, if the course assignments and
assessments allow shortcuts, the more extrinsically motivated students will not
"waste" time trying to develop a deeper understanding, and will be
more likely to engage the shortcuts and attain the end as efficiently and
smoothly as possible. Thus, it could be that, at least in the first year of
college, course assignments and assessments provide students with too many
shortcuts to good grades through surface learning.
The third and last question is: What can we
do to transform our college environment so that it no longer penalizes
intrinsic motivation and rewards extrinsic motivation? What can we do to turn
things around? We propose that the wisest way to approach this issue is first
to verify empirically whether and to what extent the four areas of potential
problems that we have highlighted (course interestingness-complexity, heuristic
value of assignments, completeness-validity of assessments, and
shortcuts-to-grades) are actually problematic. It can be that the scope of the
problem is narrow, limited to one problem area only (e.g., there are too many
shortcuts to good grades). If, however, the scope of the problem is broad,
generalized to all four problem areas, there would indeed be need for a drastic
change of attitudes in both educational institutions and students.
The Hong Kong education system of the 80s and early 90s was depicted as
highly competitive, examination oriented, characterized by large classes,
expository teaching, and excessive amounts of homework (Biggs, 1992; Salili,
1994). These and other features of the Hong Kong culture seem to have fostered
students that are less creative than other Asian and Western students (Spinks, Yu-Ku, Shek, &
Bacon-Shone, 1996). Due to the limitations of our data and the enormous
difficulties in conducting valid cross-cultural comparisons of abilities, we
can say nothing as to whether Hong Kong college students are less
self-motivated and creative than North American students. What we can say from
study 2 is that some students wrote amusing and imaginative stories, whereas
others wrote boring and unimaginative stories. Thus, there was a variation in
creativity as we would expect to find anywhere else in the world.
However, in study 1 we did find something
that makes the Hong Kong college environment quite unique: whereas the North
American environment rewards intrinsic motivation, the Hong Kong environment
penalizes it. Thus, we can say that the Hong Kong college environment appears
to have a problem. If indeed Hong Kong college students are less creative than
their North American counterparts, then this cross-cultural difference could be
caused at least in part by the problem affecting the Hong Kong college
environment.
We point out that if maximization of
self-motivation and creativity in the college population is a target, the
shortcut of selection is not a valid tool to achieve the goal. It would be
tempting to select students who are high in intrinsic motivation and exclude
those who are low. This strategy, however, would be doomed to fail. This is
because trait intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are independent of each
other: we all possess both to some extent. The reward system does not operate
on separate groups of individuals; rather, it operates on separate parts of the
same individual, by promoting one tendency at the expense of the other. Thus,
if the college environment does not change, and keeps penalizing intrinsic
motivation and rewarding extrinsic motivation, there is a concrete risk that
those students who were high in intrinsic motivation at enrollment time will be
low in intrinsic motivation and high in extrinsic motivation by the end of
their college years.
Whereas a business organization is
relatively free of adopting no matter what reward structure for the sake of
optimizing profit, educational institutions have the moral obligation of promoting
a balanced, harmonious development of each student. The Hong Kong Education
Reform states that "the priorities should be accorded to enabling our
students to enjoy learning, enhancing their effectiveness in communication, and
developing their creativity and sense of commitment" (Education
Commission, 1999, p. 1). Based on what
is known about the determinants of joyful learning, commitment, and creativity,
these broad goals clearly suggest that Hong Kong colleges should protect and
promote students' intrinsic motivation and, perhaps, discourage their extrinsic
motivation to some extent.
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