Conclusion
It is hypothesized that, neither from a motivational point of view, nor for the quality of the learning experiences, there is anything wrong with two important and very common types of instrumental motivation that derives from students’ educational and professional goals in the future. Some future educational and professional goals can be identified as task goals that belong to the same content category as the present task goals at school. The instrumental motivation that they create is not an extrinsic motivation, as is usual for instrumental motivation. It is rather an intrinsic task motivation, analogous to Raynor’s notion of instrumentality in a contingent path of achievement tasks.
Schooling is also very important for achieving self-set professional goals in the future. This second type of instrumentality in education does indeed create extrinsic motivation. However, because such important personal goals are not experienced as external regulators but as sources of “identified regulation”, this type of instrumentality will not undermine the already present intrinsic task orientation at school, nor will it debilitate high quality learning.
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Lens, W. (2001). How to Combine Intrinsic Task-Motivation with the Motivational Effects of the Instrumentality of Present Tasks for Future Goals. In: Efklides, A., Kuhl, J., Sorrentino, R.M. (eds) Trends and Prospects in Motivation Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47676-2_2
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