Towards a Motivationally Intelligent Pedagogy: How Should an Intelligent Tutor Respond to the Unmotivated or the Demotivated?

Abstract

This chapter delineates some of the pedagogy needed by a motivationally intelligent tutoring system. The learner in a negative motivational state (e.g. demotivated, unmotivated or poorly motivated) may present with behavioural symptoms such as lack of effort, avoiding risk, “gaming the system” and so on. Such states are accompanied by a variety of negative feelings such as anxiety, boredom, or frustration. Making an effective pedagogic judgement, first, as to the nature of the symptoms and feelings, second, as to their causes and third, as to how best the motivational state might be remediated is no easy task, either for a human teacher or for a system. The paper adopts a view of motivation, developed by Pintrich (Psychol Educ Psychol 7: 2003), in terms of three broad facets: one concerned with Values, one concerned with Expectancies and one concerned with Feelings. Three negative learner motivational states are described in terms of their main associated feeling. For each state the paper suggests pedagogical tactics that might be deployed depending on whether the underlying cause of the state is rooted in issues around Values or in issues around Expectancies. So, for example, a distinction is drawn between frustration caused by the learner’s belief in her inability to solve the problem in hand (Expectancies) from frustration caused by her desire to be doing something else altogether (Values).