Final Blog

R- Final

Question: What can be said for intrinsic motivation where the social cognitive theory is concerned?

"The knowledge and skills that individuals possess will certainly play critical roles in what they choose to do and not do. But it is important to emphasize that people must invariably interpret the results of their attainments just as they must make judgments about the quality of the knowledge and skills they possess"

Both articles do a great job of presenting the information on the reciprocity of learning. Self-efficacy; the persons belief in their ability to perform a certain task or learn seemed to be important to learning. I want to reflect on my question here. The social learning theory emphasizes a model where the environment is changing the individual and the individual changes the environment. If the individual does not believe in his/her ability they cannot motivate themselves and thus there is a need for the external influence of the social environment such as that of the teacher to help in the process. Dweck (2005) emphasized that the students have got to participate in the process. I have read in the Chicago Tribune a couple of years ago where there was a discussion on performance based salary increases for teachers. This phenomenon was strongly being opposed at the time by the Chicago Teachers Union. The union believed that there should be some accountability for the student in the school's performance and the ownership of the performance should not be the teacher's alone.

The self-efficacy and the belief have to be the same for a student to perform the tasks needed to be successful (Pajares 2005, pg. 342). Going back to Bruner's article The Culture of Education (1996) he stated, "culture shapes minds ......... and construct not only our worlds but our very conception of ourselves and our powers". He went on to say that acquiring knowledge becomes more meaningful when the individuals cognitively discover it for themselves. It is only then that they can use it and add it to the things they already know (Bruner 1996, pg. 11). The social cognitive theory can definitely be related to Bruner's culture of education in that they both emphasize the influence by the environment. On the surface we may think that they are different but I can see where they may be the same. Social cognitive theory involves reciprocity. The culture of education can relate because we are influenced by our culture and at the same time we influence our culture. Culture is a set of shared social norms. These norms are in fact actions and beliefs that the group of people themselves has established and later these actions become norms, and thus a reciprocal change.