In the last forty years, researchers have studied student motivation and have learned a great deal about:
- What moves students to learn and the quantity and quality of the effort they invest;
- What makes them persist in the face of hardship;
- How motivation develops;
- How the school environment affects it.
Most of the motivation research focused on well-adjusted students who are successful in school. However, successful students differ from their less-successful peers in many ways. For example, they often have clear ideas of what they want and do not want to achieve in life. Moreover, they perceive many learning settings as supportive of their own wishes, goals and needs, and react positively to the teacher’s motivational practices.
