Brophy: Supporting Students’ Confidence as Learners Response.
Greetings,
As I was reading this week’s selection from Brophy’s book about supporting students’ confidence, I became slightly confused about the differences between “Internal focus of control,” and “Concept of self as origin rather than pawn” (58).
According to the definition of the former, “Effort and persistence are greater when people believe that the potential to control outcomes lies within themselves rather than in external factors they cannot control.”
According to the definition of the latter, “Effort and persistence are greater when people believe that they can bring about desired outcomes through their own actions rather than feeling they are pawns whose fate is determined by factors beyond their control.”
Now, in my opinion, either of these definitions work great, but if you use both of them as independent entities to explain different ideas. To me, both of the ideas present the notion that if people believe they can control things, they are more apt to be motivated.
So, I suggest defining “Internal focus of control” by stating that people are more willing to put forth effort and be persistent if they believed that the more effort they put into a task, the less likelihood of an outside force affecting the outcome. This is similar to the first concept of “Effort-Outcome covariation,” but that concept draws a direct link between Effort and Outcome, while this new concept promotes the idea that the individual can overcome foreign forces that would distract or foil the learning process.
I would also suggest redefining “Concept of self as origin rather than pawn” by stating that people are more willing to put forth more effort and be persistent if they think that they are pursuing something that they chose to do. I believe that this new definition represents the phrase better than the original definition. The new definition implies that if people think that this is something that is worthwhile, or even if the individual thinks he chose to learn the topic, s/he will be more willing to put forth a greater effort.
Why redefine the definitions put in the book, you may ask. Well, personally, I think that if I don’t understand something, and but I can extrapolate an understanding from the word usage and general feel from the article, I should do so. Even if I am wrong, and corrected at another time, making the information mine, by rewriting the definitions or main ideas, allows me to remember information well into the future.
Readings:
Brophy, J. (2004). Supporting students’ confidence as learners. In Motivating students to learn (2nd ed., pp. 55-86). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
