Motivation and emotion/Tutorials/Needs/Instructor notes

These are some instructor notes and tips about running this tutorial.

This tutorial was run in 2010 for this first time, with three tutorial groups.

It was significantly revised in 2011 to include more interactive activity-based exploration of the content, with smaller improvements for 2013 and 2014. The list of brain structures was updated in 2015 and 2016 to reflect the Reeve (2015) 6th edition of the textbook.

The quality/preparation of the activities for the group activities could be further refined/improved - e.g., see notes below.


 * Equipment
 * 1) Whiteboard markers
 * 2) Projector
 * 3) Handouts
 * 4) Pictures


 * Preparation
 * 1) Brain structure, hormone and neurotransmitter mix and match exercises:
 * 2) F2F materials should be printed, precut, and put into labelled envelopes (alterntively bring printed materials with several pairs of scissors)
 * 3) VT interactive mix/match exercises should be prepared and preloaded


 * Improvements
 * 1) Brain structures etc.
 * 2) A brain map exercise could be added/integrated e.g., hand out brain structure names and ask participants to arrange themselves so as to represent approximate anatomical location - or could be done on the board
 * 3) more distinguishing info/clues should be provided so as to better specify/differentiate

Intrinsic-Extrinsic motivation

 * 1) Most lay people's conceptualisation of motivation is of a single construct that varies only in amount (lots or little).
 * 2) It can be helpful to also consider two different sources of motivation
 * 3) What are the characteristics of:
 * 4) Intrinsic motivation (natural, enjoyable, powerful, process of engagement is rewarding)
 * 5) Extrinsic motivation (behaviour only occurs because of outside influence e.g., for reward (e.g., money, praise/respect, status) or to avoid punishment (e.g., withdrawal of pleasant stimuli, threat of unpleasant stimuli).
 * 6) What are the strengths?
 * 7) What are its limitations?
 * 8) A spectrum model may be more realistic.

Taxonomy of motivation

 * 1) Present a blank taxonomy diagram
 * 2) Explain Amotivation, Extrinsic, Intrinsic
 * 3) Ask students to suggest possible terms and where they belong - complete the model collectively
 * 4) Use a parent wanting to motivation a child to clean his/her teeth as an example - starting with amotivation, moving to extrinsic, and moving to intrinsic via external regulation, introjected, identified, integrated, and then intrinsic motivation
 * 5) Distribute taxonomy of motivation handouts (blank circles face-up, with complete model on reverse)
 * 6) This taxonomy helps to show the processes and steps involved in moving from amotivation to different types of extrinsic motivation, to intrinsic motivation