Fostering Autonomy, Purpose, and Competence in Math

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Fostering Autonomy, Purpose, and Competence to Build Motivation in Math:
A Case Study in an Elementary Classroom
Jordan A. Yoshihara, Undergraduate
University of California, San Diego
June 12th
, 2015
Dr. Jim Levin
EDS199: Independent Study

FOSTERING AUTONOMY, PURPOSE, AND COMPETENCE IN MATH 2
Fostering Autonomy, Purpose, and Competence to Build Motivation in Math:
A Case Study in an Elementary Classroom
Abstract
One of the key determinants of students’ success in school is the amount of effort they
invest in their learning. This effort is usually directly related to how motivated the students are to
learn. Although students are motivated by a wide variety of factors, many of their sources of
motivation share underlying principles of autonomy, purpose, and competence. In this case
study, I examine the experiences of six third-grade students and what motivated them to learn
math. By participating in the classroom, I was able to try various motivational strategies with
them. In the end, I argue that their responses to competition, leadership, goals, role models, fun,
and community all relate to these three principles of motivation.
The purpose of this paper is to examine how a learning environment can foster students’
motivation in elementary math. I will begin by presenting background information to set up the
problem. I will then review recent research and classic studies about how to foster motivation.
Next, I will explain the research methods used in this qualitative study. I will analyze findings
for my case study of six third-grade students who each responded differently to the various
motivational techniques we introduced to the classroom. Specifically, I will look at how different
techniques influenced their motivation to learn math. I will then discuss the results of my study,
limitations of this study, and future steps for study.
Background
As an undergraduate student, I see many of my peers struggle with math-oriented classes
because they fail to grasp the fundamental concepts in the material and develop math anxiety

because of this. Some end up dropping their classes and changing out of science and engineering
majors. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence in America, as it is ranked the 25th
country out of 27 countries in terms of students who understand math. The National Center for
Education Statistics reported that two-thirds of students in eighth-grade score below proficient in
math (NAEP, 2011). Math is an accumulative subject where learning new topics builds on
previous topics, so if the majority of students are not understanding math by the end of eighth
grade, this means that they will be behind going into higher education. This creates a gap in
students’ math proficiencies, which prevents them from being able to learn more. If our
economy, technology, national security, and medical practices rely on people’s ability to solve
problems, the lack of this ability could present a serious problem.
One of the causes of this problem might be that when students fall behind, they cannot
move forward in their understanding in math. This can potentially discourage students from
trying to continue their learning, leading them to believe they “can’t do it.” As time goes on,
these feelings become more potent and in some cases may debilitate students’ learning. In such
cases, it is important to motivate these students to learn new concepts even if they struggle at
first. This, however, can be difficult to accomplish as these students might be particularly
unmotivated to learn these concepts because they doubt that they will be able to understand the
new material. In the following sections, I will be discussing methods of motivating students
despite whether they feel they are incapable of understanding new ideas.
Literature Review
The question I seek to answer is, how can a learning environment foster student
motivation in math? I reviewed many articles, both foundational classic studies and recent
research discussing students learning math, teaching methods, and what motivates people in

general. Here, I will provide an analysis of the literature to first understand motivation, then I
will discuss some techniques for motivating students. This analysis will provide a framework for
my case study.
Understanding Motivation
To understand how to improve student motivation, I wanted to understand what
motivates students in the first place. During their study on self-determination across many
different school settings and grade levels, C. Niemiec and R. Ryan (2009) analyze three basic
principles that foster motivation: autonomy, purpose, and competence. All three of these
elements can be applied to a classroom to motivate students to learn. (pp. 133-141). Despite the
effectiveness of these components, many classrooms seem to be missing these three principles
today. T. Urdan and E. Schoenfelder (2006), in their evaluation of theories about motivation,
observed that when teachers see that students are unmotivated to learn, they often attribute the
students’ lack of motivation to factors that are beyond the scope of what they can control in the
classroom (p. 332). Whether or not this is true, it is still possible to develop feelings of
autonomy, purpose, and competence in the classroom despite external factors that student
motivation in powerful ways (see Turner, 2011)
Principle 1: Autonomy
Autonomy refers to the idea that students are free to explore whatever they are learning in
their own ways. According to studies performed by E. Deci and R. Ryan, teachers who support
autonomy tend to foster student motivation whereas teachers who do not support autonomy
discourage student initiative (2000, p. 59). With this sense of freedom comes the sense that
students are in control of their learning, empowering them to determine whatever outcomes they
wish to reach. Furthermore, according to findings by B. Zimmerman (2000), a student’s level of

perceived control can help students become more engaged in the classroom, work more
diligently in learning new concepts, and endure struggling through problems more persistently.
In sum, self-efficacy leads to more effort from students (pp. 85-86).
One of the challenges to creating autonomy is that students must ultimately meet certain
standards by the end of the year. Without enough external control from the teacher, it is uncertain
whether they will reach those standards. According to research done by J. Bransford, A. Brown,
and R. Cocking (2000), young learners especially have a natural curiosity about the world around
them, which leads them to want to learn more about their surroundings. When presented with a
challenge and little guidance, students are more inclined to creatively seek out a novel way to
overcome the challenge (p. 102). If teachers gradually decrease how much they are guiding
students, students can tap into their natural inclination to discover the world around them
(Bransford, 2000, p. 214). By creating autonomy, a teacher is using students’ natural inclinations
to discover the world around them and converting those inclinations into motivation to learn new
concepts.
Principle 2: Purpose
Purpose describes how students feel the material they are learning applies to them. In
other words, it answers the question, why do I want to learn this? When students feel that the
material is meaningful to their lives in some way, they tend to organize their thinking around it
so that they will understand it on a more personal level (Bransford, 2000, p. 9). When students
feel that they are personally invested in the material, they are more prone to set their goals,
schedules, and priorities around the material. In a classic review done by A. Chickering and S.
Ehrmann (1996), the effectiveness of this is best summed up when the authors write, “Learning
is not a spectator sport… [Students] must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate

it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of
themselves” (p. 3).
One challenge to creating purpose is that every learner is different, so what might be
meaningful to some students might not be meaningful to other students. Despite their
differences, Bransford et. al. identify one aspect most students deem as meaningful: social
opportunities, or the idea that they can help others (2000, p. 61). Niemic and Ryan expand on
this when they explain, “People tend to internalize and accept as their own the values and
practices of those to whom they feel, or want to feel, connected, and from contexts in which they
experience a sense of belonging” (2009, p. 139). Essentially, when students feel that they are
contributing to others, they feel they have a personal purpose in learning, which can motivate
them to learn more.
Principle 3: Competence
Competence refers to the idea that students feel they are capable of learning what they
need to learn. In their study on over 600 elementary and middle school-aged children, A.
Wigfield and J. Eccles argue, “Children’s and adults’ competence and efficacy beliefs relate to
their achievement performance, choice of achievement tasks, amount of effort exerted, cognitive
strategy use, achievement goals, and overall self-worth” (1994, p. 108). As such, when students
do not believe they can do something, they are more likely to resort to what Urdan et. al. call
“self-defeating practices.” These practices include avoiding learning activities, inserting
impediments into the activities, or giving up on the activities altogether (2006, p. 334).
Conversely, students who believe they are capable of accomplishing a task tend to develop what
Bransford et. al. call “competence motivation.” This means that students are more likely to

devote more time and effort to their learning because they know they can handle any topics in
the material (2000, p. 60).
One of the challenges to creating competence is that students must build competence
internally. It is not enough for teachers to tell students they are competent; students must believe
it for themselves. Fortunately, autonomy and purpose, the two aspects of motivation teachers can
influence directly, can help students to build a sense of competence. According to Zimmerman’s
review of self-efficacy theories, when teachers grant students autonomy to set their own goals
and expectations, students will perceive their accomplishments as a reflection of their own
abilities, not something the teacher forced them to do. In turn, they tend to be more committed to
achieving their learning goals and meeting their own expectations. (Zimmerman, 2000, p. 88).
As discussed earlier, when students recognize purpose in their learning, they are more likely to
identify with what they are learning on a more personal level. When students are personally
invested in their learning, they usually feel the need to explore the material more fully. As such,
they might adopt what Bransford et. al. describe as a more adaptive view of learning in that they
are constantly seeking ways to improve their understanding. In other words, they are always
asking themselves what they can do to ensure that they are fulfilling their purposes to their
utmost potential (Bransford, 2000, p. 48). In order to speculate on what they can do, they must
reflect on what they can do already. This establishes a sense of competence, which only grows
stronger each time students affirm for themselves where they are in their learning.
Combining the Principles of Motivation
These three motivations are not mutually exclusive with each other. Each of these three
principles can work towards developing the other two (see Figure 1). Autonomy can build
competence as students know they are fully responsible for all of their accomplishments because

they are given control over their own learning. Autonomy also can build purpose as it allows
students to discover personal purpose in what they are learning for themselves. Competence can
build autonomy as students feel more empowered to explore new ideas because they know they
are capable of understanding these new concepts. Additionally, competence can enhance
students’ sense of purpose as they will feel more confident in their ability to handle real-world
problems or issues that are important to them. Finally, purpose can influence autonomy as
students are more invested in their learning, giving them more drive to explore different aspects
of the material. Purpose also can build competence as students feel they can handle something
that is valuable and significant, leading them to believe they can learn other topics.
Figure 1: Relationship between autonomy, purpose, and competence.
Research Design and Methods
In this section, I will describe my case study, discuss different approaches to learning in
the classroom, and examine how these approaches helped foster autonomy, purpose, and

competence, which in turn developed motivation. To get a deeper understanding of my study and
its results, I will use a qualitative approach with observations and data-gathering directed toward
developing a better understanding of the lived experience of six students learning math.
Personal Background as the Investigator
As with any qualitative, social science study, it is important to note that any data
analyzed will be gathered and interpreted from the researchers’ perspectives. That being said, I
will now provide a little background information on myself to establish the perspective from
which I am analyzing the data from my case study. I am currently an undergraduate computer
science student with minors in cognitive science and education studies. In my computer science
major, I have found that many of my peers have math anxiety and some end up switching majors
to avoid math. This led me to want to investigate why many students might not develop the
problem-solving skills they need to succeed in their classes. Like many, I began with the
assumption that this lack of development stemmed from the students’ poor study habits or lack
of effort. As I conducted this research, I found that many of my assumptions were false and
developed a better understanding of what motivates people to learn math.
As a researcher in this study, I had the opportunity to participate in a third-grade
classroom with the students and their teacher. I was able to interact directly with the students as
they math problems in ALEKS, listen to the teacher’s lessons, and observe how the students
responded to those lessons. Additionally, I had access to the ALEKS account for the class as
both an administrator and a student. Essentially, I was able to go through the students’
curriculum as if I also was a participant, and I was able to access each student’s data and
progress reports from ALEKS.

Context
My data were collected using interviews with the students and their teacher, various
assessments, progress reports generated by ALEKS, and general observations I made in the
classroom. The classroom in which I participated was a third-grade math class participating in a
pilot study developed by S. Heise, a research scientist at the University of California, San Diego,
as part of her PhD research work as a PhD candidate at Walden University. The third-grade class
was taught by Ms. Betty Fletcher, a Master Teacher, at McGill’s School of Success, a charter
school located in the Golden Hill neighborhood, close to downtown San Diego. For my research
study, I had the opportunity to conduct a case study with this class over a period of two months
(January–March, 2015). During this time, Ms. Fletcher incorporated ALEKS as an intelligent
tutor for her students. Every class I observed would start with a number talk session, when Ms.
Fletcher would give the entire class a lesson in math. After these sessions, students would work
on ALEKS using their individual Google Chromebooks. ALEKS was first used in this classroom
starting in November 2014 in a small pilot study with five students (n=5). After success with
these students over several months, the rest of the students in the class (n=20) started using
ALEKS early in January 2015.
Case Study
For my case study, I will focus primarily on the experiences of six students, whose names
I have changed to protect their identities. I have grouped these students together as high-
performing students, average-performing students, and low-performing students based on their
progress through the third-grade curriculum. Here, I will introduce them and provide my reasons
for choosing them to be a part of my case study.

High Performing Students. The first group, the high-performing students, is comprised
of students who had completed the third-grade curriculum well before the end of April. In the
classroom I observed, there were nine students who had completed third-grade math by April.
From this group, I will be focusing primarily on the experiences of Luke and Isaiah. I chose to
study Luke because he spent the most time in ALEKS and was studying fifth-grade math at the
time of this study. Luke’s total time in ALEKS amounted to 65 hours and 47 minutes over a span
of five months. Compared to the average time the class spent in ALEKS (32 hours and 34
minutes), Luke had invested a considerable amount of time into learning math, which may be
indicative of motivation. I also chose to study Isaiah because he seemed to express the most
interest in the rewards we gave the class as he would frequently ask us about any prizes he could
win. When we did introduce a prize, his time spent in ALEKS peaked, reflecting a correlation
between prizes and his effort in learning math.
Average Performing Students. The second group, the average-performing students, is
comprised of seven students who had completed at least half of the third-grade curriculum before
the end of April. In this group, I will be focusing on Chelsea and Manny. I selected Chelsea to be
a part of my case study because she started out disliking math. Before we introduced any
possible motivational factors, she did not seem confident in her ability to solve math problems
and actively avoided answering questions when the teacher called on her. After a few months,
she became more assertive and even admitted to liking math. Additionally, she was the first
student to start working on ALEKS outside of the classroom. I also chose to study Manny
because he spent the second-most amount of time in ALEKS at 49 hours and 2 minutes. In the
classroom, he was sitting next to Luke, a high-performing student. Since the classroom was set

up to support peer-learning, I wanted to see if peer-interaction contributed to the fact that Manny
and Luke spent the most and second-most amount of time in ALEKS.
Low Performing Students. The third group, the low-performing students, is comprised
of three students who had not mastered half of the third-grade curriculum before the end of
April. In this group, I will be focusing on the experiences of Andy and Rose. I decided to study
Andy because he started the year as a student who seemed particularly unmotivated to learn. He
seemed resistant to learning math in that the teacher would have to tell him multiple times to get
started on his worksheets. Additionally, he would not participate in peer learning activities or
classroom discussions voluntarily. After we played Chinese checkers with him and introduced a
prize for finishing third-grade, his time in ALEKS tripled. Rose also stood out to me as a student
who seemed extremely unsure of herself and her ability to solve math problems. She progressed
through ALEKS at a much slower pace than the rest of her classmates. However, after we made
her a deal that she would receive a board game for the entire class to play, she began to take
more initiative in her learning and began spending more time in ALEKS. In fact, she began to
study multiple topics at each session and doubled her mastery level in only a few weeks.
Each of the students I have named seemed to exhibit a different response to the various
motivational techniques we introduced to the classroom. In the end, I hope to show that although
these students were at different points in their learning, there were some similarities in what
ultimately motivated each of them to learn.
Findings
I began my study with the goal of seeing if there was any particular method of motivation
that worked for the majority of students. In the end, I found that each student was unique, so no
motivational technique is always better than the other. Thus, a differentiated approach was

needed for each student. However, different approaches to motivation may share common
underlying principles that drive students to work towards learning more. In the following
sections, I will take a closer look at what seems to motivate students the most. Each of the
students I selected to study had expressed a strong interest in at least one of the various
motivational factors in the classroom. I will be describing the experiences of each of these
students and what seemed to motivate them the most.
High Performing Students
As stated earlier, the high performing group of students consisted of nine students who
had finished the third-grade curriculum by the end of April. While there were many students who
fell into this category, Luke and Isaiah stood out to me in particular.
Luke. When I first started observing the classroom, Luke struck me as a more reserved
student who did not stand out to me compared to the rest of his classmates. In fact, according to
his initial assessment in ALEKS, Luke began as an average student in the class, knowing as
many topics as most of the other students in the class (See Figure 2). However, by the end of the
year, he ended up as the top performing student in the class with the most topics mastered and
the most time spent in ALEKS. Moreover, Luke finished going through the third-grade, fourth-
grade, and fifth-grade curriculum on ALEKS over a span of five months. He was able to
accomplish this by spending numerous hours working on math in ALEKS after school, during
the weekends, and even during spring break. Although he had finished the third-grade
curriculum by the beginning of April, he continued to spend a considerable amount of time in
ALEKS to finish going through fourth-grade and fifth-grade math. Going through fourth-grade
and fifth-grade curricula and working outside of class were completely optional, so it seemed

Luke was motivated to learn by something other than classroom deadlines or pressure from the
teacher. This led me to investigate what was driving him to work so diligently in learning math.
Figure 2: Percentage of Luke’s initial and final mastered topics compared to rest of class.
When I interviewed Luke, I asked him what made him want to learn math. He replied,
“Because the first time I learned math, I thought it was fun. It’s the competition. I like the
competition. People are trying to catch up with me, and I keep trying for them not to catch up to
me.” According to Ms. Fletcher, Luke, like most of the boys in the classroom, “is highly
competitive with other students. When students see one student doing something, they want to do
it better.” Ms. Fletcher taught her students that everyone learns in his or her own way, so
students did not gloat or put each other down despite the competition. This helped to create a
friendly competition that motivated students such as Luke to learn more.
We were able to further foster this competition by using ALEKS. ALEKS is set up so
that students have a differentiated, individualized learning experience. Every student has a pie
chart reflecting his or her own progress through ALEKS (see Figure 3). Each slice of the pie
represented a topic in math that the student must learn. Students had the ability to pick what
topics they wanted to study each time they went on ALEKS. This allowed them to go through the
material at their own paces according to their own learning preferences. For the more
competitive students, this gave them the opportunity to try to learn as many topics as they could
21%
280%
22%
159%
0%
100%
200%
300%
January April
Initial and Current Assessments Luke
Average

each time they went on ALEKS. Each student has a percentage reflecting his or her mastery in
ALEKS. When we visited the school, we would tell the students these percentages and made a
display for them to visually see their progress, including what topics they had mastered and what
topics they had yet to learn.
Figure 3: Example pie chart in ALEKS. Each slice represents a topic, in this case place value and money.
For Luke, this gave him the opportunity to see where his other classmates were and
pushed him to stay ahead of them. When we started encouraging competition in the classroom by
telling students their percentages and offering rewards for those who had mastered the third-
grade curriculum, Luke’s time spent in ALEKS more than tripled as shown in Figure 4. Like
many of the students, Luke started working on ALEKS in the mornings at school and at home.
By the end of the year, he had amassed about three times the amount of time on ALEKS than any
of his other classmates. Luke’s time in ALEKS was not distributed equally, however. Luke
tended to spend more time in ALEKS when other students were catching up to his percentage.
For instance, when Luke started working on fifth-grade curriculum, his time in ALEKS started to
decrease (see Figure 5). However, when another student started working on fifth-grade
curriculum too, Luke’s time in ALEKS increased. This is most likely because he felt his position
as the top student in the competition was at stake when another student joined him in studying
fifth-grade math.

Figure 4: Luke’s time in ALEKS compared to other high performers in the class.
Figure 5: Luke’s time increased when he had another competitor in the fifth-grade.
This led me to ask, why did being the top of the competition matter so much to Luke? At
the surface, it would seem that being the top of the competition gave Luke a sense of
accomplishment, which inspired him to work more. However, after talking with Ms. Fletcher, it
seemed being the top of the competition meant much more than that to Luke. According to Ms.
Fletcher, the students who were at the top of the competition were seen as the ones “with all the
knowledge.” Other students followed these top students by striving to learn more, spending more
time learning in ALEKS, and adopting similar attitudes towards math. Being at the top of the
competition motivated Luke to work to be the one with the most knowledge in the class. This
was further reflected in the way he started to actively look for new things to learn. Ms. Fletcher
noted that every time she introduced a new concept, Luke received it as something he needed to
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know and explore. This included concepts that were not related to what the students were
learning in the classroom. For example, Ms. Fletcher recounted a time when they made ice cream
in the class. When she mentioned the periodic table, a topic that usually is not covered until
middle school, Luke went home and learned about fifteen elements from the periodic table.
Considering that Luke was not nearly as adamant about learning before the competition, it is
likely that his efforts to learn about topics that were far beyond the scope of a third-grade
classroom were motivated by his desire to be the student “with all of the knowledge.” To him,
learning math in a competitive setting gave him the means to become that student.
Isaiah. Isaiah stood out to me not for being a high-achieving student, but for being a
student who was most enthusiastic about earning the prizes we gave to the class. Aside from
frequently asking how he could earn a prize, Isaiah’s time in ALEKS increased whenever we
offered him a prize (see Figure 6). When the class’ subscription to ALEKS was scheduled to end
during the last week of March, we offered a marble and click-clack to the first student to finish
the third-grade curriculum hoping that students would finish before their subscriptions expired.
All of the students, including Isaiah, started spending more time in ALEKS. When the
subscription was extended to April 12th
, we offered more marbles to any student who finished
the third-grade. Even after we extended the subscription to ALEKS until the end of the school
year, we kept offering prizes to any student who finished third-grade. Again, Isaiah’s time in
ALEKS increased dramatically. When students started to move onto the fourth-grade curriculum
in April, we started offering special marbles for students who finished the fourth-grade. We also
noticed that another student, Rose, was falling behind in terms of progress, so we offered her a
board game for finishing third-grade. At this point, Isaiah approached us and asked if there was
anything he could do to get a prize. We told him that if he helped Rose, he would also get a

prize. Isaiah eagerly replied that he could help Rose in class and at home, and then asked what he
would get for helping Rose. To this, we told him that he would receive a “special surprise.” Even
though he did not know what the prize would be, his time in ALEKS still peaked. After we
found that the students were becoming more competitive, we started offering car kits to students
who finished fifth-grade math. As seen in Figure 6, every time we offered the students a prize,
Isaiah spent more time trying to go through ALEKS whether the prize was a marble, car kit, or a
“special surprise.”
Figure 6: Timeline showing when we introduced new prizes to the classroom. Isaiah spent more time in
ALEKS whenever we introduced a new prize.
Originally, I thought that simply earning a tangible prize such as a marble or car kit was
the reason for Isaiah’s increased efforts in learning. Essentially, I assumed that Isaiah was
excited to receive prizes because it meant that he would get to play with new toys. During my
interviews with Isaiah and Ms. Fletcher, however, I found that my presuppositions were incorrect
for the most part. When I asked Isaiah about the prizes we had been offering, he replied,
“There’s a certain time when you get prizes, but not all the time. That’s why even if I don’t get a
prize today, tomorrow, or whenever, it still makes me want to learn math.” This surprised me
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and fifth-grade

because it seemed contradictory to his eagerness to receive prizes. For this reason, I asked him
what earning prizes meant to him. Isaiah said that he liked to put the prizes near where he slept.
That way, every time he woke up or went to sleep he would be reminded of what he had
accomplished and how he needed to keep working to learn more. This went against what I had
initially thought when I assumed that Isaiah enjoyed getting marbles and car kits because he
could play with them. Since he kept them by his bed without actually playing with them, it
seemed that Isaiah treated these prizes as being trophies of his accomplishments. In this way, the
prizes physically symbolized Isaiah’s past achievements, reassured him that he was capable of
overcoming new challenges, and inspired him to work towards mastering more concepts in
ALEKS. Essentially, these prizes held more symbolic value than material worth to Isaiah.
These prizes’ symbolic value originated from the way the prizes gave Isaiah recognition
for his achievements in the classroom. Whenever we gave students a prize, we announced their
achievements to the rest of the class and gave them their prize for the other students to see. Isaiah
admitted to being competitive, so being recognized for his achievements in front of the entire
class gave him a lot of satisfaction in his ability to stand out from the rest of his classmates.
Furthermore, when other students saw Isaiah getting a prize, they wanted to be like him and
worked towards achieving the same accomplishments as Isaiah and getting the same prizes. Ms.
Fletcher stated that this dynamic put Isaiah into a leadership role. Given this leadership role,
Isaiah became a more influential student in the classroom in that other students would want to
follow him in doing whatever he was doing. This sort of attention pushed Isaiah to learn more as
he wanted to maintain his role as a leader. In fact, according to Ms. Fletcher, this leadership role
meant so much to him that whenever he got into trouble at recess or at lunch, he would be too
ashamed to come up to the classroom and face the other students. Although he learned that he

needed to face his mistakes, this same level of devotion to being a leader was reflected his desire
to accomplish more in ALEKS. It is likely that his time spent in ALEKS peaked when we
offered him prizes because they presented him with opportunities to accomplish something that
would help him to maintain his role as a leader. The prizes further solidified his role as leader
because they caused other students to recognize him as being someone whom they could follow.
In the end, the prizes motivated Isaiah because they gave him something to work towards and
assisted him in becoming what he wanted to become, a leader in the classroom.
Average Performing Students
The average performing students refers to the seven students in the classroom who had
finished over half of the third-grade curriculum in ALEKS by the end of April. Here I will be
discussing the experiences of Chelsea and Manny and what motivated them to learn.
Chelsea. Before Chelsea started using ALEKS, she thought she could never understand
math. She had very little confidence in her ability to solve problems and was one of the lower
performing students in the class. As such, many of Chelsea’s peers probably would not have
guessed that she would have improved as much as she did. According to her progress report in
ALEKS, Chelsea mastered roughly the same number of topics as even the higher performers in
the class (see Figure 7). The main difference was that Chelsea started the year knowing fewer
topics than the higher performers. These results indicate she was putting effort into her learning,
but needed something more than rote instruction. She needed to believe in her abilities and take
control of her learning.

Figure 7: Chelsea learned 123 topics; other students learned 176 topics on average.
According to Ms. Fletcher, Chelsea needed an environment where she would not feel like
a failure for not performing as well as the high performers in the class. To accomplish this, we
tried implementing peer learning in the class where we paired high performing students with low
performing students. Students participated in a variety of cooperative activities, such as sharing
stories about math problems with each other, helping partners with ALEKS, and offering
solutions to problems Ms. Fletcher provided. These activities seemed to spark interest and
excitement in Chelsea. According to Ms. Fletcher, Chelsea was more motivated to learn when
she could verbalize her thinking. It was not enough that she could go through the problems in
ALEKS - Chelsea needed reciprocal learning activities to build her confidence in being able to
articulate problems and help other students solve problems. In fact, Chelsea stated that she
absolutely loved “teaching the class” by telling her stories and having the other students solve
them. It is through these interactions that Chelsea went from a student who avoided answering
the teacher’s questions to a student who came to believe she could be good at math.
Once she started to believe in herself, Chelsea became much more motivated to learn
math. Although she was still struggling, she realized that struggling was natural for students of
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all performance levels- it was merely a part of the learning process. Ms. Fletcher made a point of
making this clear to the students whenever students made mistakes. Instead of telling them that
they were wrong outright, she would tell that in making those mistakes, they were helping
everyone else to learn. This seemed to encourage Chelsea to become more confident in solving
math as her struggling could be beneficial to all of her peers. This confidence was further
inspired when Chelsea was told that ALEKS would be her “secret weapon” to wield against
math problems. Rather than being told what to learn, Chelsea had to take charge of her own
learning and determine for herself what needed to be done. Chelsea rose to the challenge and
ended up exceeding everyone’s expectations in terms of how much she learned. For her, being
able to visually see her progress on the pie chart made her want to learn math more because it
reminded her that she was capable of learning. In response to this newfound confidence, she
started to work on ALEKS at home, something that is completely optional for students to do.
Moreover, she discovered that she could work on ALEKS at home without anyone telling her
about it. This demonstrated dedication and commitment to learning math, which stemmed from
Chelsea’s inner drive to overcome her struggles in learning math.
This dedication was further exemplified in the way Chelsea started to set her own goals.
From the end of April to the beginning of May, Chelsea’s time in ALEKS decreased
considerably. Ms. Fletcher noted that the reason for this was partially due to the fact that she had
encountered problems that she was struggling to understand. This seemed to discourage Chelsea
from learning as she would only spend about a minute in ALEKS before quitting. Then,
seemingly out of nowhere, her time in ALEKS skyrocketed (see Figure 8). After asking her
about this, I found out that this increase in time was a result of Chelsea realizing that she was
extremely close to mastering the third-grade curriculum. During our conversation, Chelsea said,

“I just realized that I really want to get to fourth-grade, so I started working really hard on
ALEKS.” In response to this realization, Chelsea started creating checklists of what topics she
needed to learn and spent more time in ALEKS to complete the items on her checklist (see
Figure 9).In essence, she began to set goals, which then motivated her to work more on ALEKS.
These goals helped her to overcome the topics that were causing her to struggle as they kept her
focused on her goal of finishing the third-grade. Ms. Fletcher explained Chelsea’s progress as a
common occurrence for students when she said, “They know what they want to do, they may see
something as a challenge and challenge themselves, they may go back and do something easier.
When they finish the easier thing, they’ll feel good about going into the next challenge.” With
these feelings of confidence, Chelsea began to attempt more topics every time she went on
ALEKS, which led to her mastering an additional ten percent of the third-grade curriculum over
the span of two weeks.
Figure 8: Chelsea’s time in ALEKS increased once she realized she could finish the third-grade
curriculum.
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Figure 9: Chelsea’s checklist (M=Multiplication & Division, G=Geometry, Measurement, & Graphs,
F=Fractions, P=Place Value & Money, A=Addition & Subtraction, C=Completed).
Chelsea’s goal-setting was a reflection of how she had taken control over her own
learning. With Ms. Fletcher, her peers, and ALEKS giving her support, Chelsea wielded her
efforts to learn math to the point where she could overcome obstacles she faced without any
handholding from others. In setting goals, she made a personal commitment to learning, which
also indicated her confidence in her ability to achieve these goals. Furthermore, when I started
observing the class, I asked Chelsea what she wanted to be when she grew up. In January, she
said she wanted to work at a deli or a bar as these occupations did not involve many complex
math problems. When I asked her the same question again in May, she answered that she wanted
to be an engineer. Her going from wanting a career to avoid math to wanting a career that deals
with a lot of math was remarkable as it proved she was no longer afraid of approaching more
difficult problems. Over the course of my study, she had learned that she could solve math
problems, even if she did not understand the concepts at first. This led her to pursue a better
understanding of math by setting goals for herself. These goals motivated her to face the
challenges in learning math with confidence and determination.
Manny. If one were to observe Manny in the classroom, he or she probably would not
expect that he worked as diligently in ALEKS as he did. Manny was one of the more reserved
students in the classroom who did not appear to react to many of the different motivational

tactics we tried to implement. He did not seem to participate in the competition as ardently as
many of his peers did. In fact, during my interview with him, he mentioned that he found the
competition to be somewhat frustrating as he saw his peers surpassing him in math. While he
wanted to be like his peers, it seemed they only kept getting further away in their progress.
Additionally, he said he did not need to earn the prizes we gave to the class. As such, one would
not expect that he was one of the students who spent the most time working on ALEKS (49
hours and 2 minutes), second only to Luke. According to his reports in ALEKS, he consistently
either met or surpassed the class’ average time spent working in ALEKS on a daily basis (see
Figure 10). One of the most noteworthy examples of this happened over the classroom’s spring
break, which is highlighted in Figure 10. While most of the students’ times tapered down,
Manny’s remained as high as it had been and even increased on some days. This meant that he
was spending time learning during a period that was specifically given to students as a break
from learning. Instead of enjoying his break like his classmates, he voluntarily chose to work in
ALEKS. Needless to say, this reflected a deep commitment to learning math. Since he did not
respond as much to the competition or prizes, it seemed there was something much deeper that
was driving him to want to learn math.
Figure 10: Manny spent a considerable amount of time in ALEKS compared to the rest of his classmates.
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This intuition was proven to be correct when I interviewed Manny. When I asked him
what motivated him to learn math, he answered, “Well, actually my mom inspires me to do math
in ALEKS. She says if I work hard, I can be very smart, and I would achieve more things.” He
went on to describe how his mom was the “brains of the house,” and how he wanted to become
more like her. It was also interesting to observe how Manny sat next to Luke when the students
worked together in ALEKS (see Figure 11). The classroom was set up specifically to encourage
peer learning so that students could help each other when going through ALEKS. Unlike many
traditional classrooms, students sat around a table facing each other and discussed the problems
they were trying to solve. According to Figure 11, Manny was surrounded by high performing
students, one of whom was Luke. Ms. Fletcher observed that when students were surrounded by
a group of high performing students like that, they were bound to “catch on” and try to do what
the others were doing. This included putting more effort into their work, expressing more
excitement to learn, and exhibiting more initiative in trying to approach new concepts. Manny
was no exception. When I asked Manny about how he felt sitting next to Luke, he said that Luke
helped him with his work and made him want to try to learn more. By being with his mom at
home and the high performers at school, Manny was surrounded by people who exemplified how
learning math could lead to accomplishments. Seeing them work diligently in math inspired him
to put more effort into learning math as he could see how learning math made them “better
people.” Essentially, they became role models for Manny to follow in his journey through math.

Figure 11: Seating chart for classroom. Manny was surrounded by high performing students.
After getting to know Manny better, I realized that Manny’s desire to become like his
role models was a key driving force behind him putting a large amount of effort into his learning.
Manny identified his role models as being intelligent, successful people who were proficient in
math. In this regard, learning math was his way of working towards becoming an intelligent,
successful person like his role models. In the scope of the classroom, being an intelligent and
successful person meant finishing the third-grade curriculum in ALEKS. For this reason, Manny
poured hours upon hours into finishing the third-grade curriculum working both during
weekdays and weekends whether he was at school or at home. Moreover, whenever he learned a
new strategy to solve problems, he felt more inspired to keep working because he felt that he was
becoming more proficient in math. By spending numerous hours in ALEKS, Manny was able to
acquire new strategies in solving math problems on his own. This helped him to become more
like his role models in terms of their levels of expertise. This desire to gain expertise also kept
Manny going in the face of difficult challenges. He commented, “I’ve really enjoyed the ALEKS
program and math. It’s kind of hard, but that makes you smarter. If you don’t get it, ALEKS

gives you more chances to help you learn.” This attitude towards ALEKS evidenced how
Manny’s drive to become a smarter person outweighed his feelings of frustration in not being
able to solve problems. Instead of viewing his struggles as being indicative of his shortcomings,
he accepted them as opportunities to learn and to improve himself. This was similar to how his
role models handled their struggling. He noted that being able to overcome these difficult
problems encouraged him to keep learning more because it proved to him that he was “learning
new things and doing good at [his] work in ALEKS.” In other words, mastering strategies and
overcoming difficult challenges brought him closer to becoming an expert in math and thus
brought him closer to becoming like his role models.
Low Performing Students
I will begin this section by clarifying what I mean when I use the term “low performing.”
This seems necessary to me because when one reads the words “low performing student,” he or
she might be prone to believe that the low performer is unintelligent or feeble-minded. This was
not the case for the students I am describing in my case study. Low performing students are those
students who had not finished at least half of the third-grade curriculum by the end of April. Of
these three students, I will be focusing on the experiences of Andy and Rose.
Andy. When I first observed Andy in the classroom, I thought that he was particularly
unmotivated to learn. Almost every time Ms. Fletcher prompted students to engage in an activity
such as working on ALEKS or offering solutions to problems, Andy would be reluctant to join
the other students in doing these activities. In fact, Ms. Fletcher often had to tell him to do these
activities multiple times before he actually started doing them. Even when Andy started
participating in these activities, he seemed to be putting the minimal amount of effort into

completing the activities. This continued for about two months from the beginning of January to
the end of February (see Figure 12). As seen in Figure 12, Andy spent relatively the same
amount of time in ALEKS as his peers, which primarily consists of the time Ms. Fletcher had
allotted for her students to use ALEKS. In other words, Andy was only spending time in ALEKS
when he had to work on ALEKS. Figure 12 also shows that Andy’s time doubled during the
month of March. Additionally, Andy attempted more topics during each session and continued to
do so throughout April. The reason he attempted fewer topics in May was that he had started
working on his Quick Tables, a module in ALEKS to help students master their times tables.
When he started to work on Quick Tables in April, he had already mastered about half of his
addition tables. By the end of May, he had mastered all of his addition tables, making him the
first student to master addition tables completely. Although he attempted fewer topics in ALEKS
during this time, he was still putting in the same amount of effort into his learning. It seemed
something led Andy to increase his effort he in a lasting way.
Figure 12: Andy’s time and topics attempted in ALEKS from January to May.
In order to understand what sparked this change in Andy, I took a closer look at his
progress during March since his efforts increased most dramatically then (see Figure 13). His
sudden change in effort seemed to happen the week we introduced prizes and games. During my
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interview with Andy, I quickly discovered that the prizes did not have a substantial impact on
Andy as he commented, “Toys aren’t learning, they’re just stuff. I like to do math just as it is.”
We also let the entire class play Chinese checkers. I participated in the same game as Andy did,
so I was able to see his response to being able to play a game firsthand. In all of my observations,
I had not seen him as enthusiastic as he was when he played Chinese checkers. Ms. Fletcher
noted that Andy was shy, so he tended to downplay his excitement over things in the classroom.
In Andy’s case, overcoming some of his initial shyness gave him the ability to get more out of
his interactions with his peers. When I asked Ms. Fletcher how she helped Andy to overcome his
shyness, she answered that she was able to help Andy by leaving him alone with a few
instructions on what he needed to do for the day. This does not mean that she ignored him.
Rather, she allowed Andy to discover things for himself, which made him feel encouraged
instead of forced to learn. Indeed, this allowed him to feel more comfortable with others, which
helped him to open up to them. Watching him play Chinese checkers, this sense of security was
evident in the way he was making comments throughout the game and moving his pieces in
animated ways, complete with sound effects and dramatic movements. According to him,
“Chinese Checkers has made things more competitive, but it’s fun though.” This was when I
realized what was behind Andy’s increased efforts: Andy wanted to have fun in learning. Despite
his shyness, he expressed more enthusiasm in doing something when he was having fun. Just as
in Chinese checkers, Andy became more excited and driven to learn when we created a fun and
competitive atmosphere in the classroom.

Figure 13: Andy’s time and attempted topics increased when we introduced prizes and games. The drop
in his time and attempted topics was more of a reflection of the school’s break.
In order to gain a better understanding of what made learning fun for Andy, I asked Ms.
Fletcher about methods she had found to be effective. Ms. Fletcher said that one of the biggest
challenges to making learning fun was trying to make lessons interesting. One of the ways she
overcame this challenge was to ask, “Am I delivering something that is interesting enough that
they’ll care about it in that they can relate to it?” By planning her lessons with this question in
mind, she was able to gear her lessons towards creating interest in learning math. This interest
provided a foundation for motivating students to learn math. After describing how she created
interest and motivation in the classroom, Ms. Fletcher added:
“You have to tell them that’s why we’re here. We’re here, let’s have some fun and make
sure at the end of the day they do take something home. You have to show some
excitement. If you show it’s exciting, then they’ll jump on.”
When Andy saw that learning math could be fun, he wanted to work on ALEKS more. It did not
matter whether he would get a prize, he simply wanted to participate in ALEKS because he
found that competing with his classmates was fun. When Ms. Fletcher made the lessons more
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interesting, performance in the competition became more valuable to the students as it meant
something to them on a more personal level. This added to fun atmosphere of the classroom as
students, including Andy, became more enthusiastic about what they were learning. Ultimately,
learning math became fun and motivational for Andy when he was able to compete with his
classmates who were just as enthusiastic about learning as he was.
Rose. Occasionally, teachers will have students in the classroom who are dependent on
others to the point where they want others to solve math problems for them. Rose was one of
these students. With only 4% mastery when she started using ALEKS in January and only 9% by
the end of February (see Figure 14), it seemed Rose needed an extra push to jumpstart her
learning. Between the months of March and May, we tried several motivational tactics to help
her to reach a higher mastery level overall, which seemed to be effective based on the results in
Figure 14. At the end of May, I asked Rose to describe math in three words. She replied,
“Confidence, and I can be strong, and I can be undistracted.” This perception of math was
drastically different from that of the dependent student she was from January to early March.
Since much of Rose’s change in attitude seemed to occur between March and May, I combined
the motivational tactics we implemented and Rose’s progress through ALEKS to see if there
were any correlations (see Figure 15). Looking at Figure 15, it seemed there was indeed a
correlation between our motivational tactics and Rose’s efforts.

Figure 14: Rose’s mastery percentages at the end of each month.
Figure 15: Rose’s time spent in ALEKS and the number of questions she attempted combined with the
different motivational tactics we implemented.
We started by introducing prizes and games to the classroom. In addition to giving
students incentives to learn, this also fostered competition among the students. When all of the
students joined the competition, their enthusiasm for learning math increased overall. This
enthusiasm- combined with the peer learning that had already been added to the classroom-
encouraged students to become more adamant about helping each other. For Rose, this sense of
camaraderie gave her exactly what she wanted: for other people to help her to learn. Although
her peers were not solving the problems for her, they did act as a support system that pushed
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Rose to overcome challenges and reminded her that she could excel in math if she tried. When I
asked Ms. Fletcher about this, Ms. Fletcher commented:
“It’s a bit of a camaraderie type of thing as well as a competitive thing. They just feel
good because they can help someone else out, and that’s what you want. You want them
to feel good about helping someone else, and then they can learn too at the same time.
They have a buddy with them, and sometimes having a buddy to stand with them when
they are in front of the class or at a desk helps them to feel safe and not judged.”
This camaraderie continued to help Rose in April when we made a deal with her that she would
get a marble for every topic she mastered. When we made this deal, Rose tried out a topic in
every subject area in ALEKS. Ms. Fletcher noted that even though she did not master all of these
topics, this did give her a “boost of confidence” so that when she came back to work on them,
she was already familiar with all of them. Later that month, we made another deal with Rose
when we told her she would earn a Mouse Trap board game and play it with the rest of the class
for completing the third-grade curriculum. Rose said she wanted this game very badly, and it
made her want to learn more. On top of this, the entire class began to support Rose even more as
they also wanted to play the game. Again, Rose started to attempt to solve more questions in
ALEKS. In addition to this, we created a display to show students their progress in ALEKS.
After Rose realized she was at the bottom of the class, she began to concentrate more on
mastering topics, which she continued to do for the next week. A few weeks later, we gave her
an account in ST Math, an educational software site. In this software, students must help a
penguin named Jiji by using their math skills. Rose said she enjoyed helping Jiji, and that Jiji “is
very, very kind because she wants me to learn, and she lets me try the same problem again if I

get it wrong. So, I keep trying.” Initially, Rose struggled with helping Jiji. However, with Jiji and
other peers telling her she could solve math problems, she was able to overcome that struggle.
In all of these cases, it seemed Rose put more effort into her learning because they gave
her a chance to be a part of her community of peers. This community of peers gave her the
support and encouragement she needed to become more independent in her learning. When she
started to show more initiative by trying out more topics in ALEKS and by helping Jiji in ST
Math, she experienced what it was like to be an independent learner. This, combined with her
peers encouraging her, helped her to believe that she was capable of understanding math on her
own. This independence also gave Rose the tools she needed to contribute to her community of
peers, which to her meant earning a board game for them to play. For this reason, when we
brought more of the same board games for the entire class to play, she was visibly disappointed
that she was not the one who earned a chance for her classmates to play the game. If she had just
wanted the game, it would not have mattered whether other students were playing it or not. What
made earning the game special to her was that others would reap the benefits of her work in
learning math. This was similar to the way she responded to being at the bottom of her class. In
both of these situations, it seemed Rose wanted to feel like she could contribute to her
community of peers by having a better understanding of math. In sum, Rose’s responses to our
motivational techniques reflected her desire to be a part of a community where she could help
others and be helped by others. This need for reciprocal relationships with her peers became the
source of her motivation in learning math.
Discussion
As found in my review of literature, motivation can be boiled down to three main
components: autonomy, purpose, and competence. Every student manifested these three

components in different ways. For Luke, being able to compete with his classmates motivated
him to learn because it gave him the chance to be the top student of his class, thus giving his
learning purpose. Within this competition, he had autonomy in being able to choose what topics
he wanted to study, how much time he spent learning each day, and what new knowledge he
could try to acquire. As the school year progressed, it seemed Luke began to build competence in
being able to approach problems, the competition, and new ideas in general. This was reflected
in his attitude towards learning in the way he said he knew he was going to finish fourth-grade
and fifth-grade before he had even started. Essentially, by combining purpose through
competition and autonomy through ALEKS, Luke developed the feelings of competence he
needed to excel in learning math.
For Isaiah, receiving prizes motivated him to learn more because they represented
something meaningful to him: they reflected his accomplishments and gave him opportunities to
become a leader in the classroom. His purpose in learning math was to earn these prizes so that
other students would follow him as a leader. With Ms. Fletcher encouraging autonomy without
imposing any strict boundaries on what he could do, Isaiah had more freedom in going after
prizes, which helped him to distinguish himself as a leader. With his prizes reminding him of his
past achievements, Isaiah felt competent in being able to learn math and maintain his role as a
class leader. For him, prizes motivated him to learn not for their material worth, but for their
symbolic purpose.
For Chelsea, being able to accomplish her goals seemed to motivate her to learn more.
With support from Ms. Fletcher, her peers, and ALEKS, she gradually became more confident in
her ability to fulfill these goals as she began to believe that she was capable of understanding
math. Given a learning environment with a high level of autonomy, Chelsea could set and

complete these goals in whatever way she chose, forcing her to take active control of her
learning. These goals gave her purpose in learning as completing them confirmed that her ability
to solve math and took her one step closer to finishing her much larger life goals. Ultimately,
these goals gave her something to strive towards accomplishing, and with the belief that she
could fulfill them, Chelsea was motivated to learn math.
For Manny, seeing other people exceeding in math pushed him to want to learn math. His
purpose was to become more like them- intelligent and successful. Because Ms. Fletcher gave
the students autonomy, Manny was able to pursue his learning to his fullest potential, spending
countless hours working on ALEKS inside and outside of the classroom. When Manny was able
to solve problems using new strategies he acquired, this gave him the confidence that he was
competent in understanding math. This competence helped him to feel as if he was one step
closer to becoming like his role models. Being able to see his role models and knowing that he
was capable of becoming like them in his own way gave Manny a strong drive to learn math.
For Andy, having fun gave him a purpose in learning math and motivated him to work
more diligently in ALEKS. His ability to have fun was made possible by the autonomy Ms.
Fletcher granted him by leaving him alone to explore math for himself. Through this autonomy,
Andy got more out of interacting with his peers, which gave him a chance to see how exciting
math could be. Because he felt comfortable and secure with his peers, he exuded confidence and
competence in being able to compete with them in a friendly way. Through this competition,
Andy discovered how much fun math could be, which drove him to learn more. In this way, the
fun Andy was having in the classroom motivated him to invest more time and effort into
understanding math.

For Rose, being a part of the classroom community was her main motivation to learn.
Being able to contribute to this community gave her purpose in pursuing a better understanding
of math. Moreover, she was able to learn more when she was given the autonomy to pursue math
on her own terms. In order to make this autonomy more effective, she needed encouragement
from her community of peers that did not involve them solving math problems for her. With the
support of the entire classroom, Rose felt more competent in that she could handle math
problems. This attitude was further reinforced when Rose was able to successfully utilize her
math skills to help others. In the long run, Rose was motivated to learn math because she desired
to help and be helped by her community of peers.
From these results, it seems there are many different aspects of learning that can motivate
students of all performance levels to learn. In dividing the students from my case study in terms
of high performers, average performers, and low performers, I hoped not to show how students
of different performance levels differ in what motivates them, but how students of different
performance levels can be motivated by similar principles of purpose, autonomy, and
competence. With purpose, students have something to work towards whether it is acquiring
knowledge, maintaining leadership, accomplishing goals, becoming like role models, having fun,
being part of a community, or some other end that was not discussed in my case study. With
autonomy, students are given the freedom to develop those purposes and to determine how they
will fulfill those purposes, which allows them to pursue learning in a way that suits their needs
more effectively. In the end, students can build feelings of competence when they accomplish
what they are working towards using an approach they built for themselves. This feeling of “I
can do it” can give students the confidence they need to handle difficult problems and the
motivation they need to follow through with their learning.

Limitations
With limited time and access to the classroom, I was not able to collect all of the data that
would have further defined my arguments. For instance, in this study I only studied six out of
twenty students in Ms. Fletcher’s classroom. If I had the time to study all of the students, I would
have most likely discovered many different ways autonomy, purpose, and competence contribute
to student motivation. Also, it would have helped to study more students from other classrooms
as that could have made my findings more generalizable. As my study stands, every student is
different, so it is impossible to guarantee the same success with these students for other students.
Additionally, it would have helped to have studied other classes to compare and contrast learning
methods. Ideally, I would have been able to look at a class that incorporated ALEKS with a
different teacher to be able to see differences in teaching strategies and another class that did not
use ALEKS to be able to definitively attribute changes in students’ learning to ALEKS.
However, this was not possible in the scope of this project. Finally, I would have liked to collect
more information from teachers to see what they have noticed to be effective in students’
learning.
Next Steps
There are many other ways to build motivation, which were not discussed in this paper. It
is my hope that my findings from McGill School of Success will contribute to understanding
what motivates students and how that motivation can influence their learning. Not every student
will be exactly like the students in my case study as every student learns differently and is
motivated by different means. In future studies, I would like to see what motivates students in
higher grades. Obviously, the same motivators that were present in my study might not be nearly
as effective in higher grades, but some of the underlying principles of autonomy, purpose, and

competence might still be present. There are many students from all grade levels with math
anxiety who feel they “can’t do it.” Perhaps these feelings of incompetency can subside if, like
the students in my case study, they are given the tools for autonomous learning and are given
opportunities to find purpose in their learning. Given these as a foundation for learning, perhaps
more students will be more motivated to learn math whether they believe they are capable of
understanding it or not.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to examine how to foster students’ motivation in learning
elementary math. I began by presenting background information to set up the problem. I then
reviewed recent research and classic studies about how to foster motivation using autonomy,
purpose, and competence. Next, I explained the research methods used in this qualitative case
study. I analyzed data for my case study of six third-grade students who were learning math.
Specifically, I looked at how different approaches to learning helped to motivate students. I then
discussed the results of my study, the limitations of this study, and future steps for research.

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Fostering Autonomy, Purpose, and Competence in Math

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