Educational Media Reviews Online

Motivating children is a foremost topic with educators. All children are born motivated as illustrated by the experiments in these videos. Unmotivated children are seldom successful learners. This two video set explores the concept of motivation, how children become unmotivated to learn, and how parents and educators can amend that. Clear footage of a two month motivation enhancement program was created in Korea. Therefore, while the information is very interesting and relevant to today’s educators, much of it is subtitled which makes it less straightforward.

The students’ psychological states were assessed and background information states that motivation is more important than ability. Key points conclude that using candy and money as rewards often lead to children unmotivated to learn in the absence of those extrinsic rewards because reward has become the reason for completing a task rather than intrinsic motivation. Another key point is that parents or educators comparing children with others reduces the motivation of the students being compared, and that if the task is too great or the increment of expected improvement is too large, motivation is again lost. The graphics to illustrate the percentage of children who became unmotivated were displayed over a grayed-out still image of the classroom, which while attractive, made the graphics more difficult to interpret. After each experimental section a credentialed person from major universities explains, some in English, some in Korean with subtitles. The final segment shows the success of the children studied.

The second video, The Power to Overcome Failure is based more upon the idea of delayed gratification and self control and demonstrates that the stronger the relationship with the parent, the more consistent the parent or educator is in supplying the promised outcome, the children are more able to control themselves, delay gratification and thus are more intrinsically motivated. Performance goals versus learning goals are also examined. Children who feel the need to prove ability are more performance goal oriented and will give up more easily if they don’t believe they can be successful, which is then tied to the belief that goal setting improves motivation and that praising process rather than ability improves motivation.

The experiments are impressive, and clearly demonstrate that the basic premise to not reward children in an extrinsic manner is clearly shown. However, I do wonder if this type of motivation enhancement program has been attempted with American or other children, and in addition, all but two to of the subjects who were focused upon were male, though the ages of children studied varies from infants through the 6th grade. Also, they are advertised as being for high school and beyond, and I don’t believe that high school students, unless taking an advanced psychology class would benefit. That being said, however, I deem these excellent for parents and for pre-service and experienced educators. Public performance rights are included and they are closed-captioned.