Building intrinsic academic motivation

Last Friday, in her column “Grades and Happiness,” Miriam Geronimus argued that the competitive atmosphere produced by grades, and specifically Princeton’s policy of grade deflation, is counterproductive to the very system of education. She explains that the external motivation produced by grades forces us to focus on the results rather than the product, furiously absorbing huge amounts of information only to later regurgitate and then forget. Geronimus is right that intrinsic motivation should drive education, and in proposing such a radical change to the system, she calls attention to the very real problems that exist as a result of Princeton’s hyper-competitive culture.

While a system of written feedback instead of grades is a legitimate alternative for the University to consider, even Geronimus concedes that it is unlikely to ever be implemented. This does not mean, however, that we should just give up on the search for intrinsic motivation. Just because a class is graded does not mean that it cannot be collaborative, creative, innovative or intellectually stimulating. A class’s worth can be measured by how much it excites students to learn and how much working knowledge the students actually take away. By these measurements, a class that is graded can still be considered worthwhile.

Supposedly, though, classes like this don’t exist at Princeton — they only promote stressful competition and rote memorization. But this semester, I’m in multiple classes that don’t fit this model: One, a freshman seminar, the very object of which is to provide the “excitement and challenge of working in a small setting with a professor and fellow students on a topic of special interest to you”; the other, a small French class with an emphasis on conversation and participation.

The immediately obvious similarity between the two is the size. Small classes can provide the personalized atmosphere that fosters intrinsic motivation. But, again, we have to work with what we have. Not all classes can be seminars; this would not be practical. We can, however, generalize the community spirit and intellectual creativity and freedom that these classes foster and apply some of it to other classes at Princeton.

We’re more likely to be intrinsically motivated if we’re engaged in what we’re studying. Seminar-style classes engage students’ attention and interest by engaging them literally in conversation. In other courses, students are talked at in lecture and then discuss the material in precept — often a form of regurgitation masquerading as discussion. But in seminars, instruction and discussion merge. Instead of a two-step process with clearly defined roles, class becomes a give-and-take in which students can ask questions, bring up original ideas or even challenge the professor.

Clearly it’s impossible for a seminar model to exist in large lecture classes of 100 or more students, but those classes are not the norm at Princeton. In lectures with around 30-40 students — even if they can never function exactly the same way as a seminar with 12 students — it is possible to engage in more of a give-and-take, rather than listening to a professor speak for 50 minutes.

With a more conversation-focused atmosphere, class lengths could and even should go beyond 50 or 110 minutes. Seminars are longer than lecture classes, which gives the professor and the students the opportunity to explore material thoroughly. Instead of regurgitating main points from the readings, students would be more able to analyze ideas in depth. In a longer class period in which more facets of a topic are covered, it is also more likely that everyone will have something to contribute.

Just as important as being engaged in class is being engaged with assignments. In both of my seminar-style classes, I have greater freedom in choosing the topics and structures of papers and projects. It is acknowledged that everyone finds different parts of the coursework interesting, and we are not only free to but encouraged to seek out and learn more about that which is most relevant to us. The two most important benefits from this outlook are increased creativity and decreased competition. Implemented in an introductory environmental science class, for example, this freedom would allow one student to present on the destruction of the rainforest and another on water pollution. Because the two students’ work is so different, it’s more difficult for them to be in direct competition with one another.

As Geronimus explains in her article, we at Princeton cannot become world leaders if all we can do is regurgitate the same ideas as our peers. But there is more than one way to encourage creativity and innovation. Even if the administration does not consider changes to the grading policy, it is possible to change the way we approach education.

Sarah Schwartz is a freshman from Silver Spring, Md. She can be reached at seschwar@princeton.edu.