Making the Grade: A Self-Worth Perspective on Motivation and School Reform

Martin V. Covington

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139173582

Achievement behaviour in schools can best be understood in terms of attempts by students to maintain a positive self-image. For many students, trying hard is frightening because a combination of effort and failure implies low ability, which is often equated with worthlessness. Thus many students described as unmotivated are in actuality highly motivated - not to learn, but to avoid failure. Students have a variety of techniques for avoiding failure, ranging from cheating to setting low goals which are easily achieved. In Making the Grade, Martin Covington extracts powerful educational implications from self-worth theory and other contemporary views of motivation that will be useful for everyone concerned with the educational dilemmas we face. He provides a comprehensive, insightful review of research and theory, both contemporary and historical, on the topic of achievement motivation, and arranges this knowledge in ways that lead to imminently practical recommendations for restructuring schools.

‘This is a worthy book which revivifies one of the most tired topics in educational psychology. On its first page, Peter Drucker is quoted thus: ‘We know nothing about motivation. All we do is write books about it.’ On reaching its final page this has been totally contradicted: by reading this book you will know a good deal about motivation particularly as an antidote for learners in cynical modern educational contexts. With Covington motivation is always a fresh topic.’

Tom Phillips Source: Vocational Aspect of Education

‘The book is very readable, insightful, and sensible. It offers a framework for curriculum planning, raises questions concerning what should be the goals of education, and suggests some meaningful ways schools can prepare students for the future.’

Source: Educational Researcher

‘An extensive and thoughtful conversation about achievement behaviour (motivation). It is a book that is hard to put down if one is seriously inquiring into the topic.’

Source: Choice

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Making the Grade

A Self-Worth Perspective on Motivation and School Reform

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Contents
pp vii-viii

1 - The future and its discontents
pp 1-24

2 - Motives as emotions
pp 25-49

3 - Motives as thoughts
pp 50-71

4 - Self-worth and the fear of failure
pp 72-103

5 - Achievement anxiety
pp 104-129

6 - The competitive learning game
pp 130-155

7 - Motivational equity and the will to learn
pp 156-182

8 - Strategic thinking and the will to learn
pp 183-215

9 - An immodest proposal
pp 216-248

10 - Obstacles to change: The myths of competition
pp 249-268

Appendix A - Mastery learning
pp 269-275

Appendix B - Cooperative learning
pp 276-280

References
pp 281-338

Indexes
pp 339-351

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Making the Grade

A Self-Worth Perspective on Motivation and School Reform

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