In this chapter, we present an overview of the literature addressing the neuroscience of attention, information-seeking, and active sampling, and we discuss its potential significance for learning and learning progress. First, we review the emerging hypothesis that attention is an active mechanism for information sampling and exploration in the environment. We then turn to a discussion of how reward motivates attention and how attention can be employed to reduce uncertainty about knowledge of one's current state. We further consider the way rewards interact with other factors (including novelty, surprise, and task relevance). Throughout the review, we particularly focus on the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, highlighting curiosity as a key example of the latter in motivating the search for intrinsically desirable information that benefits learning on both long and short timescales. Finally, we discuss the role of cognitive control in directing attention during learning, as well as the way neural systems underlying cognition and motivation have implications for informing techniques for teaching and learning in wider educational contexts.

This chapter describes different approaches to the concept of goals in different theoretical explanations of motivation and engagement, considers their limitations, and points out tensions among explanations. Approaches to understanding goals and motivation have varied considerably. Psychological theories, focusing on individual differences or on the effects of context on individuals, aim to predict the relationship of goals to actions and beliefs across settings. More situated approaches have taken the position that individuals are always in context and that the focus of research should be the activity system or the individual-in-context. Research from this perspective investigates how goals arise within activity systems as individuals interact with people and objects over time. Different approaches have led to differences in research questions and methods. The chapter is organized around metatheoretical questions common to the study of goals across theoretical perspectives, including which goals should be studied and promoted in educational settings, the nature of the relationship between individual and context, and the relation of goals to the meaning of activity.

Self-efficacy is a popular construct among researchers interested in student learning and performance. It has been used successfully to explain and predict a variety of cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes in diverse academic settings. Evidence has accumulated that unanimously points to the functional advantage of having strong self-efficacy beliefs. While so much has been documented on this important construct during the past several decades, it is our judgment that the time has come to reflect on past research findings and revisit some of the unresolved issues that have held up further development in academic self-efficacy research. In this chapter, we summarize existing research on self-efficacy beliefs in academic settings and suggest directions for future research in this area. Specifically, we present a brief overview of self-efficacy theory, along with relevant empirical findings, paying particular attention to the development of self-efficacy beliefs and their relationships with academic outcomes and other motivation constructs. We then turn to unresolved issues in self-efficacy theory and research, such as the growth trajectories of self-efficacy beliefs across time and academic domains, the benefits of modeling, and cross-cultural issues.

In recent years, web-enabled credentials for learning have emerged, primarily in the form of Open Badges. These new credentials can contain specific claims about competency, evidence supporting those claims, links to student work, and traces of engagement. Moreover, these credentials can be annotated, curated, shared, discussed, and endorsed over digital networks, which can provide additional meaning. However, digital badges have also reignited the simmering debate over rewards for learning. This is because they have been used by some and characterized by many as inherently “extrinsic” motivators. Our chapter considers this debate in light of a study that traced the development and evolution of 30 new Open Badge systems. Seven arguments are articulated: (1) digital badges are inherently more meaningful than grades and other credentials; (2) circulation in digital networks makes Open Badges particularly meaningful; (3) Open Badges are particularly consequential credentials; (4) the negative consequences of extrinsic rewards are overstated; (5) consideration of motivation and badges should focus primarily on social activity and secondarily on individual behavior and cognition; (6) situative models of engagement are ideal for studying digital credentials; and (7) the motivational impact of digital credentials should be studied across increasingly formal “levels.”

In the behavioral sciences, it is common to explain behavior in terms of what was learned in a task, as if any subsequent change in performance had to denote a change in learning. However, learning alone cannot account for variability in performance. Instead, incentive motivation plays a direct role (and is more effective) in controlling moment-to-moment changes in an individual's responses than the learning process. After briefly introducing the history of the study of incentive motivation, we explain that incentive motivation consists of a dopamine-dependent process that does not require consciousness to influence responding to a task. We analyze two Pavlovian situations in which incentive motivation can modulate performance, irrespective of additional learning: the instant transformation of disgust into attraction for salt and the invigoration of responses under reward uncertainty. Finally, we consider drug addiction as an example of motivational dysregulation rather than as a consequence of the habit to consume substances of abuse.

The pipeline metaphor used to characterize dwindling interest in science and STEM-related careers has gradually been replaced by alternative models that convey complex pathways into, through and out of science by young men and women. In this chapter, we review literatures from educational psychology, cognitive development, and science education and present our own mixed methods approach to developing a model of the roles that children, parents and teachers play in launching, supporting, and sustaining pathways to science interest from early childhood to the transition to college. We use our longitudinal data to describe cases that illustrate these critical developmental inflection points. These rich cases illustrate the advantages of using qualitative methods, when possible, to augment developmental models derived from more quantitative approaches depicted through path diagrams, phase models, or Sankey diagrams. The cases discussed highlight critical roles that parents and teachers might play in nurturing science interests among males and females. Implications for future research and suggestions for practice are considered.

Students often lose interest in critical introductory courses that act as gateways to successive courses and careers. Utility value writing interventions have been designed to help students find the personal relevance and value of course material in order to promote interest and performance. However, little is known about how best to implement the intervention in terms of how to frame it, particularly in multi-level classrooms where students enter the course with different goals, challenges, and educational backgrounds. In this chapter, we review the research on utility value writing interventions and discuss differential findings across educational contexts. Using a case study in two-year colleges, we consider psychological (e.g., confidence, engagement) and cognitive (linguistic indicators of cognitive processing) mechanisms for the success of the intervention, as well as how the intervention can be beneficial for students with varying levels of interest and performance. We conclude with implications for intervention framing and directions for future research.

This chapter describes the ways in which online affinity networks motivate learning and support interest development. It builds on the model of “connected learning” that posits that learning is most resilient and meaningful when it is tied to social relationships and cultural identities, and spans in-school and out-of-school settings. The analysis draws from ethnographic case studies of youth-centered networks focused on fanfiction, knitting, professional wrestling, anime video remixers, Bollywood dance, YouTube vloggers, and communities surrounding two games, Little Big Planet 2 and StarCraft II. Factors that draw young people to online spaces to pursue their interests are diverse. For some, it is to find a safe space for a stigmatized interest. For others, it is because of an attraction to a narrow niche, leveling up, or technical specialization that is only accessible online. In all cases, however, high functioning online affinity networks are characterized by a strong set of shared values and culture that are the magnet for affiliation. In addition, a set of shared practices provide a focus of activity and engagement.

Developing interest is a powerful support for deeper learning. The presence of even some interest beneficially affects individuals’ attention and memory, as well as their motivation and meaningful engagement. In this chapter, we expand on previous descriptions of the relation between interest and its development as conceptualized in the Four-Phase Model of Interest Development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006; Renninger & Hidi, 2016). We explain that interest has a physiological basis, and therefore is universal – meaning that all persons, regardless of age or context, can be supported to develop at least some interest in topics to be learned. We describe how and when interest is likely to develop. We review findings which provide evidence that the structure of tasks and activities, as well as interactions with other people, may be helpful to interest development, and also that when these supports are mismatched with the learner's phase of interest, they may constrain or impede interest development. We point to interest as a determinant of learners’ understanding, effort, and feedback preferences, and the coordination of their phase of interest development with their abilities to set and realize goals, feel self-efficacy, and self-regulate. We conclude by identifying some open questions concerning the process of interest development and learning.

In this chapter, we review our Self-Regulation of Motivation (SRM) model, which identifies the important role that interest plays in students’ motivational experiences. When learning requires persistence and re-engagement over time, activities, and contexts, the ability to maintain motivation becomes a critical self-regulatory task. The SRM model proposes that while motivation to attain goals can be sufficient to start a learning activity, experiencing interest becomes important once engaged. Aspects of the goal striving process (such as goal congruence and the expectancy-value of goals) affect the interest experience, over and above objective activity characteristics. Moreover, when interest is low but reaching a goal is important, students purposely engage in actions that make the experience more interesting (e.g., by making it more congruent with their goals or by exploratory engagement with the activity and context). Further, the ways in which students try to make the experience interesting can influence performance in both positive and negative ways (e.g., potential trade-offs between short-term output and longer-term persistence, re-engagement, and learning). We discuss evidence for this model across a variety of contexts (including online learning and science classrooms) and discuss the implications for understanding group-level differences (e.g., in gender or ethnicity) in students’ interest and motivation.

Curiosity – the intrinsic desire to acquire new information – is a key factor for learning and memory in everyday life. To date, there has been very little research on curiosity and, therefore, our understanding of how curiosity impacts learning is relatively poor. In this chapter, we give an overview of psychological theories of curiosity and how initial research has focused on curiosity as a specific personality characteristic (i.e. trait curiosity). We then review recent findings on curiosity emerging in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Rather than examining trait curiosity, this recent line of research explores how temporary states of curiosity affect cognitive processes. Recent findings suggest that curiosity states elicit activity in the brain's dopaminergic circuit and thereby enhance hippocampus-dependent learning for information associated with high curiosity but also for incidental information encountered during high-curiosity states. We speculate how this new line of curiosity research could help to better understand the mechanisms underlying curiosity-related learning and potentially lead to a fruitful avenue of translating laboratory-based findings on curiosity into educational settings.

Boredom has traditionally been viewed as detrimental to learning. We present an alternative perspective. The vast majority of past research on academic boredom has examined judgments about the boringness of a situation and the propensity to feel bored, rather than actual state boredom. While retrospective judgments about the boringness of a task may be a cause of later disengagement, we argue that in-the-moment state boredom is a consequence of disengagement. This claim flows from our definition of boredom as the uncomfortable feeling associated with the unfulfilled desire to be mentally engaged.We propose that in-the-moment feelings of boredom can be an aid to learning. First, boredom is an immediate process indicator of a failure in learning, which can signal the need to correct disengaged, ineffectual learning. Second, boredom is an uncomfortable feeling, so it motivates an engagement of mental resources as a means of eliminating boredom. We believe our theoretical analysis points towards fruitful future empirical inquiry, clarifies the interpretation of existing findings, and highlights areas where theory development and conceptual precision are needed.

A growing body of literature indicates that motivation can critically shape long-term memory formation in the service of adaptive behavior. In the present chapter, we review recent cognitive neuroscience evidence of motivational influences on memory, with a focus on anatomical pathways by which neuromodulatory networks support encoding-related activity in distinct subregions of the medial temporal lobe. We argue that engagement of distinct neural circuits as a function of motivational context at encoding leads to formation of different memory representations, supporting different patterns of adaptive behavior. We present a novel neurocognitive model, the Interrogative/Imperative model of information-seeking, to account for pursuit of learning goals. Interrogative or imperative modes of information-seeking are often, but not necessarily, associated with approach or avoidance motivation, respectively. We also discuss additional influences on motivated memory encoding, including intrinsic motivation, curiosity, choice, and cognitive control processes. Taken together, this body of research suggests that the nature of memory representations depends on an individual's neurophysiological response to, rather than extrinsic qualities of, a given motivational manipulation or context at the time of encoding. Finally, we discuss potential applications of these research findings to real-life educational settings and directions for future research.

Afterschool youth development programs (including, arts, leadership, and STEM programs) are significant learning contexts for adolescents. Participation in high-quality programs is related to the acquisition of cognitive, social-emotional, and occupational skills. It is notable that youth in programs report high motivation, markedly higher than in school. Furthermore, motivation increases over time and becomes more self-sustained. This chapter draws on our extensive qualitative interview research with youth and staff to examine questions about how programs – using a project-based learning model – facilitate high and sustained motivation. We find, first, that effective programs create an interpersonal environment of belonging and safety that allows youth to engage in high-functioning relationships, and that projects facilitate motivation because youth experience agency, increasing competency and comradery in their work. Second, although projects periodically confront youth with difficult challenges, which are sometimes overwhelming and can disrupt motivation, youth are typically resilient, and experienced leaders have well-developed strategies for helping youth navigate and learn from these experiences. Third, youth develop sustained motivation because they develop personal connections to program goals and learn techniques to regulate and preempt situations that disrupt motivation. Some youth report learning strategies to help them sustain motivation in the complex, open-ended work of projects.

In this chapter we review Eccles and colleagues’ expectancy-value theory (EVT) of motivation and discuss its relevance for understanding and improving student learning. According to EVT, students’ expectancies for success and task values are two critical factors impacting their motivation, academic performance, and choice of activities. Recent research has suggested that students’ perceptions of the negative consequences of completing a task, called cost, also impact their academic outcomes. Thus we review the construct of perceived cost alongside our review of expectancies and values throughout this chapter. We define expectancies, task values, and cost, explain how these constructs develop over time and relate to one another, and discuss how they predict students’ academic behavior, performance, and choice. We then review research regarding intervention studies that have improved students’ academic outcomes by targeting their expectancies, values, and/or perceptions of cost. We conclude by listing questions that future research needs to address.