Free Inquiry Project

The Psychology of Motivation: Intrinsic and Extrinsic
By Pair #6: Mandy Song and Eleonora Stoynova

Link to Blog Posts

• FIP #1: Core Concepts of Motivation Psychology
• FIP #2: Investigate the Role of Motivation in Lifelong Learning
• FIP #3: Connect Motivation Theory to Distributed and Open Learning
• FIP #4: Balancing both Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
• FIP #5: Identify Strategies to Foster Motivation in Self-Directed Learning
• FIP #6: Reflection

Welcome, and thank you for joining us on our Free Inquiry Journey! This project was completed in a pair consisting of Mandy and Eleonora. Mandy hosted the project on her blog, and Eleonora was the co-author for each blog post. 

For this project, we chose to explore a topic that is relevant academically and personally: The Psychology of Motivation with a focus on intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Whether you’re a lifelong learner, an educator, or someone navigating through the ups and downs of motivation in everyday life, we believe this topic has something meaningful to offer.

Motivation is defined as the “desire to act in service of a goal” and “encompasses the desire to continue striving toward meaning, purpose, and a life worth living” (PsychologyToday, n.d.). Our project delves into the  two major types of motivation:

• Intrinsic motivation
• Extrinsic motivation

We break down core theories, link motivation to self-directed and online learning environments, and share strategies for applying these theories to one’s learning journey.

Why We Chose This Topic

As students in a distributed and open learning course, we’ve often had to rely on our motivation to stay engaged, organized, and on track. People often have the misconception that online courses are easier, but quickly drop out after realizing the level of self-discipline and time management they require. This got us wondering: What actually motivates people to keep learning in an open and distributed learning environment?

Motivation is at the heart of it, and in environments without fixed schedules or in-person accountability, learners have to develop internal motivation while also learning to manage external pressures. 

What We Hope You Will Take Away

We addressed topics related to our project through six blog posts. The goal was to explore different angles of motivation, from understanding basic concepts to applying strategies in real life. From this project, we were able to understand different theories of motivation which allowed us to reflect and apply our knowledge to different scenarios. We hope that, similar to us, readers will be able to understand more about how nuanced motivation is. It’s not a sudden urge to complete the task you’ve wanted to do but never had a chance to work on. Motivation is shaped by a mix of internal desires, external pressures, emotional states, and environmental factors. 

Project Timeline

Dates	Description	Objectives
May 17	Pair Formation	Selected our topic. Determined logistics.
May 28	Work Distribution	Discussed roles and responsibilities. Set deadlines and expectations. Created an outline.
May 28-June 3	Blog Posts	Discussed topics and collaborated in research for each blog post.  Regularly checked in with each other for review and editing.
May 4	Project Completion	Finalized details (eg. formatting, grammar, etc.). Ensured that project met the requirements outlined in the assignment description, and fixing accordingly.

 

Reference

PsychologyToday. (n.d.). Motivation. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/motivation