---
title: "Understanding Student Motivation"
artifact: "highlights"
resource_person: "Dr. Madhurima Das"
resource_person_role: "Psychologist, behavioural-science educator, learning-and-development facilitator, and management researcher"
vertical: "psychological-literacy"
module: "Motivation and Engagement"
lesson: "Understanding Student Motivation"
lesson_key: "understanding-student-motivation"
source: "GuruSetu original"
source_channel: "GuruSetu"
---
# Understanding Student Motivation: Highlights

**Resource person:** Dr. Madhurima Das - Psychologist, behavioural-science educator, learning-and-development facilitator, and management researcher

1. Expect different students, and different faculty, to have different motives that may change over time.
2. Identify whether a learner is motivated by interest or purpose, an external reward, pursuit of a desired outcome, or avoidance of an unwanted one.
3. Use motivation frameworks to ask better questions and plan support.
4. Achievement, affiliation, and influence can point to roles that fit a learner’s current driver.
5. Turn a vague aim into specific behaviour, a baseline, a target, a feasible challenge, and a deadline.
6. Use the SMART process to identify missing skills, methods, support, and milestones.
7. Make faculty goals observable too: name the task, evidence of progress, teaching change, and review points.
8. Review goals through repeated action and reflection as the context changes.