Analysis of Event Where I Was Motivated

Analysis of Event where I was Motivated

Every aspiring engineer’s dream is to get admission into the Indian Institute of Technology. I will try to describe my journey towards this aim and try to relate it with various motivational theories and how they collectively contributed in a successful journey.

The basic framework for the motivation I will start with, is the Expectancy Theory.

The initial steps towards this goal was to prepare for the JEE. This required guidance from highly experienced and trained faculty. The coaching institute of the highest repute in my hometown was IIT-Home, and it was considered that joining this institute boosts your chances of getting into IITs. The motivation behind joining this institute can be explained by the McClelland’s Theory of Needs (Robins, Judge, and Vohra – Organizational Behaviour – 15th Ed. – Motivation Concepts).The drive to excel academically was the motivation for this decision and can be characterized by a high Need for Achievement (nAch).

Another factor contributing towards the motivation was the fact that most of my school friends who were having congruent goals, were joining this institute. This motivation can be explained by vicarious modelling in Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory, where I became more confident about my decision as others were also taking the same decision (Robins, Judge, and Vohra – Organizational Behaviour – 15th Ed. – Motivation Concepts)

The next motivating factor was the perceived level of outcomes I would get by putting in efforts in terms of preparation. We as a group were introduced to our seniors who were now into premier institutes and shared their stories of success, which were as a result of their hard-work for the two years they were in that coaching institute. This formulates to a high Expectancy of achieving the required performance if we would put in the efforts. This was also reinforced by the frequent tests we had to check the understanding of concepts. These not only gave us feedback but also acted as positive reinforcements, as per the Operant Conditioning Theory (Robins, Judge and Vohra – Organizational Behaviour – 15th Ed. – Motivation Concepts).

During this time there were many situations where I doubted my ability to persevere. The support and motivation from my parents and teachers, as explained the Verbal Persuasion in Bandura’s Self Efficacy Theory (Robins, Judge and Vohra – Organizational Behaviour – 15th Ed. – Motivation Concepts), boosted my morale and pushed me to give more efforts to improve my performance.

Students were constantly motivated to study hard and the institute started a trend of Intensive Revision Days, where student would be encouraged to study for long stretches of time – 6 to 8 hours and also share the gist of their studies with the class, so that their hard work is appreciated as well as the complete learning process is accelerated. The comparison of study times amongst students spurred them to study even harder, this is supported by the Social Learning Theory, which suggests that we learn through observation as well as direct experience. (Robins, Judge and Vohra – Organizational Behaviour – 15th Ed. – Motivation Concepts)

The Institute took great efforts towards recognizing the performances of the students and conducted felicitation programs and presented mementos to high performing students. This motivated us as our performance was being recognized. Also special awards were given to students with 100% attendance. This motivated students not to miss classes. This was again positive reinforcement as per the Operant Conditioning Theory (Robins, Judge and Vohra – Organizational Behaviour – 15th Ed. – Motivation Concepts). This lead to a high Instrumentality.

As we progressed further, my goal became more clearer and concrete. I wanted to get into IIT Bombay, and that too in Mechanical Department. This specificity of the goals decided by me gave me clear motivation and also defined the effort and performance requirements for this goal. As per the Goal-Setting Theory, the setting of a specific goal gave a high amount of motivation. In hindsight, only the aim of getting into a premier institute would not have been sufficient to motivate me in the journey. The concentrated effort towards getting into IITB was the key factor towards the achievement of the goal.

Having set a personal goal, I evaluated whether the efforts I was putting in, the performance I was generating and the Institutional recognition I was receiving, were in line with my goal. The fact that the tests we had were very comprehensive and gave us a true idea about or potential, helped in the increased Valence. As they were coherent, I could have a sense of satisfaction and it lead to higher motivation. Associated with this was the goal of being successful and an even primal goal of being happy. The coherence of all these led to a strong motivation for me and helped me to achieve the objective.

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