Motivation For Study
Despite an earlier statement that effort alone will not lead to efficient study, you should not minimize its importance. It is a basic requirement and one of the most difficult to cope with. Marshaling one's efforts presents a problem in motivation. From a future chapter on learning, you will see the importance of motivation in changing behavior. Learning will not take place unless there is an underlying reason or motive to learn. In dealing with techniques for efficient study, we must face the learning problem. Indeed, the title of this section might well be "Learning How to Study."
If you attack your assignments in a lackadaisical fashion, doing little more than sitting with your book open before you in the hope that something will eventually "sink in," you are not going to make much progress. If self-analysis reveals lack of motivation, you should try to determine the cause. What are your goals in life? Is there any relationship between these goals and what you are doing in school? Are you attending college simply because your parents want you to, or
ecause your friends are in college? Are you studying subjects in which you are really interested? A careful consideration of such uestions will usually lead to answers from which you can plan an intelligent attack on your motivational problem.
Why College?
Why go to college? One observer put it this way: "If a person has to ask his question, then he will probably have difficulty understanding the answer."
When asked why they are going to college, many students reply that they want to land a good job, be disti!1guished citizens in their communities. and make good salaries. Surveys have shown that tbere is a sil?niiicant relationship eetween these goals and college performance. Gnthe average, those who make the best grades make the best incomes later on. The trend among emrloyer is to offer the best jobs to those students who have made the best grades in shcool. Employers assume that the person who has learned to study efficiently, and thus to make good grades. will transfer his efficiency to the new job. Other measures of success besides salary are related to good grades.
Students with motivational problems sometimes say that they cannot get interested in books and ideas having tv do with the nature of man's culture, his discoveries, ideals, art, and music. Generating such curiosity is to a considerable extent a matter of talking and associating with others who already have some enthusiasm about these things. If you need stirring up. cultivate contacts 'vith teachers, lecturers, writers, and good studer..ts, and you will most likely become infected with their enthusiasm, curiosity, and in tellectual inquisitiveness. Wisdom is related to motivation. Wisdom comes from the awareness of timing, recognition of change, and knowledge of one's own limitations as well as strong points.
