Introduction

The last four chapters provide a variety of perspectives upon current understandings of the role of motivation in the classroom. Two of the contributors approach the issue from the perspective of attribution theory, two from that of behavioural psychology. Nevertheless, all four papers can be seen to agree in the following of current trends in educational psychology, in as much as the dichotomy between motivation and behaviour, and between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which differing theoretical traditions so emphasized in the past, is now accepted as having been overstated. Moreover, if previous sections have emphasized ways in which the teacher can establish more precise control over her pupils, the theme of this section is about ways of promoting the independence and autonomy of the individual learner.