ABSTRACT
I share the view expressed by Mordecai Nisan in this quotation, which is why I place more emphasis on motivation to learn than on intrinsic motivation. By motivation to learn, I mean a student’s tendency to find academic activities meaningful and worthwhile and to try to get the intended learning benefits from them. In contrast to intrinsic motivation, which is primarily an affective response to an activity, motivation to learn is primarily a cognitive
response involving attempts to make sense of the activity, understand the knowledge it develops, and master the skills that it promotes (Brophy, 1983; Brophy & Kher, 1986). Interest leading to play or casual exploration is not the same as motivated and focused learning. If students construe a situation as play rather than learning, they usually will not activate relevant learning schemas so as to systematically extract the gist of the experience and “organize and file” it for later application.
