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Do grades motivate students or limit what they can achieve? According to Daniel Pinks article “Less of What We Want” states that; “work consist of whatever the body is obliget to do. ” In other words bribing people to do stuff is not a good motivator for them to perform better, on the contrary it turns anything fun into work and people don’t like work. There are several of studies on this article proving how money or prices don’t make people perform better, actually “the rewards narrowed peoples focus”. Regardless of what the article says I believe that grades do otivate students and they do limit what you can achieve.
I am not saying I believe Daniel Pink is wrong, I’m saying grades are earned and not a reward therefore yes they motivate students but they can also be a bad motivator. I do believe grades motivate students; grades are a reflection of a student’s knowledge. If you are doing well it will show on your grades, because they are not given they are earned. I don’t believe it is a good motivator because if people focus on the grade they will get rather than on the importance of learning the material then that is not the real intentions of school.
Grades are a scale to measure people’s knowledge the motivation should be learning the material well enough in order to do well and get the grade. I also believe that grades limit what you can achieve because, future employers base your qualification for the Job based on your grades therefore grades will determine what you will achieve. For instance I honestly did not want to do this assignment my reaction to this assignment was, that the topic it is hard, and I was busy, I don’t like writing and I will skip it.
I am doing this assignment because I know I have to do it in order to become a better writer. In other words I am doing it for myself because I enrolled in school and I have committed to it, and the grade will be a reflection of how I am doing and how I can improve. If I do not do well in this class it will reflect on my GPA and employers look at that. On the contrary someone who is skeptical about my opinion might say that grades do not motivate students to do better and that grades have nothing to do with what you can achieve in the future.
In the article by Daniel Pink “less of what we want”, says that rewards are not a good motivator or that they might be but in the long run it shows that they are not. This is because rewards “narrow peoples focus”; there are several studies to prove pinks point. There was an example of a study they did to some preschoolers, where they were divided into three groups were the children were told to draw but in the first group they would be bribed with a prize, the second group the children would be given a prize only if they did their work, and the third group was not promised a prize nor given one at the end.
During the study the scientist learned that giving prizes to the children did not make them draw with any more enthusiasm than they did at the beginning. On the contrary the children in the “unexpected” and “no reward” group drew with the same relish they did as when they started and the children in the “reward” group drew less and with much less interest. By reading this I am assuming I agree with Daniel pink yes maybe bribing and rewards are not the ideal way to make any one perform any better.
If anyone told me that they believe that grades worked the same way and are a bad motivation I would tell them they are incorrect because grades are a necessary scale to measure people’s knowledge. If we did not have grades then there would be no way to fgure out how well knowledge or ualified a person really is. A grade can be a motivation but not treated as a reward because unlike Daniel pinks article grades cannot be given to someone to perform better.
A grade is simply a deliberation of that person’s knowledge and hard work, and someone might be motivated to learn and earn whatever they need to in order to get that grade. In conclusion yes grades do motivate people to do well in school because we want to learn and the only way to know what we have learned is reflected upon our grades, and they absolutely have an impact in your future Job therefore they do have an impact on what you can achieve.