by Kaitlynn Active
According to Catherine Gewerts, there was a survey given to 467 dropout students from 25 major cities. This survey was given to them to know the reason for their dropping out of school, and 69% of them say the reason for dropping out was due to lack of motivation. (H.S. Dropouts Say Lack of Motivation Top Reason to Quit) Although there are multiple reasons to why many students in school lack motivation, there’s techniques to improve this problem.
Technology, T.V’s, and the social media can cause a student to be lazy to his/her work. “Survey conducted by Pew Research Center, 72 percent of high school and 78 percent of college students spend time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.” says Technician.
Everyday students are anxious to go on social media or watch T.V and spend countless hours obtaining these activities, and when they do they’re paying a price. The time they take to be on technology for fun, is time they could have used to study for a test or complete assignments. This then leads to the falling behind of school work.
“It’s not technology that makes us lazy, is the way we use it that does,” says Carolina Coviello. There are some people that say technology doesn’t cause laziness but the truth behind that in my opinion is, it does. Students today can’t discipline themselves to limit their time on technology, so in that case, technology does make students lazy.
A Seattle 10th grade student admits she spent her time doing her homework less when she got a smartphone. (Disadvantages of Social Networking: Surprising Insights from Teens) That’s the environment students depend on now, the social media, the new era of this generation can’t go a day without technology.
So if someone argues technology doesn’t make a student lazy, then why are there many students spending less time on school work and more time on social media?
Falling behind in school because procrastination from the media can lead to stress and overthinking. Overthinking can be in terms of: thinking that you won’t be able to get everything done, or thinking everything has to be done at once.
Web MB says the one reason causing stress is having a heavy workload or having too much responsibility. The more procrastination takes place, the more work students are neglecting, and the more they fall behind. All this buildup then leads to the weakening of their actions, and when they finally realize how much work they’re missing they lack the motivation to do any of them.
In some cases, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in a student aren’t being met. If a student doesn’t have the basic physiological needs including: sleep, food, clothing, and shelter then the student may not have energy and the ability to focus in school, causing them to fall behind and not want to finish the work.
Experts from an education textbook says without some of these physiological needs then a student can’t focus in school because the thing they would be focusing on is finding ways to fulfill these needs.
For instance if a student was hungry in class, then they’d have a hard time paying attention to the teacher, and focus on wanting to eat food. So without these needs then students won’t want to do anything until they get what they need/want.
Although there are reasons to why students lack motivation in school to do work, they can do something about it. The first thing to improving students to work more on school work is to put their phones away, and learn to discipline themselves from the hours they spend on social media. When they do this, they have more time to complete assignments and have a lesser chance of falling behind and the buildup of stress.
A study by London School of Economics says when the schools banned students from having their phones, their test scores boosted 14 percent. So the less time they spent on phones, the better their test scores got.
Another great technique is positive thinking. Students should take time to think about the great outcome they will get in the future. For instance when I’m stressed about all the school work I have at the moment, I think about graduation.
Another way of positive thinking can be identifying what’s stressing them out and ways they can solve it, when they do this they calm the stresses they’re feeling and have a greater ability to want to work. Students can also create lists of what needs to be done and make a plan throughout the week of how much work to do each day.
If there’s no other option for students, having students create a rewards system can help motivate them to do their work. Although some people say creating this system makes students demand rewards for doing their work, it’s still a working technique. Without this rewards system being their last option, then they won’t want to do their work.
Teachers can help students create plans for the week on what to work on, for instance: if a student completes 5 assignments for a class then they can go out with friends for a day, or if they worked on homework for an hour, then they can go on social media for 30 minutes. The rewards system can make students work more than they usually do, so it’s better than doing nothing at all.
Working together with student to make plans and help them focus on the positive effects of doing their school work can make an impact on students lacking their motivation. So the more people motivate students and help them, the more they would want to do good in school.
Kaitlynn Active is a graduate of the Kuskokwim Learning Academy in Bethel, Alaska.