When you want to make the course more fun for students, i.e. improve their intrinsic motivation, you can use the Self Determination Theory  (SDT) (see Motivation in students). This theory is known from the terms extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The SDT poses that motivation can be of different qualities (Deci & Ryan, 2000). The more motivation is intrinsic, the more positive its effects are on learning. Intrinsic motivation comes from within and, as such, is of higher quality then extrinsic motivation.

In education, we can stimulate intrinsic motivation in students by meeting their psychological basic needs autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This means that respectively students feel that they can provide input and can identify with the educational activities, that they feel that they are engaging in and finishing challenging educational activities, and that they experience a meaningful connection between themselves and others (Filak & Sheldon, 2008). To support these basic needs and, as such, stimulate intrinsic motivation you can:

Supporting autonomy:

• Be open for the perspective and thoughts of students;
• Give students responsibility;
• Have students make meaningful choices;
• Demonstrate relevance by linking learning activities to students’ values.

Supporting competence:

• Clear expectations, guidelines, rules, and criteria;
• Encourage students by appreciating effort;
• Provide feedback that indicates where the student currently is.

Supporting relatedness:

• Create a safe learning environment in which social behaviour is encouraged;
• Make contact with students by learning their names, making eye contact, etc.;
• Respect students by, for instance, really listening to them.

These suggestions are based on the work and observation table by Stroet, Opdenakker en Minnaert (2015).

A concrete example is:

1. Giving students more choices by having them pick a subject for an assignment or by having them decide how to report on an assignment.
2. Better connect to the students experience by relating course themes to the news, or other issues that are currently relevant to students.

This article (Kusurkar, Croiset & Ten Cate, 2012) provides an overview of twelve tips for stimulating intrinsic motivation in students.

When students ask: “Why do I have to do this (course)?”, you can use the Expectancy-Value Theory as a starting point (see Motivation in students). This theory describes motivation to perform as an addition of belief in their own ability and the appreciation of the activity (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). It is important that students appreciate the educational activity. As a lecturer, you can spend more attention on the goals and relevance of the course by, for example, discussing these with the students, or by showing how it relates to other courses or practice.

In Ambrose (2010) suggestions are given for showing students the relevance of the course, such as:

• Connecting your education to students’ interests;
• Offer authentic real-world assignments;
• Showing the relevance to students’ academic development;
• Showing the relevance to future careers of students;
• Indicating what you find useful or important, and why;
• Showing your own passion and enthusiasm for your discipline.

When you feel that students think that they cannot do it, or in other words, that they lack the confidence in their own ability, you can use the Expectancy-Value theory as a starting point. A different theory that you can use as a base is the Social-Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1989). The Social-Cognitive theory focuses on self-efficacy. This means the belief in someone’s own ability. The stronger this belief, the larger someone’s effort will be to deliver a good result.

Nilson (2010, p. 54) describes the core of this theme:
“Expectancy theory rests on a pragmatic premise: Why aspire to achieve something you know you can’t get? Students won’t even try to learn something that seems impossibly difficult.”

In education, it is important that students do not feel that the course is far too difficult, and, as such, they will never be able to learn it. To avoid this feeling, you can explicate the expectations. In addition, it is important that the course and the assignments are at the correct level (in accordance with the goals and aligned with the students.

Expectations can be made clear by, for example (Ambrose et al., 2010):

• Ensuring alignment between learning goals, assessment and instruction;
• Determining the suitable challenge level for students;
• Designing assignments on this level;
• Creating moments for success experiences early on in the course;
• Explicitly stating your expectations;
• Using rubrics to make guidelines clear;
• Providing targeted feedback;
• Being honest about a student’s performance;
• Teaching students what we mean when talking about success and failure;
• Discussing effective methods of studying with students.

The summary above is from this book which provides a good overview of the different strategies to support students’ values and expectancies.

It sometimes appears that the focus of some students is more on achieving high marks (compared to other students) than on developing their own competency. In this case you can use the Achievement Goal Theory (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) as a starting point for stimulating motivation. This theory describes the goals that the student has to study and as such also the goals with which a student defines competency. A student can feel that they are competent when they perform better than other students (performance goal), or a student can feel that they are competent once they have mastered the subject matter (goal of mastery). Performance goals have a normative standard, whereas these are absolute in mastery goals. The latter is often connected to the most positive learning outcomes.

Svinicki and McKeachie (2014, p. 143) describe it as follows:
“In a class that is focused on mastery, instructors generally use criterion-referenced grading, rather than normative (grading on a curve), foster a supportive climate where students can take intellectual risks, and provide opportunities for students to demonstrate improvement.”

As such, it is important that grading of tests is not done in comparison to other students, but that an absolute standard is maintained. You can also consider using a feedback moment when handing in concept assignments, before students hand in a final version. In this way, you create an extra learning moment for students. Competition between students is something to be avoided when you want to create a climate in which students focus mostly on mastery.

On this website By the College of Education (from Michigan State University) you will find information on creating mastery oriented educational environments. You will also find examples and videos of lecturers who participated in the project.