Relevance

Relevance is, perhaps, the most important of the ARCS components. If a student does not view a task or activity as important or useful to him or her, then it can be very challenging to engage the student in ways that leads to higher-level thinking and deeper learning. Sometimes, educators have to provide information that help students understand the value and usefulness of what they are learning in order to complete tasks now or in the future.

1) Modeling. One strategy for demonstrating value, importance, and usefulness is to model appropriate behaviors. Noted researcher Albert Bandura (1977) conducted many studies to explore how models influence behavior in both adults and children. He found that models have a strong impact on the way they act, both positively and negatively. He also found that observation plays a large part in learning from models. For example, a child observes the behavior of other children and adults in his or her world and chooses whether or not to mimic that behavior. If that behavior is satisfying, it will likely be repeated. If not, it will likely be extinguished.

2) Effective praise. As librarians, we have the opportunity to model both social and learning behaviors. When librarians treat all students with respect and caring, students will be more likely to do the same. Another modeling strategy is to acknowledge positive behaviors when observed. This reinforces students' positive self-concepts and their desire to continue the behavior, and it draws other students' attention to the behavior. Thus, it makes that student's behavior a model for every student. That acknowledgement often comes in the form of praise. For praise to be truly effective, it needs to be tied to authentic achievement or effort and should inform the student why the praise is merited. Models can be such powerful motivators for learning.

3) Choices. Another way to demonstrate importance and usefulness is to provide students with choices. Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan (1985) at the University of Rochester have spent decades studying the requirements of an intrinsically motivated learning environment. They found that one of the most important requirements is the autonomy supportive environment.

Unfortunately, many learning environments are much more controlling than autonomy supportive. They use inappropriate rewards and controls and sometimes even punishment to ensure that students do the task. However, it has been found that as soon as the reward or punishment is withdrawn, the student stops doing the task. And even if the control continues, the desire to do the task fades and extinguishes. Even worse, Deci and Ryan found that when a task is paired with some kind of control, students who started out intrinsically motivated to do a task often lose that intrinsic motivation.

It is important to remember that no student wants to fail; all students want to be successful and learn. By providing an autonomy supportive learning environment, where students have some control over their own learning, have choices in what and how they will learn, and have opportunities to pursue learning topics that interest and excite them, an environment rich with learning success is attainable. The library can provide a wonderful supportive learning environment for all students.

Below are five questions to test your knowledge and understanding of the concepts presented in this module. These are drawn randomly from a larger pool of questions to ensure that users will see different questions each time the quiz is taken.  When you have completed all five questions, click on Submit Response to receive feedback and see how you did.