Introduction
The modern educational environment and at all times face the problem of pupils’ interest in learning. Each student decides to learn something with an understanding of the ultimate goal. However, it fades into the background in the course of the educational process itself, which requires effort and often brings, if not stress, boredom. Until the second half of the 20th century, this situation remained unresolved due to the lack of a detailed and well-developed model of educational design and approaches in it. Fortunately, in the second half of the 20th century, John M. Keller developed the ARCS educational model, which made it possible to significantly increase the effectiveness of the educational process. The essence of ARCS lies in its name: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (Keller, 1987). These components of the model, when combined, allow teachers to work effectively, as well as to teach students, and each of them is worth talking about in more detail.
Main body
The attention element in the Keller model is based on several elements of the same importance. One of the attention’s category components is variability, the use of various methods of presenting material such as videos, short lectures, and mini-discussion groups. The method serves to better consolidate the material and take into account the individual differences in the learning styles of each student. It should be understood that diversity is one of the critical elements of the model for a reason. It is common for people to get bored and lose concentration when repeating monotonous tasks; primarily, children manifest such behavior. Children very quickly lose attention to learning as soon as it becomes constant and unchanging. The consequence of such a problem is precisely the diversity of the educational process and tasks. The use of additional materials, unusual exercises, games, and group work is good for diversifying the learning process and improves student effectiveness.
However, it should be borne in mind that excessive variability also worsens trainees’ attention, as well as its complete absence. A large number of activities within the teaching system create many points of attention, forcing students to extend their concentration to most of them. All this comes at the expense of focusing on the main topic. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain a certain balance. It is necessary to consider the specifics of the persons of students and their learning abilities and find common interests among certain groups of students in particular and the entire team in general.
The next element, relevance, works on an essential purpose, namely to establish relevance to increase student motivation, for which it uses language and information familiar to the student. It is necessary to discuss familiarity or how the new learning will use the learners’ existing skills. It is best to learn from people’s existing knowledge or skills so that new information is more personal and familiar to each student. The student’s awareness that new knowledge is associated with their past experience can make them more confident from the feeling of preparedness and the presence of specific data in the area. A confident student is much more effective than a timid and fearful student because they can solve problems faster and more boldly. It should also be understood that recognizing the material gives a person a broader perspective on the topic proposed by the teacher. However, such problems can arise only by creating a feeling of excessive knowledge in the topic under discussion. To summarize, the element of familiarity can significantly increase the effectiveness of the educational process, relying only on the correct use of the student’s past experience, but it is worth considering the nuances of the methodology.
The next aspect under discussion is the category of confidence. Precisely, personal control is included in the list of essential motivators for students. According to the summary of Gagne et al. (1974), the unique control method serves as an indication of success for a student. Namely, it signifies that an individual has achieved some goal by making efforts for it. Additionally, it shows that some task completion underlines the abilities of a student in a subject. The approaches to the implementation of the technique might be different. For example, self-testing helps fulfill the task of evaluating one’s skills and demonstrating that the previous studying entirely causes them. Thus, the approach has benefits for proving the work of students meaningful.
However, this approach might be damaging to a student’s self-esteem in the case when the result of personal control is a failure. For example, a student has been studying a subject, but some tasks produce negative emotions in their mind. As a result, students procrastinated and missed some parts of the critical material. While self-evaluation or any other techniques, the student discerns their weaknesses in the subject. Some students may start to blame themselves for it and experience negative emotions. Further, self-guild and ensuing self-hate can evolve into a kind of mental illness if the episodes with low results are frequent. In turn, rising anxiety because of low self-esteem can lead to depression (Nguyen et al., 2019). Therefore, the negative side of the personal control element of motivation is that it may direct a student to self-blaming.
Finally, the fourth category of Keller’s motivational theory is satisfaction. Apparently, students should enjoy the studying process and experience as little stress as possible for extracting use of the educational institute. One of the factors that enhances the feelings of a student is the natural consequences of their work. According to Gagne et al. (1974), people’s knowledge through their studies should be applied somehow. The reason for this is that even if the material is well-learned, it will not bring joy to students if they perceive it as meaningless. To achieve the goal of satisfying a student, a teacher must show the sphere where the acquired skill is valuable. Moreover, the possibility to interact with this sphere or task directly would result in more positive feedback from a student. Thus, the meaning of the natural consequences in terms of the motivation model is that skill should be proven to be meaningful.
The element has other beneficial uses as well, such as the further interest of a student in the subject. Not only may a student continue the study of a subject, but probably they would be encouraged to give attention to some additional information about the material. Furthermore, the natural interest might rise to the intrinsic enjoyment of a subject. A student can even choose to devote their professional carrier to the matter which was applied earlier. Hence, the demonstration of the use of material can enhance a student’s desire to participate in learning the subject.
Conclusion
To conclude, several aspects constitute Keller’s model of motivation, which is relatively helpful for educational purposes. Several components of the model were discussed in greater detail through their specific elements. As such, variability helps prevent boredom in children and other students. Familiarity provides students with higher self-esteem from knowing the context of the studied material. Personal control gives access to self-evaluation but affects a student’s self-perception. Finally, the natural consequences of studying bring satisfaction to students since their acquired skills could be realized.
References
Gagne, R. M., Briggs, L., & Wager, W. (1974). Principles of instructional design (4th ed.). Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Keller, J. M. (1987). Development and use of the ARCS model of instructional design. Journal of Instructional Development, 10(3), 2–10.
Nguyen, D. T., Wright, E. P., Dedding, C., Pham, T. T., & Bunders, J. (2019). Low Self-Esteem and its association with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation in Vietnamese secondary school students: A Cross-Sectional study. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10.