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Lewin’s “Unfreezing,Change,and Refreezing” Model
One of the problems involved with Dornyei’s approach, according to Oppenheimer (2001), is that the learner will not necessarily be motivated to complete the goals. He claims that this is because achieving goals “may also mean having to change or do things that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable”. Oppenheimer applies a model developed by Lewin referred to as the “unfreezing, change, and refreezing” model of change. According to this model, the unmotivated student is unmotivated (frozen in action). The learner needs to be made dissatisfied with their current situation in order to become motivated (unfrozen) before any change can take place. Once the change has happened and positive feedback has been received, refreezing (in which new, positive behaviours are continued) occurs. Oppenheimer used questionnaires in an experiment which increased his students’ self awareness of themselves and their current situation and directed them towards what would increase their satisfaction. He found, among many other factors, that the behaviours of importance to the teacher (such as class participation) were not of any great importance to the learners; however, by making changes in the behaviours that were important to the students (such as reviewing course material), their exam grades did improve.
Rauch and Fillenworth’s Counselling Approach
However, according to Rauch and Fillenworth (1995, p. 568), it is important for any degree of change to be met with a similar degree of change in positive outcomes. If a student makes a change in learning style but is rewarded with a small improvement in exam grades, the student will revert to the previous, possibly unreliable, behaviours. Therefore, some guidance must be necessary so that appropriate changes in behaviour are made initially. Rauch and Fillenworth (p. 568) suggest 10 methods that can help to guide students in their choices, but following their strategy can be problematic. This is because any change or guidance suggested by the teacher which is acted on by the student may not be successful in terms of the outcomes desired by the student. Therefore, the facilitator, acting as a guide or counsellor, becomes partially responsible for the failure of their student to not meet their desired outcome.
It can be argued that in the experience of Oppenheimer, the use of an end-of-course exam played a part in motivating his students; however, the use of exams does not appear to play any great role in the motivation of students. If they did, there would be no need to change teaching-learning methods; teachers would just introduce more tests. Providing more guidance, as proposed by Rauch and Fillenworth can be very risky for the teacher, and having few course aims of the types that Dornyei proposes a course is broken into will not lead to the development of motivation. In order to deal with these issues, a combination of these methods needs to be implemented. |
