Perceptions of Students on Factors in Motivation to Learn

The purposes of this article are as follows: (1) to determine primarily student related motivational factors and their level of importance for motivation to learn, (2) to determine primarily teacher related motivational factors and their level of importance for motivation to learn, and (3) to provide research based suggestions for teachers to motivate their students. For these purposes a questionnaire was developed and applied to students of Faculty of Education, Celal Bayar University, Turkey. According to students' responses the five most important student related motivating factors are as follows: "Having every kind of family supports to your learning", "Believing that classes are very important and useful for your future", "Having interest to the content of learning subject", "Having a very eagerly personality to learn", and "Believing that you are valuable for your instructors and friends". According to students' responses the five most important instructor related motivating items are as follows: "Providing a warm learning atmosphere in class, and being tolerantly and joyfully", "Trying to make students feel that the instructor really cares about them", "being a good model for high motivation in class and loving his job", "being fair and not discriminating students", and "dominating the teaching subject, having sufficient knowledge on his profession."