The generation of students in the world today is experiencing many difficulties and challenges when it comes to studying. One of the main challenges is a lack of motivation, where students are always disinterested in studying.
But what are the causes of this problem? This article accesses 21 reasons why students in schools and colleges lack motivation.
21 Causes of Lack of Motivation in Students
Before knowing the interventions to undertake so as to motivate unmotivated students, it is important to first understand the causes of the situation.
The following are some of the main reasons that lead to demotivation to study among students:
1. Poor Self Esteem
Most students today suffer from poor self-esteem. There is usually no confidence in their personalities, and they often choose the easy paths in life and avoid challenges.
Studying or attending school daily requires students to put an effort into getting good grades.
However, they choose the easy path of often not attending classes, procrastination, and late or no assignment submissions
2. No Studying Purposes
When students in colleges see studying certain subjects as useless, they will not be motivated to learn more about them.
Even if they are made to understand the importance of studying those subjects, they still will not see their usefulness.
3. Gender Myths
There are common myths that girls and boys should study some courses and subjects.
Therefore, you will find girls are not motivated to study male-dominated courses and subjects such as technology and mathematics, and boys are demotivated in teaching and humanities that are female-dominated.
4. Boring Teaching Methods
The generation today needs classes to be entertaining for them to learn. Instructors have to go the extra mile and invent ways that will keep students attentive and always eager for the next class.
A dry and boring class leads to students who are never motivated to study.
5. Interests Turned into Obsessions
Students in schools and colleges today have interests in different noncurricular activities.
If these interests turn into obsessions, they will take up all their need to study or attend school and will no longer be motivated to do so.
For example, a student playing in a band will prefer spending all his school time practicing.
6. High Expectations
When students set very high expectations that they aim to achieve, they risk demotivation if they do not attain them.
Once they do their best and fail, they see themselves as failures and lose motivation
7. Burnout
Students who have studied or worked a lot without breaks are likely to experience burnout and stress. Once these two kick in, the motivation to study disappears.
Therefore, it is always important to take breaks and rest enough to maintain morale. Such burnout can be a cause of laziness and reducing it is an intervention to laziness among students in school.
8. Hard subjects
When a subject is too hard that a student spends a lot of time studying it and still fails, he or she will lose interest in studying it more.
The appropriate outcome is that the students challenge themselves to tackle it and improve bit by bit, but this is never the case among many students.
9. Easy subjects
When a subject is too easy, and a student scores high grades without even having to study, there will be no motivation to study.
Most students study to pass exams, and if they achieve this without studying, then they will never study or attend classes.
10. Bullying
Bullying is very common in schools today. Students who are bullied never have a love for the school and are always stressed.
As a result, they are never motivated to study or go to school because they hate everything linked to school and mostly wish to stay home or alone.
11. Bad Student-Teacher Relationship
When there is no love lost between the teacher and the student, the teacher will always be motivated to teach and the student will always be motivated to study.
However, when students hate a teacher they will never look forward to their classes or want to put an extra effort in the subject they teach.
12. Uncomfortable Learning Environment
Factors such as security, enough supplies, enough light, ventilated classes, and clean surroundings ensure that student stays motivated.
They usually help ensure that the student feels ready.
13. Unstable Family Surroundings
Demotivation among students can come from home. When parents are always quarrelling and keep moving from place to place students are mostly unsettled and stressed leading to the lack of motivation for school.
Also, studies show that students whose parents are divorced do not study well and fail exams.
14. Peer Pressure
Most student in colleges today do not study and spend time enjoying themselves.
Even new students who are focused find themselves adapting this lifestyle within no time after they join because they want to live like the others. The motivation to study and stay in school gradually disappears.
15. Academic Pressures
The main purpose why people study is to get good grades to set up a better future.
This notion has stressed students who do not perform because they see themselves as failures risking bad futures. This drains their motivation to study.
16. Lack of Belief
When students do not believe that their efforts will be rewarded in their academic performances, they will not be motivated to study.
One must believe they can perform when they put effort for them to be motivated to do it.
17. Lack of Study Goals
When students do not set aims that they want to achieve through their studies, there will be no motivation to study because nothing is pushing them to do so.
Study goals give students a purpose to study.
18. Gaming
Video games are on an upward trend among students especially those in college.
With the recent trend that one can stream video games to gain followers and earn money through Twitch, most college students have something they prefer to study.
19. Lack of Ambition
Most college students are not motivated to study because they have no life ambitions.
Ambitions such as a good lucrative job and a stable family are some ambitions that can push one to study and work harder, but most college students do not have them.
20. Lack of Job Opportunities
A high level of unemployment among graduates demotivates a lot of students.
The fact that graduates are out there still searching for jobs has reduced the interest of students in academics who then start looking for other alternatives
21. No Rewards
When students perform well and are not rewarded they don’t value their efforts because they are not recognized. As a result, they start getting demotivated gradually.
