Friends Motivate Friends

How to motivate students? This is going to an eternal topic for every single educator. A huge percentage of the school-aged population is at risk of academic failure (Waxman & Huang 1996). Meanwhile, teachers are looking for millions of methods to get students involved into lessons. Some motivating activities aim to achieve academic goals, and some are used to support students who have special needs. However, research shows that peers and friends could do great contribution to improving or motivating student’s academic achievements. (Wentzel, Barry, Carolyn & Caldwell 2004). Knowing that friend’s encouragement and assistance could facilitate test grades, in-class performance, social abilities. Meanwhile, emotional distress could be mitigated by friend’s motivational actions.

There are also three essential factors which should be considered by educators:

1. Friendship status: grouping students with their best friends could increasing motivational phenomenon among middle school students.

2. Prosocial behavior: students who are willing to perform prosocial behavior create more opportunities to motivate their friends because sharing and helping play an important role in motivating students to gain better academic achievements together.

3. Classroom grades: classroom overall grades take effects on the stand and fall of friend’s motivation. Class with even scores distribution is more likely to promote motivation between friends.

Yes! The research shows that students can get motivated by their friends! Isn’t it amazing to cheer up your classmates and friends to help them get better grades? However, research reveals that friend’s characteristics play an important role in determining the effectiveness of motivation. For example, motivation happened frequently when the target student has a reciprocated friend in sixth grade. That means the uncertainties of friend’s motivation required to be discussed and explored in future studies.