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Aji Nur Hakim

Self-awareness, self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-management of emotion are some of the topic in psychology that mostly related to students especially in the classroom. Those four “self” theories are has to be known by all of people, no exception for teachers. Instead, teachers are the most recently person who interact with students. Thats why, teacher must know what the students feel and act on. What are actually self-awareness, self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-management of emotions? What is the relation between those theories?
The first discussion is about self-awareness. According to LeFrancois (in Baylor University’s Community Mentoring for Adolescent Development, n.d.), self-awareness are included self-esteem, self-concept, and self-actualization; which is the view of individuals, the concept that individuals have, and the process of act as individuals.
Self-awareness itself usually related to human being or LeFrançois (in Baylor University’s Community Mentoring for Adolescent Development, n.d.) says emotional well-being; which has means ability to comfort self or control self and relate others. The characteristics of emotional well-being according to LeFrançois, can be shown as follows:
1.      I feel comfortable with myself.
2.      I am not overwhelmed by my emotions.
3.      I can take life’s disappointments.
4.      I can accept my shortcomings.
5.      I have self-respect. I can laugh at myself.
6.      I feel good about the relationships I hold with other people.
7.      I am able to give love and to consider the feelings of others.
8.      I respect the differences I find in other people.
9.      I feel a sense of responsibility to others.
10.  I am able to meet the demands of my life.
11.  I welcome new experiences and new ideas.
12.  I set realistic goals for myself.
13.  I am able to think for myself and make my own decisions.
14.  I put my best effort into everything that I do.

If someone has those kind of emotional well-being, they will definitely have good awareness not only doing good on them selves, but also can control the well-being of others. Self-awareness itself has related to self-esteem, as LeFrançois mentioned before. According to LeFrançois (1996), the component of self-esteem cover self-image (perspective of ourselves), ideal-self (eagerness of ourselves want to), and Pygmalion-self (perspective others to us).
Students’ self-esteem can clearly be seen in the classroom of what they act on, such as when students active or curious about something and makes variety of contacts, means students have high self-esteem; but, if students passive, avoid new experience, and limited contact, they include students who have low self-esteem. (LeFrançois, 1996).

Even self-esteem of one’s is low; there are ways to increase it. As LeFrançois (1996) theory that says the three ways to increase self-esteem are:
a.       Listen self-talk
Self-talk is one way to increase self-esteem. People can start to talk something positive to their selves, so that they can motivate to be better person.
b.      Recognize accomplishment
Make the list of some accomplishment to build the sense of self-worth.
c.       Be assertive
Communicate with others with respect and showing what you want.
d.      Be tolerant
Don’t criticize other, don’t afraid to make a mistake, do tolerant to others especially yourself.
e.       Build a support system
Spending time to people who care about you is also a way to increase self-esteem


The next “self” theory is self-management of emotions. Actually, self-management comes from a core, which is emotional intelligence. “Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict.” (Segal & Smith, 2014).

Emotional intelligence itself includes three kinds of attribute: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Self-management of emotion is an ability to control own feeling, manage the emotion, and be mixed with others to adapt. If the emotion can not be distributed, it will affect someone’s psychology. ”If you are unable to understand and manage your emotions, you’ll also be open to mood swings, while an inability to form strong relationships can leave you feeling lonely and isolated.” (Segal & Smith, 2014)

It is important to teacher especially to care about students, can start to learn about those “self” theories. All of the theory is important, and between one to other is connected. Like self-awareness which is also include self-esteem.

One way that can challenge yourself to know your self-awareness is to answer this question:
1.                   Did the people who know me is myself?
2.                   Mention the 3 adjective of yourself!
3.                   What do you like about yourself?
4.                   What is the purpose of your life?
Of course the answer of each people is different. For me, I have my own answer regarding to that. First, people who know me is myself. Yes, absolutely. People who know me must be myself. Who else that can know you beside yourself? Even people is know you, the most know what you are, is yourself. Second, my three adjective of myself are quite person, moody, and discipline. I kind of quite person, when I get along with my friends or people I close with, I turn to a cherry person. People who do not know me, might think that I am arrogant, whereas actually I will be cherry person when people start to know me. I am kind of moody person. For example, I can change my happy mood exactly to be bored in one minute. I am kind of discipline person. I never do the assignment late than submission date. I always do the task given to me. I never late to come to school or campus, and I hate watching people who usually late to come.
Third, the most I like about myself is I do not care what people judge about me, whenever they say bad things about me, or critics me, I do not care. I think that people doing unimportant thing by judging or gossiping me behind. Forth, my purpose of living is to make people happy. I want people around me, especially my parents, can proud of me and smile for me. I will do anything to make them proud. I want since my present in this world, I can be useful person. That’s why I do not care about people thinking. I will do what I want and like to do.
Self-esteem and self-management of emotion actually can be built from now. Like the theory said that there are ways to increase those. Some of fact in the society, self-esteem exists since someone born. It might change, but the origin of the trait already exists and will remain there as long as we live. It might change, but there is some long-life process to build and become new person. When people have low self-esteem, people can hurt their selves because they might not proud of their selves and blaming their selves and (maybe) others. No wonder if teacher or anyone have to learn many things include how to treat students who has low self-esteem.
No different from self-esteem, emotion also can be managed from one’s individual. Emotion itself not only includes sad, anger, or other bad temper; but also happiness, cheerful, and other good temper. Even for good temper, it should be manage. Remember, something exaggeration is not good, also if the temper uncontrolled, it will be terrible for physical and spiritual.
As long as people aware to their selves, proud of their selves, and manage the emotion well; they are guaranteed to be better person. If people not yet achieve this level, people should learn more how to control and increase the level. 


Sources:
Baylor University’s Community Mentoring for Adolescent Development. (n.d.). Concepts of self-awareness. Retrieved from http://www.mentoring.org/donwolads/mentoring_435.pdf
Centre for Clinical Interventions. (n.d.). Self-management. Retrieved from http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/docs/BB-9-Self-Management.pdf
Segal, J., & Smith, M. (2014). Emotional intelligence (EQ). Retrieved from http://www.helpguide.org/mental/eq5_raising_emotional_intelligence.htm

Self-Awareness, Self-Esteem & Self-Confidence; and Self-Management of Emotion


(Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation Orientation in the Classroom: Age Differences and Academic Correlates)
Aji Nur Hakim
Every people in the world must have motivation, whether they are kindergarten children or college students. Motivation itself divided into two: intrinsic and extrinsic. Some people say that it is better to have more intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic motivation. It is the right opinion? Then, what is the different between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation?
Lepper, Corpus, and Iyengar, had conduct a research about intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation and the relation to age different and academic correlated. There are four topics they want to get:
a.       The relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
b.      Significant age differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation when these two constructs are measured independent of one another
c.       Motivational orientations related to academic outcomes
d.      Significant differences between European American and Asian American children
In this writing, writer wants to discuss about the first third of the topic given by the research.

First topic is the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. “...children’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in these classrooms can be viewed as two largely orthogonal constructs rather than as opposite ends of a single dimension” (Lepper, Corpus & Iyengar, 2005). What does it mean? According to Harter (in Lepper, Corpus &Iyengar, 2005), there are three subscale that represent intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation. The first is two opposite poles of single dimension that represent desire to challenge the work increase and desire to do easy work decrease. The second is two potentially orthogonal motivations that represent motivation based curiosity or interest versus motivation to pleased the teacher to receive good grade. The last is potentially orthogonal construct that represent independent versus dependent motivation in solving a problem. So, the meaning of the result brings by Lepper, Corpus & Iyenger (2005) is the last type subscale of motivation, which is representing independent versus dependent motivation.

Independent and dependent motivation can be seen as how students do their work. For example, the independent motivated students tend to find the other problem beside the textbook given to challenge their selves and learn more about the problem. Whether students who have dependent motivation just depend on teacher and just do the teacher’s instruction and task without additional challenge.

It reflects how students act in the classroom. Most of students have dependent motivation. People might say that it is not good for students and of course it is not. Students who have this motivation will not successfully accept the challenge beyond their task usually given, because they are not used to do it. Although sometimes depend on teacher is good, but if students do not increase their learning by themselves by challenging to do some problems, it will not bring students to be able to face the problems; not only in the classroom, but also in their future.

Second topic is age different. The result of the study shows that intrinsic motivation will decrease along with level of studies. Beside, extrinsic motivation did not have significant changes during the level of studies. This fact of course has an opposite view from the researcher idea. Students, who increase their intrinsic motivation along the level of studies, may have a good interest in their learning. However, students who increase extrinsic motivation may have good extrinsic treatment such as reward from teacher.

In fact, as we see in school, students have different motivation depend on their interest, mood, and environment. Students come from different background. They may have problem in home, may stress because of bunch of homework, or have bad mood. That will cause the intrinsic motivation to decrease. The other students may look diligent to do homework, because they want reward from parents. That condition cause extrinsic motivation to increase. But, does age different make students have better motivation? Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation needed to support learning. When students steps on the next level of studies does not mean their intrinsic motivation will be higher than extrinsic motivation. People may think it should be like that, because students getting mature year by year. In elementary level, the purpose of study may to get a good grade by study diligently. Moreover, parents give present to celebrate that good grade. It is different when high school students think like elementary students who study to just get the good grade. Good grade is important, but actually the purpose of study is change. High school students have to focus to their future, and believe that study makes a better life for them, not just focusing to grade. Back to fact again, teenager especially have different mood and interest rather children. They will do what they like and they will not do what they do not want. This fact may be the reason why result of study shows the intrinsic motivation decrease along the level of study.

Move to the next topic of relation between motivation and academic outcomes. The GPA result of study makes positive significant relation with intrinsic motivation. On the contrary, GPA did not show the positive relation toward extrinsic motivation especially to math and language arts. “The correlation between intrinsic motivation and GPA was positive at all six grade levels, and the correlation between extrinsic motivation and GPA was negative at five of the six grade levels, with third grade being the exception.” (Lepper, Corpus & Iyenger, 2005).

That situation can happened when students want to do the work to get the reward. Somehow, reward being cruel supporter in learning. The end of it, when reward continuously given to students, extrinsic motivation will always increase but did not create good grade. It is proven that intrinsic motivation has more power to make better relation with GPA. Teachers have a hope that students in the classroom not only come to study and do the homework, but also to take the lesson from every subject be taught. It does not matter if students do not have any interest, at least students does not come to school for nothing.

The discussion of motivation in students’ learning still happening until now, especially when teachers want to investigate what exactly the reason behind students’ interest toward the lesson, or why students did not engage in the learning. One of reason to answer those questions is because they have intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; and it is different one to another students. The study proves that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation has the part of students’ learning. In my opinion, we can not judge that intrinsic motivation better than extrinsic motivation. Both the motivation is needed to support out learning, but the portion of intrinsic motivation have to higher than extrinsic motivation, so that we can start to do something from our heart and we can do something because we want to do, not because we suppose to do.



Source:
Lepper, M.R., Corpus, J.H., & Iyengar, S.S. (2005). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation orientations in the classroom: Age differences and academic correlates. Journal of Educational Psychology. 97, 184-196. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.97.2.184.

A Review: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation