The Success Loop

Hey 👋

Hope you haven’t been too tied up recently. Today, more (on) motivation to learn…

Big idea 🍉

Students typically draw on two main sources of motivation. Extrinsic motivation comes from rewards such as praise, grades, or merits. Intrinsic motivation comes from finding learning itself satisfying or meaningful.

In upcoming snacks we’ll explore how both have value and can complement each other, but for now let’s focus on the intrinsic side… the one that sustains learning most effectively over the long term.

A highly effective way to build intrinsic motivation is through regular experiences of success. When students consistently feel successful in lessons, they become much more willing to engage. When they encounter repeated failure, motivation inevitably erodes.

Why does this happen?

• Success feels rewarding. Moments of understanding and mastery produce a brief positive (dopamine) response that signals ‘this is worth doing’.

• Success strengthens expectations. Each successful attempt raises students’ belief that they can succeed again, increasing their willingness to invest effort.

• Success grows knowledge. As understanding develops, students notice more, generate new questions, and become more curious.

To maximise these success moments, we can:

1. Chunk and scaffold content. Break ideas and processes into small components before recombining them, reducing overload and enabling early wins.

2. Provide timely, actionable feedback. Recognise success clearly, and when students struggle, offer guidance and another opportunity to apply it.

3. Use questions to spark curiosity. Early in a topic, prompt students to notice gaps or puzzles (“What’s going on here?”) so they want to resolve them.

Over time, this process becomes self-sustaining (‘autocatalytic’.) Once students experience success, curiosity, and the satisfaction of growing competence, intrinsic motivation begins to fuel itself. We often underestimate how powerful this loop can be… many students maintain momentum with far less external prompting than we expect once it’s established.

What this means is that our goal is not to continually ‘boost’ motivation from the outside, but to create the conditions that get the success loop started and keep it moving. Because once the loop kicks in, the groove carries on without you 😎

🎓 For more, check out this paper on curiosity and interest in the context of learning.

Summary

• Student motivation comes in 2 flavours: intrinsic and extrinsic.

• The best way to build intrinsic is via success, because it creates a dopamine reward, builds expectancy, and generates curiosity.

• The effect is strong than we tend to think, and once the loop starts, it fuels itself.

Little updates 🥕

• Study comparing paper vs tablet exams → finds equal performance but lower perceived effort on screen, suggesting no screen inferiority in real exams.

• Paper on low/high-energy music during tasks → suggests music can lift arousal and enjoyment without harming performance, though high energy increases effort (note: this contradicts previous research on the distracting effects of music).

• Working paper examining item-level test data → finds that aggregating to a single score hides important signals that could improve education decisions.

• Study tracking everyday actions → finds most behaviour runs on habit and aligns with intentions, suggesting habit-focused strategies are powerful.

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