The range of literature on motivation is vast and, depending on whether one’s
professional discipline is, for example, Psychology, Bioscience, Education or Business,
motivation will be represented in quite different ways. Therefore motivation may be
represented as something internal:- a ‘predisposition towards…’, a ‘need’, a ‘drive’
or an ‘instinct’. For others, motivation is inherent or ‘emergent’ in or from
particular contexts – something external to the person or organism. For yet others,
it is something both internal and external with, on occasion, some quantification
involved – ‘greater’ or ‘lesser’ amounts (or degrees) of motivation. While a number
of those perspectives will be touched upon here, the focus and emphasis will be on
motivation in a Higher Education, student context. Here too, the concept of
motivation may be seen to touch the edges of other constructs – constructs such
as, ‘self-efficacy’, ‘locus of control’ and ‘student engagement’ for they all share similar
cognitive, affective and behavioural roots.