ARCS Model

Introduction

Motivation?is a conceptual idea used to elucidate the origination, orchestration, strength, tenacity, and quality of behaviour, predominantly goal-directed behaviour. Motives are constructs that explain why students do what they do.?Motives?are the general desires and needs that vitalize students to initiate purposeful action flow. For example, a student's response to learning (motive) is to get to school (strategy) to acquire skills and knowledge (goal) (Brophy, 2010).

The two causes of motivation are extrinsic or external and intrinsic or internal motivation experienced by the learner. For example, a student's curiosity is an inherent motivation that varies from another student's intrinsic motivator, such as social approval. Therefore, teachers can design motivating instructions by understanding internal factors that motivate students' learning, such as curiosity and social support for the correct behaviour. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is influenced by prior experience, knowledge, or expectations of the learner and other social influences like family, environment, and friends (Gagne, Briggs, & Wager, 1992, p. 117).

Motivational design in instructions for both intrinsic and extrinsic motives of learners can be examined using the?Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and?Satisfaction (ARCS)?model by John Keller. The model asserts that to motivate learners, the instructor and instructional materials must captivate and sustain students' attention; give reasons or relevance to why students need to learn the content; drive students to believe in their proactive effort to succeed or build confidence; and assist student feel a sense of pride, reward, and achievement. The ARCS model is a systematic process categorizing four steps for defining, designing, developing, and evaluating motivational design instructions for lesson plans that will engage and commit students to desire the right attitude toward learning (Li & Keller, 2018, p. 54).

Sustaining Attention

A precondition for learning is gaining and sustaining attention from students. For a lesson activity to be supported, the student must express their intention to participate throughout the movement. A lack of awareness from the learners could result from three primary factors. First, a?lack of perceptual arousal?means insufficient sensory stimuli, such as an exciting video, a strange picture or object, and an unexpected action that triggers a sense of excitement. Second is a?lack of inquiry arousal, meaning learners' intelligence is not engaged with curious questions, quizzes, or puzzles. The third is a?need for more variation, which means there must be a variety of presentations, materials, and activity types to mitigate boring routines in the class. John Keller's ARCS model strategies for attention arousal include using humour, varying the presentation media, intensifying participation and teaming, presenting conflicts and incongruities, posing open issues, and inquiring (Botturi, 2003, p. 22).

What Relevance?

Students often have a mindset of what relevance it makes for them or "what is it in for me?". The instructor's?goal orientation?is to declare and explain the objectives and outcome for the learning that is meaningful to the learners. The strategy for the instructor is using?motives matching?to match the content and activities to the needs and explanations of the learners. The contents and materials must also be presented comprehensively and understandably so learners can easily relate to their experiences and grow in?familiarity?with the content and activities (Botturi, 2003, p. 23).

Care of confidence

If students are unfamiliar with the topics or lesson activity, there is a fear of participation and uncertainty of engagement and involvement in class discussion or inquiry. Taking care of confidence assumes that the instructor must make students feel at ease and remove barriers like fear, uncertainty, and doubt in students' minds. Teachers can help students to overcome learning barriers and instil confidence by moderating?levels of difficulties?through a step-by-step process and instruction; establish realistic expectations?with students based on their level of skills, ability, and prior experience; offer the student?autonomy to control?their learning outcome and environment through self-regulation and monitoring their progress; and opportunities to expand their learning?independence?as a self-directed learner?(Botturi, 2003, p. 23).

Fulfilling Satisfaction

The learning experience for the student is attaining the intangible and tangible reward for achieving their desired goal in their learning environment. The teacher will undoubtedly offer specific grades, marks, or scores based on how students have effectively learned the content and can produce the desired learning outcomes. Satisfaction can be reinforced intrinsically through recognizing students' good work, giving praise, expressing students' joy for learning, and engaging in meaningful discourse. Extrinsic reinforcement like awards, certificates, encouragements, and accolades are tangible objects for successfully attaining knowledge. In addition, fulfilling satisfaction means students must be equitably assessed through consistent and reliable standards to determine the results before the evaluation (Botturi, 2003, pp. 24-25).

A Lesson Plan for creating Attention in ARCS Model

To illustrate the use of the ARCS model in one of my zoom lesson plans on foundational Academic English for my 16-18 years old students from India, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Myanmar, I incorporated elements relating to gaining students' attention by capturing their interest, simulating an attitude of inquiry and sustaining students' engagement in my instructional design (Gagne, Briggs, & Wager, 1992, p. 118).

Before the lesson began, students were asked to introduce themselves with three statements about their characteristics, for example, what is their favourite colour, how many members are in their family, and their favourite fruit. One of these statements given by each student is not valid. The other students must guess which statement is not true about each student. This icebreaker is fun and exciting, with curiosity about choosing false information about students even as they interact remotely through zoom.

The next segment of the lesson is to introduce the subject, and question like "Do you know what Academic English is" offers a reasonable opening inquiry to learning the subject. Then, finally, a short, interesting 3-minute video introducing the topic gets students to be silent as they watch with expectancy.

The next segment is getting the student to read an abstract of an academic article and getting them to rephrase the abstract. Again, this activity sustains their attention as they learn by doing (Gagne, Briggs, & Wager, 1992, p. 118).

Conclusion

In this discussion, the ARCS model has been elucidated and examined. The strategies of all four factors in the ARCS model have been well articulated. I have applied one of the specific elements of the ARCS model in my lesson plan with my diploma students from various Asian countries in a remote setting. Incorporating the ARCS model in my instructional design has proven to work well with my students and sustain their interest, engagement, commitment, and involvement in learning Academic English (Li & Keller, 2018).

References

Botturi, L. (2003). Instructional design & learning technology standard. ICeF – Quadernidell’Istituto 9, 4-69. Milan: School of Communication Sciences at the Università Della Svizzera Italiana. Retrieved from file:///F:/UoPeople%20-%20MED/EDUC%205280/EDUC%205280%20Unit%201/Reading%20Materials%20EDUC%205280%20Unit%201/INSTRUCTIONAL%20DESIGN%20&%20LEARNING%20TECHNOLOGY%20(1).pdf

Brophy, J. (2010). Motivating Students To Learn. New York: Taylor & Francis. doi:https://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203858318

Gagne, R. M., Briggs, L. J., & Wager, W. W. (1992). Principles of Instructional Design (4th ed.). Florida: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. Retrieved from https://www.hcs64.com/files/Principles%20of%20instructional%20design.pdf

Li, K., & Keller, J. M. (2018). Use of the ARCS model in education: A literature review. Computers & Education, 54-62. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.03.019