Why Are My Students Doing That? A Beginner's Guide to Perceived Motivation
This webinar explores why students engage in challenging behaviors and how identifying the underlying function of those behaviors leads to more effective, sustainable supports. Drawing on key findings about behavioral motivation, it clarifies how student actions are typically driven by the need to either gain something or avoid something and why misidentifying those motives results in ineffective interventions.
Description
This session examines the core concept that all student behavior serves a function, usually linked to obtaining or avoiding attention, activities, or specific stimuli. The webinar highlights the importance of accurately identifying behavioral motivation to select interventions that genuinely improve student outcomes. Participants will review real examples illustrating how data-based hypotheses about motivation outperform generic or misaligned responses. The session emphasizes the need for educators to move beyond surface-level assumptions and use consistent, function-focused reasoning when designing behavior supports.
Learning Objectives
- Analyze how student behavior is shaped by two primary motives: obtaining something or avoiding something, and apply this understanding to real school scenarios.
- Evaluate the impact of accurately identifying the function of a behavior versus relying on assumptions, using data-informed decision making to guide interventions.
- Develop strategies for integrating function-based thinking into existing discipline and support systems to improve social and academic outcomes for students.