William Glasser's Choice Theory Case Study

The most comprehensive, fully developed psychology of internal control is William Glasser’s choice theory, a biological theory that suggests we are born with specific needs that we are genetically instructed to satisfy. Our behavior represents our best attempt at any moment to satisfy our basic needs. We have both a physical need for survival we also have the psychological needs to be satisfied to be emotionally healthy. The four basic needs are belonging or connecting, power of competence, freedom and fun. Belonging or connecting motivates people to develop relationships and cooperating with others. The power or competence is the need for power, It is gained through competence, achievement, and mastery. Freedom is having choices. Fun is

This type of motivation arise from outside the individual, as opposed to intrinsic motivation, which originates inside of the individual. This includes parental expectations, expectations of other trusted role models, earning potential of study, and grades. Students who are extrinsically motivated might say something like, “I need a B in statistics to get into business school”, and/or “If I flunk chemistry, I will lose my scholarship.” Extrinsic motivators more readily produce behavior changes and typically involve relatively little effort or preparation. The disadvantage to extrinsic motivators can distract students from learning the subject at hand. It can be difficult to come up up with a appropriate rewards and punishments for student behaviors. Extrinsic motivators typically do not work over the long term. Once they receive their rewards or punishments, these students tend to lose their motivation. While these types of learners are motivated by rewards they also react well to competition and the opportunity to best others. They will often make good grades but they will not engage deeply into the subject/lesson like a intrinsic learner. They typically will only learn what they need to know to pass an exam. I feel like the students that have Individual Education Plans (IEPs) fall under the Extrinsic motivators. When writing IEPs in the future I will use the idea from Ann in the book, Activating the Desire to Learn, she said she would ask students what are their college plans? Which is something we do on IEPs, for the Transition Component, I too always ask, for college plans. Which like Ann says, implies they want to got to college, which takes their Free Choice. A better way to ask would just be, “What are your plans after graduating?” Which gives the student back their Free Choice and not feel like college would be the only