Assessing Motivation


Perhaps even more important than physical assessment is assessing riders’ conscious and unconscious motivations. To better understand conscious motiva- tion, consider a person purchasing a new automobile. All buyers visit a sales lot for the same basic reason, to acquire a new ride; however, their motivations guide what type of vehicle they buy. A farmer might buy a truck for hauling materials or livestock, while a person with a long commute may buy a hybrid for fuel economy. Similarly, motivational factors must be considered when designing a lesson plan. Conscious motivations equate to what drove students to take a lesson. Unconscious motivations are also


important, and can be thought of as the fuel needed to run the recently acquired car. Fuel keeps it going, but other factors affect the gas mileage. It’s important to check your students’ “fuel gauge” often and know when to pull over at a gas station. Let’s take a look at a couple of ways to evaluate conscious and unconscious motives.


Maslow’s Hierarchy


Developed by Abraham Maslow, the Hierarchy of Needs is depicted as a pyramid – or in our case, a mountain (see page 90). Individuals are motivated to fulfill basic needs before striving for subsequent needs, starting at the mountain’s base, before rising to the next level.


In practical terms, your guests can’t focus on safety, fun, and learning unless they are warm and well-fed. After these needs are met, they must feel safe and secure that their instructor will take care of them and help steer them away from harm. Although we quickly associate the social and emotional needs of belonging with teens, these needs apply in different ways to all students (see the material on the CAP Model in PSIA-AASI’s Children’s Instruction Manual and Snowboard Teaching Handbook). Satisfying the belonging need may be as simple as the aforementioned lesson on how to carry a snowboard so that the new rider feels like part of the tribe, or as complex as letting a preteen rider choose which trail the group takes for its next run. Moving up the mountain and past the “deficit” needs, we come to the self-esteem level, which might be thought of as feelings of competence (in snowboarding, in this case), being respected by others, recognition, achievement, and freedom. Nearly all of these feelings can be attended to by a skilled instructor. Te self-actualization level of Maslow’s Hierarchy is at the top of the pyramid and, in Maslow’s opinion, is reserved for a precious few individuals who have a special combination of personality traits. By keeping Maslow’s Hierarchy in mind while working with the Teaching Cycle, you can constantly tweak and change a lesson plan to address your students’ conscious motivations.


TheSnowPros.org CHAPTER 6: TEACHING 89


PHOTO 6.2: Have fun communicating with your students.


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