Webinar #2: "Learn passionately - Live meaningfully"

The webinar provided multi-dimensional perspectives on how to motivate learning and design a meaningful student life through theories in psychology and practical questions and sharing from participants.

The origin of motivation

At the beginning of the presentation, Dr. Dang Hoang Ngan shared about the origin of motivation. Motivation is the reason why we have to act. The more clearly we identify the reason for our actions, the more we understand our own behaviors and actions. According to psychologists, people have motivation from the outside and from the inside.

In addition, the speaker introduced to the attendees the Yerkes-Dodson law and attribution theory. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, we need to have a little stress to be able to create motivation to work or study. In the model below, the ability to realize the action is described on the vertical axis, and the horizontal axis describes the stimuli, needs, and demands of the situation. When the stress reaches a reasonable level, the ability to work also increases. She emphasized that students need to analyze the learning task they are doing compared to their own ability as easy or difficult. If the task is easy, it requires more of themselves, and if the task is difficult, it requires less of themselves. Attribution theory suggests that each person explains their success or failure based on certain principles coming from within (ability, capacity) or outside (luck, difficulty of the task).

Dr. Dang Hoang Ngan shares her views on a meaningful life with five elements: positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and fulfillment. A memorable student life will require young people to observe and nurture these five elements within themselves. However, she emphasizes that: "If you fail somewhere, you still have other elements to support and perfect yourself." For example, when you feel like you have not achieved anything, remember that you still have other resources beside you, which are positive relationships, engagement, and meaning in life.

Finally, the speaker talked about Alderfer's (1972) theory of motivation. This theory states that there are three needs that humans seek to satisfy: existence, relatedness, and growth. When one need is satisfied, it becomes the motivation to satisfy another need.

To conclude her presentation, Dr. Dang Hoang Ngan emphasized that: "Small things can have great meaning, and it all starts with our own actions. I wish you all to feel much joy and meaning in your life."

Webinar #2 with the theme "Learning Passionately - Living Meaningfully" has ended with very positive feedback from the attendees. The webinar is expected to bring young people useful and interesting knowledge and experiences to motivate them to study and design a meaningful life.