Flow Theory

By Amy Schweinle | Andrea Bjornestad

Updated on Dec 23, 2009

MAJOR RESEARCH METHODS

Flow theory was proposed by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi to describe the experiences

of intrinsically motivated people, those who were engaged in an activity chosen for
its own sake (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1997). Such activities were viewed as worth
doing just for the sake of doing them rather than as means to another end. While
other research on intrinsic motivation focused on behavioral outcomes,
Csikszentmihalyi attempted to describe the quality of subjective experience, or how
intrinsic motivation felt. Further, he sought to explain the characteristics of activities
that people were intrinsically motivated to pursue, and why such activities were
rewarding.

Under certain conditions, people's experiences are optimal. Csikszentmihalyi (1975,

1997) and his colleagues, Rathunde, Whalen and Nakamura, defined optimal
experiences as those that were accompanied by a merging of action and
awareness, strong concentration on the task at hand, and a loss of awareness of
time. At such times, people concentrate so hard on the current task that they forget
about time and the world around them: They are thoroughly engrossed. Further,
these activities are accompanied by positive emotions. They termed this quality of
experience flow.

The experience of flow is possible under certain circumstances: when individuals

find the activities challenging and also believe they have the skills to accomplish
them. Optimal experience, or flow, occurs when a person perceives the challenges
in a certain situation and the skills brought to it as both balanced and above
average. In contrast, when challenges and skills are unbalanced, such as when
challenges outpace skills, an activity could evoke anxiety. The various ratios of
challenges and skills are predicted to be associated with different qualities of
experience: flow with high challenges and skills, apathy with low challenges and low
skills, anxiety with high challenges and low skills, and boredom or relaxation with
low challenges and high skills. The original classification scheme based on level of
challenge and skill, described above (flow, relaxation, anxiety, and apathy) has
been further refined into an eight-category scheme, and a twenty-four-category
scheme. All schemes are based on the tenet that levels of challenge and skill
interact to affect the quality of experience.
The idea of optimal challenge is not new to the field of education. Indeed, both Lev
Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist (18961934), and Jean Piaget, a Swiss
psychologist (18961980), contended that learning best occurs when people engage
in activities that are at the peak of their abilities, when they have to work to their
full potential to accomplish a task. However, the study of the experience of
optimally challenging activities and the method of study are unique to flow theory.

MAJOR RESEARCH METHODS

Flow theorists not only study those who are intrinsically motivated to participate in
an activity, but also individuals engaged in everyday activities. Csikszentmihalyi
developed the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to explore how individuals
experience activities throughout their daily lives. The ESM involves randomly
alerting individuals to answer questions about what they are currently doing, as well
as their emotions, motivation, concentration, and thoughts associated with the task.
Alerting methods have included beepers, watches, or PDAs set to randomly alert
throughout a given time period. In this way, researchers can gain access to the
thoughts and feelings during an activity as individuals are engaged in it. Other
methods require individuals to recall how they felt or what they were thinking
during prior activities, relying on memory.

The standard use of the Experience Sampling Method is to electronically beep

students randomly during the day and ask that they complete a questionnaire (the
Experience Sampling Form, ESF, validated by Csikszentmihalyi and Larson). The first
items on the ESF ask individuals to describe the activity in which they are currently
engaged, followed by a series of questions to assess levels of motivation, cognition,
and affect associated with the activity. These are Likert-type items (in which
responses can range from 1 = not at all to 9 = very much) that resemble, for
example: Was this activity important to you? How hard were you concentrating?
How do you feel about the challenges of the activity? How did you feel about
your skills in the activity? An additional thirteen semantic-differential items
measure emotion during the activity (e.g., happy-sad, excited-bored, and sociable-
lonely). Each activity can then be classified into the flow categories as determined
by the level of perceived challenge and skill above or below average.

With such a method, researchers are able to determine (a) the amount of time
spent in different types of activities throughout a day, week, or month, (b) which
individuals spent more or less time in certain activities, (c) how different activities
were experienced (both cognitively and emotionally) and which were most or least
enjoyed, (d) characteristics of the environment or context that best contribute to
optimal experiences and (e) which individuals were more likely to enjoy different
activities.

While this method is often used to gain an understanding across all the activities in
everyday life, some researchers have specified the types of activities they want to
study. For example, some researchers, such as Schweinle and colleagues and
Shernoff and Hoogstra, have limited the random alerts to times when participants
are in school or completing homework. In this way, they gain information about the
experience of different school and homework activities, such as whole-class
instruction, group projects, watching videos, taking tests or quizzes, etc.

One drawback to the ESM is that it can be expensive and time consuming. Further,
it requires using a large number of participants to get a broad range of experiences.
It is also difficult in educational settings where teachers may not be amenable to
some students randomly stopping their activity to complete questionnaires. Some
researchers have adapted the ESM to assess the experience of specific activities
without random beeps. For example, Schweinle and colleagues were interested in
elementary students' experience of mathematics classes. Rather than beeping
students randomly throughout their math classes, they asked students to complete
ESFs at the end of twelve different math classes across a school year. This type of
method provided information specific to activities during math class rather than a
cross-section of activities in everyday life. One drawback, though, was that it
required students to recall their math class and respond with a general sense of how
they experienced the whole class rather than specific points throughout the math
class. Using the traditional ESM or modified versions, researchers have learned
about how students experience school and academic activities and the
environments that contribute to the most optimal academic experiences.

FACTORS INFLUENCING FLOW AND MOTIVATIONAL CONSEQUENCES

One benefit of flow theory is that it presumes that motivation, cognition, and affect
are situational. Whereas much research in motivation has focused on relatively
decontex-tualized individual psychological processes, flow theory presumes that
these psychological processes are made meaningful by the environment. The ESM
allows for study of both the environment and the persons within the setting. For
example, researchers have used the ESM to determine how students spend their
days and how they experience those activities. In one study, Shernoff, Knauth, and
Makris found that high school students spend most of their classroom time paying
attention to the teacher lecture (23%) or performing individual tasks such as writing
notes or completing homework assignments (23%). Only about 8% of students' time
was spent in interactive activities, including classroom discussion (5%) and group
tasks or laboratory experiments (3%). In short, students were engaged in
intellectually challenging tasks for more than half of the day; however, roughly one-
third of their time was spent passively listening to the teacher lecture or observing a
video.

Using the ESM, Shernoff and colleagues were also able to determine the quality of
the students' experiences while engaged in each of these activities. Specifically,
while students enjoyed watching videos and TV in class, they viewed these activities
as the least challenging. Students also enjoyed individual work, which they reported
most positively in terms of academic challenge, affect, control, and motivation.
Lecture was viewed as unchallenging and was met with negative affect and lower
levels of control. Considering that students spend approximately one-third of their
time in the classroom passively listening to teachers or video, students may not be
adequately challenged or motivated to learn.

Further, researchers have examined the quality of the experience as it relates to the
balance of the challenge and skill of the activities. Researchers have for years
extolled the benefits of high challenge matched with skill level, or optimal
challenge. Vygotsky explained that the highest levels of learning occur when
students are pushed to perform just beyond their current ability levels. As their skill
levels increase, so must the level of challenge, maintaining an optimal balance that
encourages continuous learning.

Flow theory further contends that, not only do activities with high challenge
matched with high skill offer the best opportunities for learning, but they also
provide an optimal environment for positive affect and intrinsic motivation. (It
should be mentioned that not all activities with high challenge and high skill elicit
flow states. However, flow states can only occur when high challenge is coupled
with high skill.) If students believe that they have the skills to produce the desired
results, positive affect is more likely to be experienced. When challenges and skills
are optimal and balanced, students can experience higher levels engagement,
attention, concentration and interest, according to Shernoff and his colleagues, as
well as higher levels of positive affect, interaction with the class, efficacy, and value
of the material, according to Schweinle and her colleagues (2006).
Interestingly, it is still possible to have positive affect if skill exceeds challenge. In
fact, Schweinle and colleagues (in press) found that a student's skill level, rather
than the perceived challenge of the activity, was the most significant factor in
predicting positive affect and efficacy. While students may feel more positive if they
believe they can succeed whether or not the challenge is high, only activities with
high levels of challenge will also provide opportunities to learn. Phrased another
way, students must have high to moderate levels of efficacy to demonstrate a
preference for challenge. Teachers can use these tenets of flow theory to provide for
optimal learning as well as positive affect and motivation to learn.

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHERS

Teachers encourage flow and intrinsic motivation by creating an environment that

fosters enjoyable learning experiences. Ideally, to encourage optimal experiences,
teachers must provide optimal challenge and support for competence (or skill).
Schweinle and colleagues also found that, in classrooms where students reported
high positive affect, efficacy and value of the material, teachers balanced levels of
challenge and skill as well as (a) provided immediate, constructive feedback, (b)
encouraged students to persist, (c) encouraged cooperation rather than
competition, (d) supported student autonomy, (e) ensured that new challenges were
tempered with support to match students' skill, (f) emphasized the importance of
the material, and (g) pressed students to understand the principles rather than
memorize algorithms.

Csikszentmihalyi (1997) argues that when teachers provide immediate,

informational feedback regarding student performance, students become more
interested and persistent with goal setting. Additionally, intrinsic motivation and
self-efficacy increases in students. If a student receives non-constructive feedback,
such as evaluating an individual's trait, motivation will decrease and negative affect
may occur.

Flow Theory In addition to providing effective feedback, teachers can also increase
intrinsic motivation and classroom experience by supporting student autonomy.
Students become more involved when instructional activities are perceived as
important and when students perceive themselves as autonomous and in control
over their environment, according to Shernoff, Schneider, and Csikszentmihalyi.
Schools can promote autonomy by minimizing external controls to facilitate
conceptual understanding, allowing students to set goals and choose their own
activities. In such a way, students are more likely to feel in control of their goals.
However, if teachers provide a controlling environment by inflicting deadlines,
stressing grades and performance, and demanding specific solutions rather than
creativity, a decrease in affect, interest, and motivation could occur.

Positive affect may be one of the most powerful predictors of intrinsic motivation.
Humor, expressions of enjoyment towards the subject matter, and utilizing kindness
and sensitivity can produce a positive atmosphere in the classroom. In contrast, if
teachers use threats, sarcasm, and directives, students may become less motivated
and may experience negative affect. In addition to providing a positive atmosphere,
teachers should also encourage social relationships. Schweinle's research suggests
that teachers who allow students to work with their peers will help build cooperation
in the classroom and an increased commitment and interest in the subject matter.

Challenge and feeling competent are important for optimal experiences. Teachers
support this when they use students' errors as learning opportunities and provide
chances for students to show their skill levels. The students' skill levels should
match the challenge of class activities to encourage flow experiences. The difficulty
level of tasks should increase as student skills increase. If a student maintains low
skills and perceives the task as highly challenging, then the student may become
anxious and experience negative feelings. To provide an ideal level of challenge,
teachers can scaffold tasks, provide adequate time for students to complete tasks,
and reduce long-term goals into smaller units, which follows Vygotsky's principles.
This could increase the enjoyment of math, lessen anxiety, increase feelings of
success, and ultimately create an environment conducive to optimal experiences.

Optimal experience in classrooms is important for students' learning and motivation

at the present and also for their future educational plans. Shernoff and Hoogstra
found that when students experience cognitive and emotional engagement with a
specific topic, the resulting feelings may guide post-high school plans, such as
college courses or majors. Further, interest and enjoyment with certain topics were
essential factors for highly engaged students when making career decisions.

In sum, flow theory addresses how students experience educational contexts and
how this experience influences learning and motivation. Activities that challenge
students, but are still within their ability to accomplish, set the stage for optimal
emotional and motivational experiences as well as optimal learning. Within the
context of balanced challenge and skill, teachers can also improve the chances of
positive experience by supporting autonomy; providing immediate, constructive
feedback; encouraging cooperation among students; supporting positive affect; and
pressing understanding rather than rote learning.

See also:Interest, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation, Piaget, Jean 1896-1980,

Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich 1896-1934

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