ESOL Orientation

Force Field Analysis

What are the positive forces that keep you attending school and help you to reach your educational goals?

What are the negative forces that prevent you from attending school and reaching your educational goals?

We are going to look at these forces as a positive and negative field of influences. In this example, positive and negative are not value judgments about the individual forces. They are expressions of the way a force acts on your educational goals. If a force pulls you away from your goal, it is a negative force. If it pushes you toward your goal, it is a positive force. Understanding these forces will help you reach your educational goals.

This force field is like a magnetic field, pulling you toward your goal or away from it. You are the central player in this field. Your attitude and your actions will determine how the field shapes your behavior. If you are passive within this field, both negative and positive forces will pull you. But you will not be in control. You will be like a boat adrift on the currents of the ocean with no oars and no sail. If you are passive, your life will continue to change, but you will not be in control.

On the other hand, if you are aware of these positive and negative forces, you can make a plan to manage these forces through positive action. You can take specific action steps to manage these forces in order to meet your educational goals.

Your strategies will help you strengthen the positive forces and weaken the negative ones.

1) The first step is to identify the forces that influence you in both positive and negative ways.

2) The next step is to identify the strongest of these forces.

3) Thirdly, you need to identify those forces that are manageable. That is, you need to determine which positive forces can be made stronger and which negative forces can be made weaker. *The strengthening of a positive force that can be managed may overcome a negative force that cannot be managed.

4) Finally, you need to develop a strategy to change these forces.

Look at the nested circles below. Sometimes pictures help us to understand an idea.

We are going to place these forces into four categories. Let's take a moment to talk about these four categories.

Personal Forces: These forces are:

1. your attitudes
2. your motivations
3. your likes and dislikes

Life-Context Forces: These forces include such things as:

1. transportation
2. childcare
3. health
4. work demands
5. friends and family

Instructional Forces: These forces include:

1. your relationship with your teacher
2. your relationship with fellow students
3. what you are being taught
4. the materials used to teach
5. the instructional methods used
6. positive and negative feedback on progress

Program Forces: These are forces are:

1. opportunities for counseling
2. scheduling of classes
3. location of classes
4. physical environment
5. culture within the school

Group Discussion:

Get into groups and discuss what has been presented so far. Does it make sense to you? Are the categories right? Is there a category that you feel will have mostly positive forces? Which category do you think might have the most negative forces? Do you think this type of analysis will be helpful?

Write a few sentences that express your thoughts at this point.

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