Self-determination theory and learning

The Problem With Being Performance-Oriented: Focusing Too Much on Grades
Another thing that undermines students’ learning efficiency is being too performance-oriented i.e. focusing too much on grades."Too Smart to Fail?"Why does focusing too much on one’s grade result in worse learning? Because learning no longer becomes intrinsically rewarding.

According to Wikipedia:"Intrinsic motivation refers to initiating an activity for its own sake because it is interesting and satisfying in itself, as opposed to doing an activity to obtain an external goal (extrinsic motivation)."Essentially, research says that by adding an external reward, task-performance decreases. This, however, only accounts for cognitive tasks, and making homework and learning pretty much are cognitive tasks: Lastly, tasks that are intrinsically rewarding usually give energy while tasks that don’t immediately (or within a short time) give their extrinsic reward take energy. One, then, can imagine how students try to minimize their energy output which, again, leads to worse performance. You can imagine this concept like how some people feel like they have more energy left than before going into the gym, while others feel like they have less energy left.

Now, it is of course not possible to remove the grade system even though, in my personal opinion, education focuses way too much on standardized testing.

Learning based on curiosity
I actually learn very intuitively, whenever I feel like I am learning a lot, I will continue reading or listening to whatever gives me the information. I do, however, try to invoke a feeling of curiosity and then continue learning, but if that feeling keeps fading away no matter how hard I try to spark that feeling, then I will just stop.

It is only recently that I learned how important the feeling of curiosity is during learning, how that feeling can accelerate learning tremendously. I recommend these articles on research about curiosity enhancing learning:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141002123631.htm —  How curiosity changes the brain to enhance learning

And this one going extremely in-depth: https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Pleasure_of_learning —  Pleasure of learning, SuperMemo Guru