Impact of Motivation on School Achievement: Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and Amotivation Study, Lecture notes of Literary Analysis

Download Impact of Motivation on School Achievement: Intrinsic, Extrinsic, and Amotivation Study and more Lecture notes Literary Analysis in PDF only on Docsity! DOCUMENT RESUME ED 391 783 SP 036 448 AUTHOR Karsenti, Thierry P.; Thibert, Gilles TITLE What Type of Motivation Is Truly Related to School Achievement? A Look at 1428 High-School Students. PUB DATE Apr 95 NOTE 20p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Francisco, CA, April 18-22, 1995). PUB TYPE Reports Research/Technical (143) Speeches/Conference Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Academic Achievement; Academic Aspiration; Foreign Countries; *Grade Point Average; *Grade Prediction; High School Students; Junior 1-Tigh School Students; Learning Motivation; Secondary Education; Self Motivation; *Student Attitudes; Student Characteristics; *Student Motivation IDENTIFIERS Quebec (Montreal) ABSTRACT This paper reports on research to examine the types of motivation related to school achievement. A total of 1428 students from an inner city high school in the Montreal (Quebec) area participated in the study, 714 males and 714 females. The students ranged in age from 12 to 18, and approximately 40 percent were minorities (Hispanic, Asian, Black). The study used the "Academic Motivation Scale" (AMS), a wasure of motivation toward education based on self-determinatic-:1 theory. "Amotivation" indicates that no link between action' :lila the ensuing outcomes is perceived; "intrinsic motivation" refers to being engaged in an activity for itself and for the pleasure and satisfaction derived from participation; "extrinsic motivation" pertains to behavior in which the goals of actions extend beyond those inherent to the activity itself. The results of the study demonstrated that academic motivation is significantly related to grade point average (GPA), and that motivation does not occur under the same conditions for boys and girls or for junior-high and senior-high students. Amotivation appeared to be a better predictor of school achievement for girls and junior-high students, while intrinsic motivation seemed to foretell school achievement for boys and senior high students. These data revealed that the relationship between GPA and motivation emerged differently for boys and girls, as for younger and older students. The data also indicated that amotivation was the type of motivation most significantly related to GPA for both boys and girls, across all levels of secondary schooling. The findings suggested that development of self-determined motivation in adolescent boys and girls should be an important goal for educators, and that further study of amotivation could lead to better understanding of adolescent academic motivation and perhaps help to identify at-risk students. (Contains 31 references.) (ND) WHAT TYPE OF MOTIVATION 13 TRULY RELATED TO SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT? A LOOK AT 1428 HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS Thierry P. Karsenti & Gilles Thibert University of Quebec at Montreal Presenting author: Thierry P. Karsenti University of Quebec Dept. of Education P. 0. Box 8888, station A Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3P8 CANADA INTRODUCTION Motivation, a force that energizes and directs behavior toward a goal (Eggen & Kauchak, 1994), could certainly be perceived as one of the most important psychological concepts in education. A series of commission reports, several special issues of scholarly and professional journals, many books, as well as our friends and family, have reminded us that the problem of motivation in adolescence remains. In Canada, this issue is particularly striking when we consider the dropout rate at the high school level. In particular, the province of Quebec has one of the highest school dropout rates in the world (for an industrialized country): almost 40% of adolescents drop out before completing high school. According to Vallerand and Senecal (1993) such a problem could be attributed in great part to a lack of motivation toward school. OBJECTIVE The primary purpose of the present research is to examine the type(s) of motivation which are truly related to school achievement. This study emerged from the works of Uguroglu and Walbert (1979), Parkerson, Schiller, Lomax and Walbert (1984), as well as Gottfried (1990), among others, who found a strong correlation between academic motivation and school achievement. U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION , o EDUCALONAL RESOURCES IWORMATION CENTER ITLRICI 0 The, document has been reproduced as received !Wm the person or orq,uulation einutnatinq ii CI Miner change., hay," linen 111,ide to 11,1hill, leplOdin quality 0 Point!, of wee, or oproloris styled in thin dut tehent tto tug non esuardy teptosent otlit rid OE HI poiolion or policy PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY I A 401-42.ea:l... TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INI-ORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" AERA 1995 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 4 Identified Regn /a t ion When the action becomes valued and truly chosen by the student, Deci and Ryan (1991) claim that the internalization of extrinsic motives becomes regulated through identified regulation. For instance, grade 11 students may decide to take an advanced mathematics course that they do not like because they feel it is important for their future. With respect to identified regulation, the students in this example behave willingly and without any external contingency, merely because they have decided to do so. Integrated Regulation The most self determined form. of EM is referred to as integrated regulation. According to Deci and Ryan (1991), integrated regulation occurs when the individual's action is perceived as personally valued and freely performed. Integrated regulation differs from identified regulation in that individuals are usually more committed. Thus all their actions are authentic, for they are interconnected as well as freely and carefully chosen. An example of this would be students who, in light of their career goals, decide to follow an advanced science program, to study diligently, and to commit themselves to meeting all th e. academic requirements. An increasing amount of research has been conducted to evaluate the EM formulation defined by Deci and Ryan. The results consistently support the basic premises of the formulation. For instance, results from confirmatory factor analyses on various motivation scales indicate the presence of three types of extrinsic motivation in education (Ryan & Connell, 1989; Vallerand and Reid, 1989; Karsenti, 1993). Deci and Ryan (1985, 1991) have also posited that, along with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, a third type of motivational construct must be considered in order to fully understand human behavior. This concept is termed amotivation (AMO). Individuals are amotivated when they do not perceive a link between their actions and the ensuing outcomes. Students :n such a state AERA 1995 are neither intrinsically nor extrinsically motivated. Rather, they are non- motivated or amotivated. Accordingly, these students do not know why they are going to school. In many ways, amotivation can be seen as similar to learned helplessness (Abramson, Seligman & Teasdale, 1978), since amotivated individuals experience feelings of incompetence and expectancies of uncontrollability. AccorcP 1g to Vallerand et al., (1989), non-motivated students perceive their actions as caused by forces out of their own control, and they may eventually stop the action. METHOD Sample A total of 1428 students from both junior and senior levels of an inner city high school in the Montreal area (Quebec, Canada) participated in this study. Surprisingly, 714 were males, and 714 were females. The students ranged in age from 12 to 18 years, with a median age of 15 years. Approximately 40 % of the students were minorities (Hispanic, Asian, Black). A total of 75 classes took part in the study. Meastires (Questionnaire) In Canada, a new measure of motivation toward education. the Academic Motivation Scale' (AMS), has been developed by Vallerand and his colleagues (1989). This scale is based on the tenets of the self-determination theory developed by Deci and Ryan (1985, 1991). It is composed of five subscales assessing intrinsic motivation, three types of extrinsic motivation (external, introjected, and identified regulation), and amotivation. Integrated regulation is not assessed in the AMS because pilot data revealed that this particular type of extrinsic motivation was not highlighted as a perceived reason for participating in educational activities at the high school level. Also, factor analyses on experimental forms of the AMS (Vallerand et al., 1989; Karsenti, 1993) showed that integrated regulation does not significantly distinguish itself from identified regulation. I In French, the Eche Ile de Motivation en Education. 6 AERA /995 5 The scale used in the present study is an offspring of the AMS, specially adapted for adolescents. It is referred to as the AAMS (Adolescents' Academic Motivation Scale). There are 28 items in the AAMS. The rating is done on a 1-7 Likert scale with 7 representing maximum appropriateness. The AAMS assesses students' motivational styles with regard to academic activities. Similar to the Self- Regulation Questionnaire elaborated by Ryan and Connell (1989), the AAMS assesses intrinsic motivation and external regulation, as well as introjected and identified regulation toward two main academic activities, "going to school" and "doing homework". However, it should also be !cltet-1 that the AAMS has been specifically adapted for high-school student, while the Ryan and Connell scale, and the Vallerand, Blais, 74 Pehetier (1989) scale are respectively better designed for elementary-school children and junior-college students. The AAMS also assesses amotivation in the two types of academic activities. It therefore appears that this motivation scale assesses most of the concepts proposed in the theory developed by Deci and Ryan. Like the scale of Vallerand et al. (1989), the operational definition of the AAMS reflects the conceptual definition of both intrinsic, extrinsic motivation, as well as amotivation. The items of the scale refer to one's perceived reasons for engaging in a given act;vity, be they for the activity itself or for reasons lying outside the activity. Extensive data from various studies (Karsenti, 1993; Karsenti & Thibert, 1994) support the raliability and validity of the AAMS. Concerning the reliability of the scale, results from this study reveal that the internal consistency (Cronbach alpha) of all subscales is excellent, exceptionally ranging from .89 to .94. With respect to the validity of the AAMS, the present results are also very encouraging. A factor analysis confirms the five-factor structure of the AAMS and thus provides some support for the factorial validity of the scale. AERA /995 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 6 When comparing correlations obtained for boys and for girls, four interesting findings are also to be noted in Table 2. Though negative, correlations between girls amotivation and their GPA (r = -.30) are somewhat higher than correlations between boys' amotivation and GPA (r = -.24). Moreover, while also negative, the correlations between junior-high students and their amotivation (r = -.30) are higher than those obtained between senior- high students and their amotivation (r= -.25). As well, it is interesting to note that the correlation between the boys' intrinsic motivation and their GPA (r = .20) is significantly higher than the correlation between the girls' intrinsic motivation and their GPA (r = .10). Finally, the correlations between senior- high students' intrinsic motivation and their GPA (r = .25) are significantly higher than the correlations between junior-high students' intrinsic motivation and their GPA (r = .09). DISCUSSION The originality of the present study lies in its attempt to uncover the type of motivation most related to school achievement. Such a study was feasible because a scale based on the definition of extrinsic motivation, elaborated by Deci and Ryan (1985, 1991), was used to assess motivation. This allowed us to make a more refined, accurate and somewhat new assessment of academic motivation. The results of this study have demonstrated that academic motivation is significantly related to school achievement (GPA). They are intriguing because they tend to run contrary to past research which has found that extrinsic motivation (as it generally appears in the literature) is generally negatively related to school achievement (Mitchell, 1992; Pintrich and Garcia, 1991; Harter and Connell, 1984). AERA 1995 1 0 9 10 Our results also show that motivation does not occur under the same conditions for boys and girls, nor does it for junior-high and senior-high students. Amotivation seems to be a better predictor of school achievement for girls and junior-high students. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation seems to better foretell school achievement for boys and for senior-high students. These data suggest that the relation between GPA and motivation emerges differently for boys and girls, as for younger and older students. They also suggest that amotivation is the type of motivation most significantly related to GPA, for both boys and girls, across all levels of secondary schooling. The importance of academic motivation is obvious today, particularly in the province of Quebec where teachers, professionals, policy-makers, and the general public are really concerned about declining achievement scores and escalating drop-out rates. Therefore, the development of self-determined motivation in adolesunt boys and girls should be an important goal for educators. In future studies, it also appears important to consider amotivation, the third motivational construct elaborated by Deci and Ryan (1985, 1991), in order to better understand adolescent academic motivation. Since amotivation seems to be an excellent indicator of GPA, a valid test could allow school boards to identify at-risk students. The results of such tests would then have important pedagogical implications for professionals who could immediately work with at-risk students, thus possibly preventing them from failing and eventually dropping out. AERA J95 REFERENCES Abramson, L.Y., Seligman, M.E.P. & Teasdale, J.D. (1978). 'Learned Helplessness in Humans: Critique and Reformulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 87: 49-74. Anderman, E.M. & Maehr, M.L. (1994). 'Motivation and Schooling in the Middle Grades'. Review of Educational Research, 64(2): 1-33. Bardwick, J. (1978). Some Aspects of Women's Relationships with W o in e n . Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (San Francisco, California, August 26-30). Brush, L.R. (1980). 'The Significance of Students' Stereotype of a Mathematician for Their Career Planning.' Personnel and Guidance Journal 59(4): 231-235. Deci, E.L. (1975). Intrinsic Motivation. New York: Plenum. Deci, E.L. Sr Ryan, R.M. (1991). 'A Motivational Approach to Self: Integration in Personality'. In R.A. Dientsbier (ed.), Perspectives on Motivation: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum. Eccles, J. S. (1987). 'Gender Roles and Women's Achievement-Related Decisions.' Psychology of Women Quarterly, 11(2): 135-171. Eggen, P. & Kauchak, D. (1994). Educational Psychology: Classroom connections. New York: Macmillan College Publishing Ccmpany. Freud, S. (1923). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-analysis. Gottfried, A. E. (1990). 'Academic Intrinsic Motivation in Young Elementary School Children.' Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(3): 525-538. Gottfried, A.E. (1985). 'Academic Intrinsic Motivation in Elementary and Junior High Schools students'. Journal of Educational Psychology, 77: 631-645. Green, L. & Foster, D. (1986). 'Classroom Intrinsic Motivation: Effects of Scholastic Level, Teacher Orientation, and Gender.' Journal of Educational Research, 80: 34-39. 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