Development of Achievement Motivation (Educational Psychology)

359 Pages·2002·21.53 MB·English

by  Allan Wigfield

Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contribution begin.
Eric M. Anderman (197), Educational and Counseling Psychology, Univer
sity of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0017
Chammie C. Austin (197), Educational and Counseling Psychology, Univer
sity of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0017
Martin V. Covington (33), Department of Psychology, University of Califor
nia, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720
Wendy Decourcey (147), Department of Psychology, Clark University,
Worcester, Massachusetts 01610-1477
Elizabeth Dray (33), Department of Psychology, University of California,
Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720
Carol S. Dweck (57), Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New
York, New York 10027
lacquelynne S. Eccles (1,91), Department of Psychology and Institute
for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Michigan 48106
Sandra Graham (121), Department of Education, University of California,
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1521
Wendy S. Grolnick (147), Department of Psychology, Clark University,
Worcester, Massachusetts 01610-1477
Suzanne T. Gurland (147), Department of Psychology, Clark University,
Worcester, Massachusetts 01610-1477
Suzanne Hidi (173), Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the Uni
versity of Toronto, Toronto M5S1V6, Canada
Karen F. )acob (147), Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worces
ter, Massachusetts 01610-1477
xiii
XiV Contributors
Dawn M. lohnson (197), Educational and Counseling Psychology, Univer
sity of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0017
Douglas J. Mac Iver (333), CRESPAR, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Maryland 21218-3888
Richard S. Newman (285), School of Education, University of California,
Riverside, Riverside, California 95251-0128
Frank Pajares (15), Educational Studies Department, Emery University,
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
Paul R. Pintrich (249), Combined Program in Education and Psychology,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
K. Ann Renninger (173), Program in Education, Swarthmore College,
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081-1397
Dale H. Schunk (15), College of Education, University of North Carolina,
Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina 27402
Deborah Stipek (309), School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford,
California 94305-3096
April Z. Taylor (121), Department of Education, University of California,
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1521
Benjamin Washburn (333), CRESPAR, lohns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Maryland 21218-3888
Kathryn R. Wentzel (221), Department of Human Development, University
of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
Allan Wigfield (1,91), Department of Human Development, University of
Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
Estelle M. Young (333), CRESPAR, lohns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Maryland 21218-3888
Akane Zusho (249), Combined Program in Education and Psychology, Uni
versity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
Researchers who study achievement motivation are interested in why indi
viduals engage in the variety of achievement-related behaviors they do.
These researchers attempt to answer questions such as: Why do some chil
dren persist even when faced with very challenging tasks or activities? Why
do other children give up quickly on such tasks, despite having the ability
to do the task? How do children make choices about which activities to pur
sue? What kinds of goals do children have for their academic performance?
How do different instructional practices influence children's motivation to
engage in different academic tasks? How children's motivation change as
they go through school?
Over the past 30 years researchers have done a great deal of important
work that provides answers to these questions. These researchers have devel
oped theoretical models of children's achievement motivation, and defined
and assessed crucial constructs contained in those models. They have exam
ined how children's motivation develops, and also how it relates to children's
performance in school and choice of which activities to pursue. Other
researchers have examined how various instructional practices influence chil
dren's motivation, and how such influences change (in both positive and neg
ative ways) as children go through school. As contributors to this work, as
well as consumers of it, we perceived a need for a book that would provide a
comprehensive overview of current work on the development of motivation
and how instructional practices influence children's motivation. Although
there are a number of important edited volumes on motivation in the litera
ture, no recent volume presents a comprehensive overview both of the devel
opment of achievement motivation and how it is influenced by school
experiences. To fill this gap we invited prominent scholars to write chapters
in which they described the development of the particular aspects of moti
vation they study in their own work. We invited other scholars to author chap
ters on how instructional practices influence motivation.
XVi Preface
Why this focus on development and instruction? It is clear from our own
work and that of many others that motivation changes in importan tways dur
ing childhood and adolescence (see the introductory chapter for more details
on the nature of these changes), and we wanted to capture these changes in
a comprehensive way. Further, these changes occur due to changes within the
child, as well as changes in the instructional environments they encounter.
Thus, to understand the development of motivation a focus on the educa
tional experiences children have is crucial.
The book has several other purposes. One is to provide an overview of cur
rent theoretical models of children's achievement motivation. We wanted the
volume to provide an eclectic view of the field, rather than in-depth coverage
of just one or two models. We accomplished this purpose by inviting authors
from different theoretical perspectives to contribute to this volume. Although
we were not able to include every theoretical perspective, most of the cur
rently prominent theoretical models are represented in the volume.
Another purpose is to help provide definitional clarity to the field. As dis
cussed in more detail in the introductory chapter, in the motivation field there
are a number of different terms used to describe seemingly similar constructs.
This is particularly true with respect to terms having to do with children's per
ceptions of ability and efficacy, and children's goal orientations. By having
authors clearly define the construct they study along with reviewing the
research they and others have done on the construct, we hope to arrive at bet
ter definitional clarity for the field. Some of the authors in this volume com
pared the construct they discussed to related constructs, which provided
further definitional clarity. We think having clear definitions of different terms
is crucial in order for the field to move ahead.
Yet another purpose is to present work on gender and ethnic differences
in motivation. As our country becomes more diverse it is crucial to under
stand how factors such as gender and ethnicity influence children's motiva
tion, and whether the theoretical models we have developed work well for
different groups. That is, are these models general, or do they apply only to
specific groups? Our approach to this issue was to have all authors write
about this issue rather than having separate chapters on these topics. This
approach means that these issues are integrated across the book, rather than
being relegated to separate chapters. Some authors provide more detail on
these topics than do others, but all did deal with these issues.
The book is organized into four sections. The first three sections present
work coming from different theoretical perspectives on the development of
motivation, and we organized the sections based on the particular focus of
the theoretical perspectives represented in each section. The first section
focuses primarily on theories and constructs having to do with children's com
petence-related beliefs and their development. Such constructs have received
a great deal of attention in motivation research for the last several decades.
Preface XVll
We include in this section chapters on self-efficacy, self-worth, and concep
tions of ability.
The second section includes chapters which focus on theoretical models
having to do with the reasons or purposes children have for doing achieve
ment activities. These topics have been a strong focus of motivation
researchers over the last several years. Included in this section are chapters
on achievement values, self-determination, interest, goal orientation, and
social goals and their relations to motivation.
The third section includes chapters that link motivation and behavior.
This link is crucial because motivation alone is not enough to promote
achievement; children must translate their motivation into effective action.
The chapters in this section discuss motivation and self-regulation, and aca
demic help seeking.
The final section of the book concerns instructional influences on motiva
tion. As noted earlier, the kinds of instructional practices children and ado
lescents experience strongly influence their motivation, and so it is crucial to
structure instructional practices so that they facilitate children's motivation.
There are two chapters in this section, one on instructional practices during
the preschool and elementary grades and their influence on motivation, and
one focusing on instructional practices at middle school.
This book is aimed primarily at graduate students in the fields of devel
opmental and educational psychology. The literatures in these fields have
been somewhat distinct, as researchers in each field often publish in differ
ent journals and attend different conferences. Thus, students in each disci
pline likely receive different emphases as they learn about motivation. We
invited authors from both fields to contribute to the volume in order to bridge
the two fields. Along with graduate students, advanced undergraduate stu
dents interested in motivation should be interested in this volume. Faculty
members as well as researchers outside the universities who study motiva
tion should be interested in this volume, both for the overview of current the
ories that it provides and the many suggestions for future research that the
authors give. Our strongest hope is that the volume helps provide the basis
for the next generation of research on the development of motivation.
Allan Wigfield
University of Maryland
]acquelynne S. Eccles
University of Michigan
Introduction
ALLAN WIGFIELD
University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
lACQUELYNNE S. ECCLES
University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, Michigan
DEFINING MOTIVATION AND ITS DEVELOPMENT
Research on motivation, and achievement motivation in particular, has bur
geoned over the last 30 years in both the educational psychology and devel
opmental psychology literatures. Achievement motivation refers to motivation
in situations in which individuals' competence is at issue (Nicholls, 1984).
Achievement motivation theorists attempt to explain people's choice of
achievement tasks, persistence on those tasks, vigor in carrying them out, and
quality of task engagement (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998). The kinds of
motivational constructs and processes that theorists use to explain behaviors
such as persistence, vigor, quality, and performance are quite different now
than they were in earlier models of motivation. Currently, theorists who have
proposed models of achievement motivation posit that individuals' achieve
ment-related beliefs, values, and goals are among the most important deter
minants of these outcomes. These theoretical models stand in stark contrast
to earlier motivational models that emphasized constructs such as drives, or
processes such as reinforcement (see Weiner, 1990). Over the last 30 years we
have learned much about these motivational beliefs, values, and goals and
how they develop. Our major purpose in editing this book was to provide
prominent motivation researchers from different theoretical perspectives the
opportunity to present a current review of their own work and that of others
on the development of motivational beliefs, values, and goals.
The Development of Achievement Motivation
Copyright©2002 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. 1
2, Allan Wigfield and Jacquelynne S. Eccles
The word "development" is in the title of the book because of our abiding
interest in how children's motivation changes across the school years. An
important question to answer at the outset is what exactly do we mean by
development? There are a number of important ways in which children's moti
vation changes as children go through their school years (see Wigfield, 1994).
One fundamental way is that children's understanding of crucial motivational
constructs (such as their concept of ability) changes as they mature (see
Nicholls, 1978; 1990). Thus children of different ages are likely to have quite
different understandings of motivation. Most of the relevant work has focused
on children's views of ability and intelligence. This work has shown that chil
dren's conceptions of ability change in interesting ways as they go through
childhood. For instance, younger children often see ability and effort as
covarying positively; in contrast many older children see ability and effort as
inversely related (Nicholls, 1990). Such differences have important implica
tions for children's achievement behaviors.
Second, children's motivation becomes more differentiated and complex
throughout the childhood years. This differentiation begins surprisingly
early (see Eccles, Wigfield, Harold, & Blumenfeld, 1993; Harter, 1998; Marsh,
Craven, & Debus, 1998). Many children begin school with a global sense of
their competence and a general interest in learning about different things
(Harter, 1983). Even as early as first grade, however, children begin to
develop a differentiated set of beliefs, values, and goals about the specific
activities they encounter. Thus a child may feel very confident about math
and have a deep interest in doing it, but a weaker sense of competence for
reading and less interest in it. This differentiation is likely to have impor
tant implications for children's achievement behavior, especially their
choices regarding which to pursue and their responses to negative perfor
mance feedback.
Although this pattern of global to differentiated beliefs, values, and goals
has been posited to characterize the development of children's motivation,
some theorists take a somewhat different view. In the self-efficacy literature
Bandura (1997) argued that children's self-efficacy initially is task-specific,
and gradually becomes more generalized. Hidi and Harackiewicz (2000) dis
cussed how children's interests often are quite situation specific and become
generalized into deeper personal interests (see also Renninger & Hidi, Chap
ter 7, this volume). Thus these theorists argue that the development of these
aspects of motivation go from specific to general. Taking these views together,
perhaps very early on children's motivation is quite general and soon
becomes differentiated to different areas. Within these areas, children's spe
cific experiences could lead to a specific sense of efficacy and interest in spe
cific activities (or lack of efficacy and interest). As children accumulate more
experiences their specific sense of efficacy and interest can generalize, at least
within specific areas. Thus the pattern of change in motivation may be more
complex than once thought.
Introduction J
Third, the levels of children's motivation changes as they mature. Much
has been written about how young children are optimistic about their abil
ities and thus are positively motivated for school learning (Eccles ei al, 1998;
Stipek & Mac Iver, 1989). Over the school years many children's academic
motivation decreases due to changes both in themselves and in the school
environments they experience. For some children this change is not neces
sarily problematic. For others, however, such changes lead them to with
draw from achievement situations and avoid them whenever possible.
Further, researchers recently have shown that even some preschool-age chil
dren are already at risk for developing negative motivational beliefs and
goals (Dweck, 1998).
Fourth, children's beliefs, values, and goals relate more closely to their per
formance and choice as they get older. Thus motivation and behavior become
more closely linked. Although researchers continue to study the exact nature
of this relation, many researchers think that it becomes reciprocal over time
with motivation influencing achievement and vice versa (Bandura, 1997;
Eccles et al, 1998; Marsh & Yeung, 1997; Wigfield, 1994). The question of
"which causes which" thus has been replaced by a more nuanced view,
emphasizing the mutual influences of motivation and achievement behaviors
on each other.
Each of these kinds of changes occur due to changes in individual chil
dren, as well as changes in the educational contexts children experience
(Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Wigfield, Eccles, & Rodriguez, 1998; Stipek, 1996).
As they get older, children become better at understanding and using the
evaluative information they receive. A personal example illustrates this
developmental change. The first author and his family were out for dinner
when his son Dennis, who was in first grade, brought his first report card
home. One of Dennis' friends asked him how his report card was. After hear
ing Dennis' answer, the boy proudly told Dennis he had received 'All Ss and
N/As." N/A of course stands for not applicable! By the second reporting
period N/As probably were no longer a source of pride for this boy, as he
learned to distinguish between the self-relevant and self-irrelevant informa
tion on his report card. As they continue through school this more sophisti
cated understanding of evaluative feedback continues to grow (see Stipek &
Mac Iver, 1989). At the same time, the kinds of evaluative information chil
dren receive, and the kinds of educational environments students encounter,
change in important ways as well. Ss (and N/As) are replaced by letter grades.
Testing and other forms of evaluation become more frequent. Students are
separated into different groups for instruction. All of these experiences (and
many others) influence children's motivation in important ways (see Eccles
Sr Midgley, 1989; Stipek, 1996; Wigfield gta(., 1998). Thus the development of
motivation is a complex interaction of change within the individual child and
change in the environments they encounter. Both kinds of change are dis
cussed by the authors in this book.
4 Allan Wigfield and Jacquelynne S. Eccles
PURPOSE OF THE BOOK
With these ideas about how motivation changes in mind, we invited promi
nent scholars in the achievement motivation field to contribute chapters to
this book, asking them to discuss how the motivational constructs upon
which they focus change over childhood and adolescence. We asked other
prominent scholars to provide chapters on instructional influences on moti
vation during elementary and secondary school. Thus analysis of individual-
level development and systematic age-related changes in the contexts of
different instructional practices form the core unifying theme of this book.
Given this theme, we invited scholars from both educational and devel
opmental psychology to contribute to the volume. There is interesting and
important work on motivation going on in both fields, as attested in part by
the presence of chapters in recent major handbooks of both educational and
developmental psychology. Despite this broad interest in motivation in both
fields, researchers in each field have remained somewhat separate, attend
ing different conferences and submitting their work to different journals. To
further our understanding of the development of motivation we believe it is
crucial to integrate the work across these two fields, and so included authors
who are prominent in each.
We wanted this volume to present a comprehensive overview of the dif
ferent theoretical models of motivation as well as the constructs associ
ated with these models, in order to provide as complete a picture as
possible of where the field is going. We thus wanted the book to be an
eclectic collection, rather than an in-depth look at one particular motiva
tion theory. Although not all current models are represented, most are,
including: self-efficacy theory, self-worth theory, expectancy-value theory,
entity vs. incremental intelligence theory, self-determination theory, inter
est theory, goal orientation theory, and social goal theory. The prevalence
of the term "self" is not an accident; self-oriented theories dominate the
field of motivation today.
A major concern we have about the motivation field is the proliferation of
terms for constructs that on the surface are relatively similar. The clearest
examples of this is the variety of related-to perceptions of ability and self-effi
cacy, and the variety of terms for different goal orientations (see the special
issue of Contemporary Educational Psychology from 2000 edited by Murphy &
Alexander, see also Eccles et al, 1998). Thus clarifying similarities and differ
ences among these terms was a major goal of this book. We addressed this
goal by asking authors in each theoretical tradition to define the constructs
they study and review the research on these constructs. We believe it is time
to begin consolidating these constructs. One way to do this is to examine
each individual construct very carefully, with comparisons to other similar
constructs. We asked authors to do this comparative analysis. Many did! We
hope such definitional clarity will move the field ahead.