Motivation and engagement in diverse performance settings: Testing their generality across school, university/college, work, sport, music, and daily life

Abstract

In the light of recent calls for more integrative approaches to theorizing and measurement in motivation and engagement research, the present study assesses the generality of key motivation and engagement constructs across seven performance domains: elementary school ( N = 624), high school ( N = 21,579), university/college ( N = 420), work ( N = 637), music ( N = 224), sport ( N = 204), and daily life ( N = 249). Based on domain specific adaptations of the Motivation and Engagement Scale, multi-group confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) tested invariance across the seven domains. First and higher order multi-group CFAs demonstrated broad invariance in factor loadings (in particular), factor correlations/variances, and uniquenesses across performance domains. Taken together, the present data support the hypothesized generality of key motivation and engagement constructs. Findings hold implications for pragmatic, statistical, substantive, and intervention considerations in motivation and engagement research and also for research into cognate constructs in personality psychology more generally.