Abstract
Past research has continuously shown that motivation in school declines across adolescence. To counteract potential declines in educational practice, the present study examines the motivational development of early and middle adolescent students within one school year and across two distinctive learning environments: a conventional teacher-directed learning environment and an individualized student-directed learning environment based on competency matrices. Based on a sample of 1153 (Mage = 13.97, SD = 1.37, 49% girls) students from grades 7 to 10, latent change analyses were conducted to examine within-school year changes in general self-efficacy and intrinsic value. Significant interaction effects of age and learning environment suggest that motivational trajectories may diverge from the consistent motivational declines that have been demonstrated by past research. Students from both learning environments differed in their general self-efficacy, but not in their intrinsic value.
Highlights
Empirical research has repeatedly shown that motivation in school decreases during adolescence
Students develop throughout adolescence in terms of physical and psychological maturation; their learning environments do not meet the needs of developing adolescents according to the stage-environment fit theory (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; see Rosenzweig et al, 2019), which was recently integrated into situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT; Eccles & Wigfield, 2020)
Based on SEVT and the empirical results outlined above, the present study examines the following hypotheses: H1: Generally, there is a negative development of intrinsic value and self-efficacy from T1 to T2, since students’ intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy tend to decrease during adolescence (Anderman et al, 1999; Urdan & Midgley, 2003; Otis et al, 2005; Gnambs & Hanfstingl, 2016) and during a school year (Corpus et al, 2009)
Summary
Empirical research has repeatedly shown that motivation in school decreases during adolescence. These declines have mostly been attributed to school transitions and to the lack of adaptivity of learning environments to maturing students (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Eccles & Wigfield, 2020). Students develop throughout adolescence in terms of physical and psychological maturation; their learning environments do not meet the needs of developing adolescents according to the stage-environment fit theory (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; see Rosenzweig et al, 2019), which was recently integrated into situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT; Eccles & Wigfield, 2020).
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