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This study examined the effects of motivation to learn science, science self-beliefs, and science instructional practices on science achievement of 13,985 15-year-old students from 431 schools across Canada. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses, while controlling for student-and school-level demographic characteristics, revealed the substantial predictive effects of motivation to learn science, science self-beliefs, and science instructional practices on science achievement of adolescents. Motivational beliefs-self-efficacy and self-concept-and enjoyment of science had substantial positive predictive effects on science achievement. In contrast, general interest in science had a negative predictive effect on science achievement in the context of other variables. Whereas science teaching using hands-on activities had a substantial positive predictive effect on science achievement, science teaching using student investigations had a substantial negative predictive effect in the context of other variables. The final HLM model indicated that only 8% of the variance in science achievement was between schools and 92% of the variance involved students within schools.

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The pattern of immigration in the last few decades coupled with the tendency for ethnic differences in educational attainment that persist over subsequent immigrant generations has led to an increasing gap in academic achievement between immigrant children, who have received little or none of their education in Canada, and nonimmigrant children, who have received all of their education in Canada. Educators tend to stress the socioeconomic and cultural factors affecting immigrant adolescents' academic achievement to the exclusion of the psychological factors that are also at play in the lives of immigrant adolescents. Therefore, this study examined the impact of psychological indicators, such as academic self-concept and academic motivation, on the academic achievement of immigrant and nonimmigrant adolescents in the Greater Toronto Area secondary schools. The immigrant adolescents in this study performed as well as their nonimmigrant counterparts in English and overall school performance. The immigrant adolescents outperformed their nonimmigrant counterparts in mathematics. The immigrant adolescents had higher levels of math and school self-concepts as well as higher intrinsic and extrinsic motivation than their nonimmigrant counterparts. Math self-concept was the only predictor of math GPA for both immigrant and nonimmigrant adolescents. However, both verbal self-concept and school self-concept were the best predictors of English GPA for both immigrant and nonimmigrant adolescents. While school self-concept was the only predictor of overall GPA for nonimmigrant adolescents, the additional factors of math self-concept and extrinsic motivation-external regulation were the best predictors for immigrant adolescents.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships among intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and academic achievement for the Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada in comparison to their counterparts in India. Descriptive discriminant analysis indicated that the Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada had higher intrinsic motivation and academic achievement than their peers in India. By contrast, the Indian adolescents in India had higher extrinsic motivation than their counterparts in Canada. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed the positive predictive effects of intrinsic motivation on academic achievement for both the Indian immigrant and Indian adolescents. While extrinsic motivation had a negative predictive effect on academic achievement for the Indian immigrant adolescents in Canada, it was not a significant predictor of academic achievement for the Indian adolescents in India. Implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed.

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Teachers’ self-efficacy is an important motivational construct that is positively related to a variety of outcomes for both the teachers and their students. This study addresses challenges associated with the commonly used ‘Teachers’ Sense of Self-Efficacy (TSES)’ measure across countries and provides a synergism between substantive research on teachers’ self-efficacy and the novel methodological approach of exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM). These challenges include adequately representing the conceptual overlap between the facets of self-efficacy in a measurement model (cross-loadings) and comparing means and factor structures across countries (measurement invariance). On the basis of the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2013 data set comprising 32 countries (N = 164,687), we investigate the effects of cross-loadings in the TSES measurement model on the results of measurement invariance testing and the estimation of relations to external constructs (i.e., working experience, job satisfaction). To further test the robustness of our results, we replicate the 32-countries analyses for three selected sub-groups of countries (i.e., Nordic, East and South-East Asian, and Anglo-Saxon country clusters). For each of the TALIS 2013 participating countries, we found that the factor structure of the self-efficacy measure is better represented by ESEM than by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models that do not allow for cross-loadings. For both ESEM and CFA, only metric invariance could be achieved. Nevertheless, invariance levels beyond metric invariance are better achieved with ESEM within selected country clusters. Moreover, the existence of cross-loadings did not affect the relations between the dimensions of teachers’ self-efficacy and external constructs. Overall, this study shows that a conceptual overlap between the facets of self-efficacy exists and can be well-represented by ESEM. We further argue for the cross-cultural generalizability of the corresponding measurement model.