Development of Achievement Motivation and Engagement

Abstract

In this chapter we review the research on the development of children's motivation and engagement. We organize our review into four major sections: the development of children's achievement motivation; gender, cultural, and ethnic differences in children's motivation; socialization of motivation in the family; and socialization of motivation in school. We take a social‐cognitive expectancy‐value theoretical perspective to organize our discussion of this work. We first discuss the development of children's motivation and engagement and take another look at the often‐observed decline in motivation, focusing on new work showing different patterns in these declines among different groups of children. We also discuss how children's motivation relates to their performance and choice, two kinds of outcomes of major importance to children's healthy development. The second major section discusses gender, ethnic, and cultural differences in children's motivation and the important advances researchers have made in understanding these over the past 10 years. In the family and school socialization sections we focus on processes by which parents, teachers, and schools can impact children's motivation both positively and negatively. We note the similarities of these processes across socializers: Providing appropriate challenges and emotional warmth and support, and having high expectations for children. We discuss the need for more integrative studies of how parents and also teachers impact children's motivation. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of important future directions: A continuing focus on culture and motivation, further examination of motivation in specific domains and contexts, a stronger focus on biological influences on the development of motivation, and a consideration of unconscious processes and their impact on the development of motivation.

Promotive and Corrosive Factors in African American Students’ Math Beliefs and Achievement

“…Eccles (2005) emphasized the importance of context and culture in academic beliefs and achievement: ''We believe, however, that these [achievement-related] choices are heavily influenced by socialization pressures and cultural norms'' (p. 10). Thus, the expectancy-value framework is well-suited to address our research questions (Wigfield et al 2015). This study examines how student beliefs are related to interactions with their teachers as part of the classroom context.…”

Beyond Cognition: Reading Motivation and Reading Comprehension

“…Prominent theoretical models of achievement motivation focus on children’s beliefs, values, and goals as the primary “drivers” of their motivation (see 9, 10). Central motivational beliefs include competence-related beliefs such as self-efficacy, or one’s confidence in one’s ability to accomplish different tasks (11), and the sense of control and autonomy individuals have over their learning (12).…”

“…Wigfield et al (10) review extant work on the development of children’s achievement motivation. In brief, many young children tend to have a strong sense of their competence for the different activities they do in school.…”

Predictors of changes in students’ motivational resilience over the school year

“…Because engagement is well-established as a significant contributor to students' academic success (Christenson et al, 2012;Fredricks et al, 2004;Jimerson, Campos, & Greif, 2003;Upadyaya & Salmela-Aro, 2013;Wigfield et al, 2015), it follows that motivational resilience, which brings students back to this essential engaged state, could promote students' achievement. Therefore, we expected that each component of motivational resilience would be positively and significantly correlated with academic performance at each time point.…”