Increasing Academic Motivation in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students From Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds

Abstract

According to research, students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds have lower rates of high school graduation and university attendance. There is little research regarding interventions to address these issues. The current study compared the effects of two programs designed to increase academic motivation. Forty-seven high school female athletes from culturally and linguistically diverse and economically disadvantaged backgrounds participated in the study. The programs were implemented over a 12-week period, 2 days per week within the school day. One group received instruction using a program that was designed by the school's physical education faculty. The other group received instruction using the Possible Selves program (Hock, Schumaker, & Deshler, 2003). The researchers investigated the effects of the programs with regard to the students' level of hope for the future as measured by the Children's Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1994), records of the students' grades and number of administrative behavioral referrals, students' self-reports about their participation, and researchers' evaluation of the students' goals. The results did not indicate a difference in the students' hopes for the future. There was little difference in overall grade point averages and no difference in behavioral referrals between the two groups. The students' perceptions of their participation in the programs were similar. However, the students in the Possible Selves group indicated that they received more support from an adult during their program, and they reported higher levels of effort toward academics than the comparison group. The most significant finding was a difference in the quality of goals written. The Possible Selves group wrote goals and action plans that were more specific and realistic.

Rules of Engagement

“…Other researchers have found connections between a student's sense of belonging to a school, their engagement and development of important cognitive skills, and ultimately their achievement (Bryk & Schneider, 2002;Klem & Connell, 2004;Osterman, 2000;Walker & Greene, 2009). Evaluation literature of particular school SEL programs and case studies of schools also support these findings, including a number of case studies of urban public schools (Alexander-Snow, 2011;Cholewa, Amatea, West-Olantunji, & Wright, 2012;Del Prete, 2010;Kaylor & Flores, 2007;Lieber, 2009;Quint, 2006;Rhodes, Stevens, & Hemmings, 2011;Thompson & Ongaga, 2011).…”

The Context-Sensitive Future Self: Possible Selves Motivate in Context, Not Otherwise

“…The same is the case for programs meant to bolster only positive possible identities. These programs typically emphasize positive possible identities and ignore negative ones or treat them as to-be-abandoned (Kaylor & Flores, 2007). Since contexts are unlikely to be uniformly success-likely, these approaches are unlikely to yield robust effects over time.…”

Goals and hope in adolescent at-risk high school students.

“…They report that their "findings are consistent with results obtained among college students" (Curry et al, 1997) and older adults (Chang, 2003), suggesting that academic and intrapersonal variables are differentially related to hope levels among school-age youth" (p. 175). Kaylor and Flores (2007) identify culturally and linguistically diverse students in the United States as being a particularly vulnerable group o f students, with lower high school graduation rates and university attendance. They identified that previous researchers "found that certain factors are common among high-achieving minority students" (p. 68).…”

“…One o f those factors, identified by several of the studies, was goal orientation. Kaylor and Flores (2007) designed a study o f two groups o f students, one group participated in a program designed by the athletic department and the other group participated in a program called Possible Selves. "The concept of possible selves contains the premise that an individual sets goals and then creates a plan for meeting those goals by discerning aspirations and envisioning what and who they want to become" (p. 70).…”

“…All members o f the Possible Selves group developed more specific and realistic goals and action plans" (p. 85). Kaylor and Flores (2007) note in their limitations the short duration o f the study (12 weeks) and suggest that it would be interesting to follow these students supporting them in creating further goals and measuring their achievement. Lackaye and Margalit (2008) studied a group of adolescences with Learning Disabilities and compared them to their non-Leaming Disabled peers.…”