Longitudinal Cross-Gender Factorial Invariance of the Academic Motivation Scale

Abstract

This study examined the measurement and latent construct invariance of the Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand, Blais, Brière, & Pelletier, 1989;Vallerand et al., 1992Vallerand et al., , 1993 across both gender and time. An integrative analytical strategy was used to assess in one set of nested models both longitudinal and cross-gender invariance, and "interactional" and "simple" tests of invariance (e.g., cross-gender invariance across waves) were conducted. Results from a sample of 643 students (322 boys and 321 girls) across a 3-year time span showed good longitudinal cross-gender factorial invariance with different degrees of invariance depending on the sample, the educational level, or both. Implications for the validity of the Academic Motivation Scale, as well as for research on factorial invariance, are discussed.

Application of Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling to Evaluate the Academic Motivation Scale

“…This result supports the generalizability of the ESEM factor structure of the AMS responses across meaningful subgroups of participants, but also supports the use of the AMS in studies of gender differences. Furthermore, our results showed consistent gender-based mean differences across both studies that replicated the results from previous studies regarding gender differences in motivation factors (Grouzet, Otis, & Pelletier, 2006;Ratelle et al, 2007;Vallerand et al, 1997). Specifically, findings from both studies indicate that, when compared to men, women tend to be more intrinsically motivated by accomplishment, more regulated by identification and introjection, but less amotivated and regulated by external sources of control.…”

“…Research articles that measured only one type of IM (e.g., IM to know; Grouzet, Otis, & Pelletier, 2006;Ratelle, Vallerand, Larose, & Senécal, 2007) are not reviewed. We found a total of seven scientific articles that met this criterion.…”

“…In addition to representing a powerful test of generalizability of the results, this test also address the ability of the scale to be used in the context of gender-based comparisons. Previous studies have repeatedly found gender differences in motivation levels showing that females tend to present higher levels of types of intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, introjected regulation and lower levels of external regulation and amotivation than males (Grouzet, Otis, & Pelletier, 2006;Ratelle et al, 2007;Vallerand et al, 1997). However, no previous study has systematically investigated if this difference is due to gender bias in responses provided to the motivational measures, or to meaningful gender differences.…”

Revisión de la Escala de Motivación Educativa. Inclusión de la Regulación Integrada para Medir la Motivación en la Formación Inicial del Profesorado

“…This evidence allows to recommend the use of EME-R to study more deeply the differences in the levels of the distinct forms of motivation in men and women previously identified by the research (Grouzet et al, 2006;Ratelle et al, 2007). In turn, the analysis of internal consistency revealed acceptable values for each factor that comprised the instrument, not observing the problems of internal consistency ( < .70) previously shown for identified regulation (Núñez et al, 2005(Núñez et al, , 2010Stover et al, 2012;Vallerand et al, , 1989.…”

“…In this regard, the 7-factor correlated structure has been defended instead of diverse alternative models (Caleon et al, 2015;Cokley, 2015;Núñez et al, 2010;Stover et al, 2012). In addition, the EME factorial structure has been invariant across gender (Grouzet, Otis, & Pelletier, 2006;Ratelle, Guay, Vallerand, Larose, & Senécal, 2007); although this aspect was not tested by the work which originally adapted the instrument to the Spanish context (Núñez et al, 2005(Núñez et al, , 2010.…”