Student motivation in fundamental education: relations between academic performance, self-image, attributions of causality and goals

Abstract

This study is part of a research that focuses on the influence exerted by motivational constructs of a cognitive nature - such as students' beliefs, goals and values - upon their motivation and academic performance. We have tried to identify the relations between low, average, and high levels of performance in the discipline of Portuguese language and the factors of self-image, attributions of causality towards success or failure, and goals described by students of fundamental education. A group of 159 pupils from the 6th and 7th grades answered to three specific instruments designed to evaluate motivational constructs. Significant differences were found related to self-image, to the attributions, and to the goals described by the pupils with high-performance against those demonstrated by pupils with average and low performance, with high-performance pupils presenting better self-image in reading and writing, attributing success more to ability and effort, and having stronger tendency to adopt the goal of learning, when compared to pupils with average and low grades. The results are discussed as indicators of the quality of the pupils' motivation and of their motivational commitment, as well as the importance of the influence of the classroom context upon pupils' understanding and the promotion of their motivation.