Structural Models of Achievement Motivation

Abstract

A key observation when assessing achievement motivation is that students demonstrate significant individual differences on corresponding measures and that these measures show a complex pattern of mutual associations. The central idea of structural models of achievement motivation is to formally and parsimoniously explain these individual differences and associations by a small number of latent constructs. A series of structural models were examined that make different predications how to capture the interplay between domain-specific and domain-general components of academic self-concepts, interests, and anxiety, respectively. Further, these various structural conceptualizations of academic self-concepts, interests, and anxiety were synthesized into several alternative integrative structural conceptualizations of achievement motivation that cover both cross-construct and cross-domain interplays. These structural models formally integrate the fragmented and diverse research on different constructs of achievement motivation across an array of subjects. The statistical analyses were based on representative data from 11,646 ninth-grade students.