Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 1 Running head: INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations in the Classroom: Age Differences and Academic Correlates

Age differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the relationships of each to academic outcomes were examined in an ethnically-diverse sample of 797 thirdthrough eighth-grade children. Using independent measures, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were found to be only moderately correlated, suggesting that they may be largely orthogonal dimensions of motivation in school. Consistent with previous research, intrinsic motivation showed a significant linear decrease from thirdthrough eighth-grade and proved positively correlated with children’s grades and standardized test scores at all grade levels. Extrinsic motivation showed few differences across grade levels and proved negatively correlated with academic outcomes. Surprisingly few differences were found based on children’s gender or ethnicity. Causes and consequences of the disturbing low levels of motivation for older, relative to younger, children are discussed. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 3 Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations in the Classroom: Age Differences and Academic Correlates I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. -Winston Churchill For the past half century, researchers have sought to study “intrinsic” motivation – the desire to engage in behaviors for no reason other than sheer enjoyment, challenge, pleasure, or interest (e.g., Berlyne, 1960; Hunt, 1965; White, 1959). This concept emerged, in the heyday of Skinnerian thought and research, partially as a contrast to the motivation produced by the popular behavior modification programs of that era, which featured a heavy reliance on more “extrinsic” incentives and contingencies. Indeed, many early experimental studies on this topic demonstrated that functionally superfluous, but salient and contingent, extrinsic rewards can undermine existing intrinsic motivation (e.g., Deci, 1971; Kruglanski, Friedman, & Zeevi, 1971; Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973). Under specific conditions in these controlled experiments (e.g., Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999; Lepper & Henderlong, 2000; Sansone & Harackiewicz, 2000), intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation appeared antithetical. As other researchers moved from the study of situational manipulations to the study of individual differences in motivational orientations, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation continued to be characterized as opposing poles of a single dimension. Indeed, arguably the most famous of these individual difference scales – that of Harter (1980, 1981) – assesses intrinsic motivation solely in opposition to extrinsic motivation. On this scale, for example, children are provided with an example of some academic activity (e.g., reading books) and are asked to indicate the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 4 extent to which they typically engage in that activity for intrinsic (e.g., enjoyment) versus extrinsic (e.g., pleasing the teacher) reasons. While it is a considerable strength of Harter’s measure that children are explicitly asked about the reasons for their behaviors, there is no way for them to indicate that either both or neither of these reasons may apply. Children can only indicate the degree to which they endorse one reason over the other. 1 Harter’s (1981) scale can be divided into motivational and informational components, and the former component has been used in numerous studies examining the relationships between intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and children’s academic behaviors (e.g., Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993; Guay, Boggiano, & Vallerand, 2001; Newman, 1990; Tzuriel, 1989; Wong, Wiest, & Cusick, 2002). This motivational component comprises three subscales. The first measures preference for challenging schoolwork versus a preference for assignments that can be accomplished successfully with little effort. The second measures the extent to which behavior is motivated by curiosity or interest versus a desire to please the teacher or obtain good grades. The third measures a preference for mastering academic material independently versus depending heavily on the teacher for guidance. Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation Harter deliberately designed these three subscales to represent intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation as contrasting ends of a single dimension, but one might imagine that this opposition is not always necessary or appropriate in the average classroom. The first subscale arguably could represent two opposing poles of a single dimension: As the desire for challenging work increases, the desire for easy work likely decreases. It is certainly possible, however, that one’s desire for either challenging or easy work might depend on the particular activity in question. The second subscale, representing motivation based on curiosity or interest versus on pleasing Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 5 the teacher or receiving good grades, more clearly seems to represent two potentially orthogonal motivations. Many children may engage in an academic task both because it interests them and because it will please their teacher or help them to earn a good grade. Finally, the third subscale of independent mastery versus dependence on the teacher may also involve potentially orthogonal constructs, in that children may prefer to solve problems independently up to some point, beyond which they may need to turn to the teacher for guidance. Thus, children may be motivated by both independent problem solving and assistance from the teacher, depending on the stage in the learning process and the particular problem in question. Across all three subscales, therefore, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation may not necessarily be polar opposites. Of course, with Harter’s (1981) scale, it is simply not possible for children to report themselves as simultaneously intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. A perfect negative correlation between these two constructs has been built into the scale. As Harter herself has noted, however, “...one can also imagine situations in which intrinsic interest and extrinsic rewards might collaborate, as it were, to motivate learning” (1981, p. 311). Indeed, Harter and Jackson (1992) found that a full 50% of their thirdthrough sixth-grade participants endorsed a “both” option added to her original scale. This leads to an interesting question: Given an instrument that allowed an independent assessment of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, would a perfect (or even a strong) negative correlation necessarily result? A first aim of the present research, therefore, was to examine the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation using independent measures of these two constructs. Age Differences Harter’s (1981) scale has nonetheless proved an extremely important addition to the field, largely because of the striking developmental trends it has revealed. Specifically, Harter and Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 6 others using her scale have consistently found a progressive and significant decline in intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation across the elementaryand middle-school years (e.g., Harter, 1981; Harter & Jackson, 1992; Newman, 1990; Tzuriel, 1989). Of course, because of the construction of this scale, it is possible that the real phenomenon demonstrated in these studies involves a progressive increase in extrinsic motivation – rather than a decrease in intrinsic motivation. Such an increase would hardly be surprising, given the heavy use of extrinsic contingencies and incentives in many American classrooms and the increasing importance attached to grades and test scores by our schools as students get older (e.g., Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Kohn, 1993). The origin of these age trends, therefore, remains unclear: Does extrinsic motivation increase, or does intrinsic motivation decrease, as children progress through school? If intrinsic motivation is decreasing, this suggests that the solution may involve increasing the challenge, interest, and relevance of the curriculum. But, if extrinsic motivation is increasing, this suggests that the solution may involve minimizing the reward systems and extrinsic contingencies prevalent in our school systems. A second aim of the present research, therefore, was to examine age differences, using independent measures of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In spite of this ambiguity in Harter’s original scale, other evidence suggests that there is indeed likely to be a developmental decrease in intrinsic motivation, even when measured apart from extrinsic motivation. Previous studies have revealed progressive declines in children’s commitment to their classwork (Epstein & McPartland, 1976), their enjoyment of academic – but not nonacademic – activities (Sansone & Morgan, 1992), their pursuit of learning goals (e.g., Anderman & Midgley, 1997; Maehr & Anderman, 1993; Midgley, Anderman, & Hicks, 1995), their valuing of effort (e.g., Covington, 1984), their perceived competence (Eccles, Roeser, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 7 Wigfield, & Freedman-Doan, 1999; Nicholls, 1978; Stipek & MacIver, 1989), their ratings of the usefulness and importance of school (Wigfield, Eccles, Yoon, Harold, Arbreton, FreedmanDoan, & Blumenfeld, 1997), and their mastery behaviors in the face of challenging tasks (Rholes, Blackwell, Jordan, & Walters, 1980). Similarly, the most recent studies using Gottfried’s (1985, 1990) more content-specific scales of “academic intrinsic motivation” likewise reveal a developmental decrease in overall academic intrinsic motivation, with particularly marked decreases in the critical content areas of math and science (Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 2001). By contrast, there is little evidence on which to base predictions about age differences in extrinsic motivation. On the one hand, given the increasing prevalence of rewards and other extrinsic contingencies in the middle-school years (Eccles et al., 1993), one might expect extrinsic motivation to be higher for older children. On the other hand, the rewards and contingencies that teachers and parents provide may lose their power over time, as adolescents may increasingly value the peer group and decreasingly value authority figures. Clearly it would be useful to examine age differences in extrinsic, as well as intrinsic, motivation. Links to Achievement What are the consequences of a potential decrease in intrinsic motivation as children progress through school? Several studies have shown positive correlations between intrinsic motivation and academic achievement (e.g., Gottfried, 1985, 1990; Harter & Connell, 1984; Henderlong & Lepper, 1997; Lloyd & Barenblatt, 1984), suggesting that a decline in intrinsic motivation may signify a decline in achievement. It is certainly not surprising that children might perform better in school to the extent that they seek challenges, are curious or interested in Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 8 their schoolwork, and desire to master tasks. Hence, we expected a positive correlation between intrinsic motivation and academic outcomes. How might extrinsic motivation relate to academic achievement? On the one hand, it may be that children who are particularly focused on the extrinsic consequences of their behaviors will do particularly well on objective indicators of performance. Indeed, recent research conducted with college-student populations has revealed that performance goals – which arguably have a strong extrinsic component – can predict positive achievement outcomes (Barron & Harackiewicz, 2001; Elliot & McGregor, 2001; Harackiewicz, Barron, Pintrich, Elliot, & Thrash, 2002). On the other hand, such a performance orientation may be less adaptive for elementaryand middle-school populations (Midgley, Kaplan, & Middleton, 2001), as shown in research linking performance goals with decreased cognitive engagement (Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988), a focus on ability rather than effort (Ames & Archer, 1988), selfhandicapping (Midgley & Urdan, 2001), and avoidance of challenge (Dweck, 1999). A third aim of the present research, therefore, was to examine the relationship between indicators of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and student achievement. Ethnicity A final aim of the present research was to examine these constructs and their relationships in a diverse population of students. Most intrinsic motivation research to date has involved largely middle-class participants of European descent. More recent research in the motivational literature, however, has begun to examine cultural differences, particularly between more “independent” Western cultures and more “interdependent” Eastern cultures (Elliot, Chirkov, Kim, & Sheldon, 2001; Iyengar & Lepper, 1999; Salili, Chiu, & Hong, 2001). For example, the classic Western finding that providing choices is beneficial to intrinsic motivation Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation 9 has proved more complicated than previously thought, among Asian-American populations. Thus, in studies with secondthrough fifth-grade children, Iyengar and Lepper (1999) found that intrinsic motivation was maximized for Asian-American children when choices were made for them by their mother or by a group of their peers, but was maximized for European-American children when they personally made their own choices. In particular, in cultures where the self has been hypothesized to be more interdependent and intertwined with significant others (see Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 2000), it may be less clear exactly what constitutes intrinsic and what constitutes extrinsic motivation. Is working to please one’s mother extrinsic – as has been traditionally assumed in Western research – or intrinsic – as might be the case when mother constitutes a significant part of the self? We were therefore interested in examining the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in both Asian-American and EuropeanAmerican groups. Specifically, we anticipated that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation would be less negatively correlated in Asian-American than in European-American children. In summary, the present study was designed to address four primary questions: (1) What is the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation? (2) Are there significant age differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation when these two constructs are measured independent of one another? (3) How are these two motivational orientations related to academic outcomes? (4) With respect to the previous three questions, are there significant differences between Europeanand Asian-American children?