Within-grade changes in Korean girls' motivation and perceptions of the learning environment across domains and achievement levels

This study tested whether students' motivation and perceptions of the learning environment changed significantly within the school year. Korean high school girls' (N = 375) perceptions of the performance goal structures in the environment increased significantly throughout the school year. The girls' personal achievement goals and task value demonstrated few significant within-grade changes, but their self-efficacy fluctuated significantly around examinations. Motivational beliefs were more stable than were perceptions of the environment. Nevertheless, the modified perceptions of the learning environment explained changes in motivation, justifying continued efforts to create a motivationally adaptive environment. Construct relations were consistent across different academic contexts. There was no evidence that low-achieving girls responded more negatively to the classroom performance goals than did their better-achieving peers. Copyright 2005 by the American Psychological Association

Academic motivation in self-efficacy, task value, achievement goal orientations, and attributional beliefs

The author assessed academic self-efficacy, task value, ability and effort attributions and mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance achievement-goal orientations in reference to English, Korean, mathematics, and general school learning among 389 Korean high school girls. Results corroborated M. Bong's (2001) previous report that students form motivational beliefs that are subject-matter specific and that some beliefs generalize more than others across multiple academic domains. On average, attributional beliefs appeared least "generalizable," followed by task value and mastery achievement-goal orientations. Academic self-efficacy beliefs were correlated moderately, whereas performance-approach and performance-avoidance achievement-goal orientations demonstrated strong correlation across different contexts. Motivational beliefs in each of the specific school subjects were more strongly correlated with motivational beliefs in general school learning than with beliefs in other areas of subject matter