The moderating effects of motivation, social control, and self-regulation in predicting academic achievement were examined in Grades 11-12 for 3,281 seventh through nine graders. Standardized assessments of college readiness and student self-reported measures of psychosocial factors were used in the study. The results showed that females in Grades…

Many large-scale, school-based interventions have attempted to improve academic performance through promoting students' growth mindset, defined as the belief that one's intellectual ability can increase with practice and time. However, most have shown weak to no effects. Thus, it is important to examine how growth mindset might affect retention…

The ability to retain educationally relevant content in a readily accessible state in memory is critical for students at all stages in schooling. We hypothesized that a high degree of stress in mathematics courses can threaten students' mathematics self-concept and lead to a motivation to forget course content. We tested the aforementioned…

Students' beliefs that success in science depends on exceptional talent negatively impact their motivation to learn. For example, such beliefs have been shown to be a major factor steering students away from taking science and math courses in high school and college. In the present study, we tested a novel story-based instruction that models how…

Mastery goals are generally considered the most adaptive achievement goals. In 2 studies, we tested whether, in line with self-determination theory, participants' experiences of autonomy support and autonomy would affect the relations between mastery goals and psychological outcomes. In Study 1 (an experiment), 117 college students, randomly…

The purpose of the current study was twofold: (a) to investigate the developmental trends of 4 academic emotions (anxiety, boredom, enjoyment, and pride) and (b) to examine whether changes in emotions are linked to the changes in students' self-regulatory strategies (shallow, deep, and meta-cognitive) and achievement in mathematics. Four hundred…

Is materialism systematically related to teenagers' learning motivation as well as actual learning outcomes? The reported research tested a theoretical model of associations among materialism, achievement goals, and exam performance among teenagers. Study 1 tested the theoretical model in 4 groups of teenagers drawn from 2 different educational…

This study provides the first longitudinally designed, classroom-based empirical test of self-determination theory's motivation mediation model. Measures of perceived autonomy support, motivation (autonomy need satisfaction), engagement, and achievement were collected from 500 (257 females, 243 males) 8th-grade students in Korea in a 3-wave…

A foundation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is critical for students' college and career advancement, but many U.S. students fail to take advanced mathematics and science classes in high school. Research has neglected the potential role of parents in enhancing students' motivation for pursuing STEM courses.…

This study of 397 undergraduate students examined relations between self-reported control, goal orientation, future time perspective, affect, and strategic self-regulation. Five patterns were found in three canonical dimensions. The high end of bipolar Dimension 1 linked high self-regulated strategy use and study effort to high self-efficacy,…

This study examined teachers' experience of autonomous motivation for teaching and its correlates in teachers and students. It was hypothesized that teachers would perceive various motivations posited by E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan's (2000) self-determination theory as falling along a continuum of autonomous motivation for teaching. Autonomous…