MOTIVATION AND EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES

In several recent studies, self-determined motivation has been linked to various educational outcomes across the age span, from early elementary school to college students. Some of these studies (e.g., Daoust, Vallerand,

& Blais, 1988; Vallerand, 1991; Vallerand & Bissonnette, in press) have shown that students who had more self-determined forms of motivation for doing schoolwork were more likely to stay in school than students who had less self-determined motivation. Others (e-g., Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, in press; Pintrich ,& De Groot, 1990) have linked intrinsic motivation and autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation to positive academic performance. Earlier, we identified conceptual understanding and personal adjustment as the most important educational outcomes. Several recent investigations have focused on the relation of motivation to these outcomes. Grolnick and Ryan (1987) and Grolnick et al. (in press) found that elementary school students who reported more autonomous motivation for doing schoolwork, in general, evidenced greater conceptual learning and better memory than did children who reported less autonomous motivation. An experiment by Benware and Deci (1984), showed similar results with college students.

Students who learned text material in order to put it to use reported more intrinsic motiva1,ion for learning and showed greater conceptual under standing than did students who learned the material in order to be tested. Similarly, Grolnick and Ryan (1987) found that asking elementary students to learn material in order to be tested on it led to lower interest and poorer conceptual learning than did asking students to learn the material with no mention of a test, even though the test condition led to short-term (less than 1 week) gains in rote recall that had dissipated 1 week later.

Gottfried (1985, 1990) measured intrinsic motivation for specific subjects such as mathematics and reading for early-elementary, late-elementary, andjunior high students. She reported significant positive correlations between intrinsic motivation and achievement (as measured by standardized achievement tests and by teachers' ratings of achievement). Relations between intrinsic motivation and academic performance were also found in complementary studies by Lloyd and Barenblatt (1984) and Haywood and Burke (1977).

Other studies have focused on personal adjustment- that is, on affective outcomes - as predicted by motivational variables. For example, Vallerand et al. (1989) found that students who had greater intrinsic motivation and identified regulation showed more positive emotions in the classroom, more enjoyment of academic work, and more satisfaction with school than did students whose motivational profiles were less autonomous. Ryan and Connell (1989) also found positive correlations between autonomous regulatory styles and enjoyment of school, whereas they found the more controlling regulatory styles to be associated with greater anxiety and poorer coping with failures. Finally, Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, and Ryan (1981) found a positive link between student's intrinsic motivation and self-esteem.

It appears from these and other studies (e.g., Connell & Wellborn, 1990) that students who are intrinsically motivated for doing schoolwork and who have developed more autonomous regulatory styles are more likely to stay in school, to achieve, to evidence conceptual understanding, and to be well adjusted than are students with less self-determined types of motivation. It therefore seems worthwhile to explore the social-contextual conditions that facilitate self-determined forms of motivation.