Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations in the Classroom Age Differences and Academic Correlates.

This article written by Mark R. Lepper focuses on one particular model for testing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and it's correlation with age, race, and academics. The article introduces the scale, then proceeds to tell about an experiment to test and improve upon the scale, and finally tells what steps need to be taken to make the scale better and more widely used. The model/scale was created by Harter. In testing Harter chooses grades 3 through 8 as her test subjects. Now, her scale is broken into 3 subgroups, her scale being more linear, a students usually picks one or the other choice given, pointing them more in an extrinsic direction or intrinsic direction. These 3 subgroups are as follows: 1) preference for challenging schoolwork vs. preference for work that can be completed with little effort, 2) curiosity or interest vs. need to please teacher or get good grades, and finally 3) mastering material independently vs. depending on the teacher for guidance. When the scale is taken and tested it is found that together the tests prove that there is more of an intrinsic motivation earlier in the years, and as the children grow, intrinsic motivation decreases and extrinsic motivation stays relatively linear. They found while testing these subgroups however, that some children found a need for both in certain situations. For example, they may have a curiosity or interest in the work but also enjoy the healthy feedback the good grades provide them. During the study they also found differences within different cultures and their findings. Asian-American children tended to have a positive correlation between intrinsic work and wanting to please teachers while in Caucasian children there was a negative correlation between these. This is largely because in the Asian culture there is a different way of treating teachers and school then there is here in America, Asians prefer to have their parents/teachers choose activities and such for them while Americans prefer choices. In the end of the article different small suggestions, based on findings, were given to tweak the scale created by Harter. One comment made which I thought was very good and made sense was the one about the correlation with intrinsic motivation and how long the child is in school. The longer the child is in school, the more his/her intrinsic motivation for certain subjects goes down. This suggests, that as the children are bombarded day in and day out with the same information and projects etc., they decide that maybe it would be easier to choose the easily completed work, then to do that which is less interesting to them now that they've been involved with it so long. Interesting isn't it?