Intrinsic, identified, and controlled types of motivation for school subjects in young elementary school children

Background There are two approaches to the differential examination of school motivation The first is to examine motivation towards specific school subjects (between school subject differentiation) The second is to examine school motivation as a multidimensional concept that varies in terms of not only intensity but also quality (within school subject differentiation) These two differential approaches have led to important discoveries and provided a better understanding of student motivational dynamics However little research has combined these two approaches Aims This study examines young elementary students motivations across school subjects (writing reading and maths) from the stance of self-determination theory First we tested whether children self report different levels of intrinsic identified and controlled motivation towards specific school subjects Second we verified whether children self report differentiated types of motivation across school subjects Sample Participants were 425 French Canadian children (225 girls 200 boys) from three elementary schools Children were in Grades 1 (N = 121) 2 (N = 126) and 3 (N = 178) Results Results show that for a given school subject young elementary students self-report different levels of intrinsic identified and controlled motivation Results also indicate that children self report different levels of motivation types across school subjects Our findings also show that most differentiation effects increase across grades Some gender effects were also observed Conclusion These results highlight the importance of distinguishing among types of school motivation towards specific school subjects in the early elementary years