Journal of East China Normal University(Educational Sciences) ›› 2022, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (11): 80-91.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2022.11.007

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Developmental Trajectory of High School Students’ Academic Motivation and Its Relation with Academic Achievement

Yi Jiang   

  1. Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
  • Online:2022-11-01 Published:2022-10-27

Abstract:

As a bridge between compulsory education and higher education, high school education plays a vital role in Chinese education system. Whether students can establish adaptive motivational beliefs in high school significantly influences their future academic development. Using latent cross-lagged modeling, the present study investigated the longitudinal interrelation among self-concept, interest value, and effort cost in students’ academic achievement from grade 11 to 12 for both math and English domains. Results based on a sample of 694 Chinese high school students revealed significant reciprocity between self-concept and effort cost in math. In math, effort cost in the second semester of grade 11 also negatively predicted interest value in the first semester of grade 12. In English, the development of motivational beliefs is relatively independent, only self-concept in the first semester of grade 11 negatively predicted effort cost in the second semester of grade 11. In both math and English, self-concept positively predicted academic achievement, whereas effort cost negatively predicted academic achievement. Latent interaction analysis further revealed that there was significant interaction effect between self-concept and effort cost on achievement in the math domain. Findings of the present study highlight the importance of students’ motivational beliefs in influencing their academic achievement. In the meantime, the developmental trajectories of motivational beliefs are dynamic and demonstrate a clear pattern of domain-specificity.

Key words: academic motivation, achievement, high school students, longitudinal study, cross-lagged analysis