The relationship between perceptions of instruction quality, intrinsic motivation, and reading achievement: a longitudinal analysis

ABSTRACT

This study including 3,089 students from 173 secondary schools explored the changes in students’ perception of classroom management and goal clarity throughout early adolescence (Grades 5 to 9) and its relationship with learning outcomes such as intrinsic motivation and school grade in reading. The results revealed: 1) Students’ perception of instruction quality, intrinsic motivation and school grade decreased over the years; 2) intrinsic motivation influenced classroom management perception, whereas the relationships between the classroom management perception and school grade were reciprocal; 3) the influence of goal clarity perception on intrinsic motivation changed over the years, and a positive influence on outcomes was only observed between Grades 8 and 9; 4) there were different results between male and female students as well as between academic and vocational tracks. The findings have implications for understanding the possible contextual factors related to the decrease in learning outcomes for reading in secondary schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Goal clarity
• classroom management
• intrinsic motivation
• school grade
• longitudinal

Acknowledgements

From 2008 to 2013, NEPS data was collected as part of the Framework Program for the Promotion of Empirical Educational Research funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As of 2014, NEPS is carried out by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) at the University of Bamberg in cooperation with a nationwide network.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

This paper uses data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS): Starting Cohort Grade 5, http://dx.doi.org/10.5157/NEPS:SC3:10.0.0. The data that supports the findings of this study is available from the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (https://www.neps-data.de/Data-Center/Data-Access). Restrictions apply to the availability of this data, which is the reason why it cannot be provided by the authors of the study. Survey questionnaires are available on the NEPS study website (https://www.neps-data.de/Data-Center/Data-and-Documentation).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung.

Notes on contributors

Ji Zhou

Ji Zhou is also a postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories in Bamberg, Germany. She received her PhD in Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, in 2013. She is interested in research topics such as learning motivation, contexual factors, and large-scale assessment.

Anna Hawrot is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories in Bamberg, Germany. She received her PhD in Psychology, University of Warsaw, in 2018. Her research interests include learning environments and their psychological and educational outcomes.