Motivations of High School Students of Diferent Sex and Age

• Main Author: Irine I. Vartanova
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University 2018-09-01
• Series: Psychology in Russia: State of Art
• Subjects: motivation; learning activity; older adolescents; gender; personal development
• Online Access: http://psychologyinrussia.com/volumes/pdf/2018_3/psych_3_2018_15_Vartanova.pdf

Background. Te actual motive may be experimentally diagnosed through study of the system of perceived motivations. However, since perceived motivations are always expressed in terms that are not unambiguous (for a number of reasons, including age, gender, context, etc.), the experimental reconstruction of the actual motive is always associated with an ambiguity in interpretation of the respondents’ perceived motivations. We need to use a method of diagnosing motivations that would allow us to identify, for the groups of students studied, not only the contribution of a particular perceived motivation, but also the substantive features of the designated motives, through the pattern of correlations of these perceived motivations. Objective. Tis article presents the results of research on the age and gender specifics of learning motivations of high school students. Design. Experimental identifcation of their motivational profles was made by means of factor analysis, separately for each of four groups of pupils (in Moscow schools with a traditional learning paradigm): two junior groups (8th-9th grades, 14-15 years old) of boys (62) and girls (59); and two senior groups (10th-11th grades, 16-17 years old) of boys (63) and girls (54). Results. As a result, a motivational structure specifc for the corresponding gender and age was identifed and described. Conclusion. We showed that as a child grows up, the orientation in learning becomes more and more generalized, with a stronger expression for boys than for girls. In the junior group, girls have a motivation that is oriented to the future, whereas boys do not; such motivations in boys are seen only in the senior group and are inextricablymlinked to the parents’ approval. Both for boys and girls, the content of their motivation for cognitive achievement in the older age group is based on two motives, which are independent at the younger age: curiosity and prestige. However, with girls, apart from a desire to learn new things, the aspiration to difer notably from others and to demonstrate their achievements to others is signifcantly greater than with boys.