The continuity and stability of Mastery Motivation from Infancy to Early Childhood

• Main Authors: Su-Ying Huang, 黃素英
• Other Authors: Keng-Ling Lay
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/71275118595947690033

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 心理學研究所 === 101 === Mastery motivation in early childhood is an indicative index predicting children’s learning and adaptation. Thus, to explore the continuity and stability of individual difference of mastery motivation has become increasingly important. A sizeable proportion of previous works measuring mastery motivation utilized variable-oriented approaches and focused solely on children’s independent effort in challenging situation. However, these studies lacked of taking other dimensions such as self-regulation effort, resourcefulness into account and ignored the fact that mastery motivation is a goal-directed and goal-modified behavioral system in social context. This study adopted “the Q-set of Mastery Motivation for Infants and toddlers” (QMMIT) which was developed on the organizational perspective of behavioral system to examine the continuity and stability of mastery motivation from infancy to preschool age. Forty-eight mother-infant pairs were recruited to participate in two sessions of problem-solving tasks in a structured mastery context when infants were 9- and 48- months respectively. Results indicated that there were both similarities and disparities in the behavioral characteristics of mastery motivation between the two ages. As children matured, the saliency of certain behaviors remained the same while others fluctuated through time. The mean level of organizational configuration and most dimensions of mastery behaviors increased over two ages. Yet the behavioral response and negative emotion in facing challenges declined through time. The analysis of the stability in the whole group revealed no individual-difference stability of the configuration of mastery behaviors. However, after taken children’s learning experiences into consideration, the stability was found in children who did not attend any kindergarten or talent class. In addition, most of children’s mastery motivation configuration demonstrated ipsative stability.