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Profiles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: A person-centered approach to motivation and achievement in middle school

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Abstract

The present study was designed to identify and evaluate naturally-occurring combinations of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. Cluster analysis revealed four distinct motivational profiles based on a sample of middle-school students (N = 343): those with high levels of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations (high quantity), low levels of both types of motivation (low quantity), high intrinsic coupled with low extrinsic motivation (good quality) and low intrinsic coupled with high extrinsic motivation (poor quality). Across two time points, students in the good quality cluster received higher grades than their peers in other clusters with poorer quality motivation, even if that motivation was present in high quantities. An examination of shifts in motivational profiles over the course of a school year revealed an intriguing balance of stability and change. Consistent with variable-centered research, movement tended to be away from the good quality and high quantity clusters and toward the poor quality and low quantity clusters.

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Notes

  1. The sample for the present study was a subset of that reported in Corpus et al. (2009), which focused on patterns of change in third- through eighth-grade students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations using a variable-centered approach. The present study is distinct in that it uses a person-centered framework to explore motivational profiles and their correlates.

  2. Although organizing data from single participants as representing different i-states may appear to violate concerns about independent observations, readers can be assured that clustering is a simple algorithm not subject to the same assumptions as statistical tests of significance. Hypothesis testing was only performed once the data were reorganized into multiple waves of data for individual participants, and only for one wave of i-states at a time.

  3. An ANCOVA using the cubic transformation of GPA as dependent variable was also conducted to address a violation of the homogeneity of variance assumption, F(3, 290) = 9.10, p < .01, η 2p  = .08. Findings were identical to those using the raw GPA data.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is based, in part, on the first author’s senior thesis. Funding for this research was provided by a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship to the second author. We thank the research assistants who helped to collect the data, the participating students, and Stephanie Wormington for help with manuscript preparation.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR, 97202, USA

    Amynta O. Hayenga & Jennifer Henderlong Corpus

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  1. Amynta O. Hayenga
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  2. Jennifer Henderlong Corpus
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Correspondence to Jennifer Henderlong Corpus.

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Hayenga, A.O., Corpus, J.H. Profiles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: A person-centered approach to motivation and achievement in middle school. Motiv Emot 34, 371–383 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-010-9181-x

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