It’s Not Just About Rewards, I Am Also Interested In My Studies – A Longitudinal Measurement of Extrinsic Motivation Among Primary School Pupils

Abstract

Studies of Singapore’s education system have largely focused on the challenges the system faces in terms of ability-driven education and various educational policies. Some studies have focused on creativity and innovation in teaching, national education and teachers’ professional development. However, few studies have considered exploring student motivation.
Motivation is an important aspect in the field of education. Knowledge of student motivation may help teachers optimise the learning experience and thereby foster a lifelong enjoyment of learning in their students. If a student’s level of motivation can be measured early on in his or her primary years of education, it may provide insight into how it affects his or her learning.
Using organismic integration theory, which is a branch of self-determination theory, as its theoretical background, this study measured the shift in motivation as students progressed through their primary school years. It specifically measured the shifts in external, introjected, identified and integrated regulations of 179 students at a primary school in Singapore over three years.
The students were asked to complete a set of self-regulation questionnaires adopted from a study by Ryan et al. (1989) to measure the shift in their external, introjected, identified and integrated regulations as they moved from Primary 3 to 5.
The results of the study revealed a significant shift in the students’ external, introjected and integrated regulations albeit with a small effect size. However, no significant shift was found for the students’ identified regulations, and the effect sizes for both measures were small.
Although the students’ needs for reward and self-worth decreased as they went through their primary school years, the importance they placed on their schoolwork and their integration of these needs into a self-determined extrinsic motivation remained relatively unchanged over the years. The implications of these results for classroom teaching are discussed in detail.