Nianwu E

Publication Date

1998

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

D'Agostino, Jerome V.||Sheehan-Holt, Janet K.

Degree Name

M.S. Ed. (Master of Education)

Legacy Department

Department of Educational Psychology, Counseling, and Special Education

LCSH

Achievement motivation--Testing

Abstract

A model of achievement motivation was tested in this study. The purpose was to examine the effect of parent involvement and social economic status on student selfperception, motivation, and math achievement. The hypothesis of this study was that parent involvement and SES has an indirect influence on student achievement, mediated by student motivation variables. The Prospects data set was selected because it was a very large data set and representative of the primary-school student population. The third-grade cohort, which included 5,368 students, was used as the sample of the study. Structural equation modeling was used as the statistical analysis method to examine both the direct and indirect relationships between variables. In particular, LISREL VIII, a SEM statistical package, was selected to conduct the statistical analysis to test if the basic structure of the motivation model fit the Prospects data set and to test modified models with inclusion of parent involvement and SES. The results of the study supported primary elements of several major motivation theories. Results showed that past achievement influences student self-perception and achievement directly and that self-perceptions predict academic engagement, which in turn is a predictor of achievement, as is indicated by the four motivation theories. Further, two additional models were derived from the full model after model modification. In one of the resulting models both parent involvement and SES influenced student self-perceptions directly and influenced student achievement indirectly through self-perceptions and academic engagement. The results of the other model indicated that parent involvement was a predictor of academic engagement and indirectly affected student achievement.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references (pages [39]-41)

Extent

41 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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