Currently, the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) jobs are expanding faster than the U.S. labor market; yet many individuals with STEM degrees choose to work in other fields. The present study uses social cognitive career theory as a framework for researching the impact of several variables on future expectations to…

Students' beliefs that success in science depends on exceptional talent negatively impact their motivation to learn. For example, such beliefs have been shown to be a major factor steering students away from taking science and math courses in high school and college. In the present study, we tested a novel story-based instruction that models how…

Person-centered analyses of achievement goals have been scarce in studies of elementary school children. In this investigation, the authors examined the natural combinations of achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, performance-avoidance) among 3rd grade students (N = 195) and how clusters differed in self-, teacher-, and peer-reported…

Although students' motivational frameworks (entity vs. incremental) have been linked to academic achievement, little is known about how early this link emerges and how motivational frameworks develop in the first place. In a year-long study (student N = 424, Teacher N = 58), we found that, as early as 1st and 2nd grade, children who endorsed an…

The present study aimed to examine distance learners' goal profiles and their contrasting patterns of learning and achievements at three different points during an academic year, i.e. in the beginning of the course in relation to learners' general orientations to learning, at the middle of the course in relation to learners' completion of an…

Helping low-achieving students with learning disabilities and/or emotional-behavioural difficulties to develop the component skills for Self-Regulated Learning (SRL), such as setting and monitoring learning goals, is important for their success, both in and beyond school. This study examined the effects of a goal setting intervention on…

The aims of this study were to investigate the effects of discrepancies between teachers' perceptions of students' motivation and students' reports of their motivation on math and English grades and to identify possible gender and ethnic differences. Participants included 215 low-income, ethnic-minority students and their teachers in academically…

Theoretical models were tested using structural equation modeling to evaluate the interrelations among cognitive motivational variables and academic achievement using a sample of 128 predominately Hispanic pre-service teachers enrolled in two undergraduate educational psychology classes. Data were gathered using: (1) a quantitative questionnaire…

Relationships between cultural factors (ethnicity and religiosity) and dimensions of students' attributions for their success and failure (locus of control, stability, personal control and external control), along with motivational goals (learning, performance approach, performance avoidance, and work avoidance), self-efficacy, intelligence…