Identifier	Thesis 1911
Author	McKay, Elizabeth A.
Title	Psychological sense of school membership mediates the relationship between attachment and academic motivation in adolescents
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	2007
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	Educators and policymakers have noted and expressed concern about a lack of academic motivation among adolescent high school students. Research has confirmed that intrinsic motivation does decline as students progress through school (Lepper, Corpus, & Iyengar, 2005; Gottfried, Fleming, & Gottfried, 2001; Otis, Grouzet, & Pelletier, 2005). Although the public often turns to schools to motivate students, research suggests that security of parent attachment is a strong predictor of academic motivation and performance (Larose, Bernier, & Tarabulsy, 2005; Soares, Lemos, & Almeida, 2005; Aviezer, Sagi, Resnick, & Gini, 2002; Wong, West, & Cusick, 2002; Anderman, 2002; Anderman & Anderman, 1999; Jacobsen & Hoffman, 1997; Jacobsen, Edelstein, & Hoffman, 1994). Secure relationships with parents have also been shown to predict the social success of offspring (Laible, Carlo, & Roesch, 2004; Schneider, Atkinson, & Tardif, 2001), so strength of attachment security with parents and ability to form secure attachments to peers seem to be positively related to one another. Additionally, social skills in the early elementary grades have been tied to later academic performance (Woodward & Ferguson, 2000), and adolescent social relationships have been linked to academic motivation (Soares et al., 2005; Learner & Kruger, 1997), suggesting that relationships with peers seem to be very important for academic success. Early acquisition of a model of secure relationships may help to explain why a sense of school belonging, which includes relationships to other students and teachers, is related to students' academic performance as well (Anderman, 2000; Anderman & Anderman, 1999). The present study investigated the relationships among attachment to parents, attachment to peers, psychological sense of school membership (PSSM), intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation, and academic performance. Self-report data from 173 high school students was collected and analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Significant relationships existed among parent attachment, peer attachment, PSSM, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, amotivation, and academic performance. Significant relationships were not found to exist between peer attachment and extrinsic motivation, or between peer attachment and academic performance. Multiple regression analyses revealed that PSSM mediated the relationships between parent attachment and intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivation. PSSM also mediated the relationships between peer attachment and intrinsic and amotivation. PSSM was not found to mediate the relationship between either parent or peer attachment and academic performance. Gender was found to be significantly related to peer attachment, PSSM, intrinsic motivation, and amotivation.
Subject	Education, Secondary Motivation in education
Department	Department of Psychology
Advisor	Waite, Bradley W.
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	713734367
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Psychological sense of school membership mediates the relationship between attachment and academic motivation in adolescents

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