Who Loses Motivation and Who Keeps it up? Investigating Student and Teacher Factors for Students’ Motivational Development Across Multiple Subjects

Abstract

This longitudinal person-centered study investigated the combined role of student (gender, personality, choice of elective major subject) and teacher factors (perceived autonomy support, competence support, social relatedness) in explaining stability and change in profiles of extrinsic and intrinsic value beliefs in Mathematics, German, English, and French across Grades 9 to 11. In N = 850 (54% female, Grade 9: Mage = 15.6 years) Swiss-German upper-secondary school students, multilevel latent transition analyses revealed four rather subject-independent student profiles of extrinsic value beliefs across the four subjects, and five more subject-specific profiles of intrinsic value beliefs. Transitions into profiles with lower extrinsic value beliefs depended mostly on stable student factors such as their gender, elective major subject, and conscientiousness, whereas changes in intrinsic value beliefs depended mostly on students’ year-specific perceived need satisfaction in Mathematics and French. We discuss implications for the prevention of motivational decline.