Testing self-supportive strategies to regulate autonomy and motivation.

People regularly encounter situations in which they have to engage in tasks they find boring or irrelevant, in which case their autonomy-the need to act in ways that are meaningful for oneself-is impeded. When there is no motivational support available, individuals need to find ways to overcome their motivational barriers by themselves. Applying autonomy-regulation strategies may be effective for increasing autonomy and particularly the more adaptive types of motivation (i.

Robin Hood effects on motivation in math: Family interest moderates the effects of relevance interventions.

Using a cluster randomized field trial, the present study tested whether 2 relevance interventions affected students' value beliefs, self-concept, and effort in math differently depending on family background (socioeconomic status, family interest (FI), and parental utility value). Eighty-two classrooms were randomly assigned to either 1 of 2 intervention conditions or a control group. Data from 1,916 students (M = 14.

The Role of Family Characteristics for Students' Academic Outcomes: A Person-Centered Approach.

Using data from 1,571 ninth-grade students (M  = 14.62) from 82 academic track schools in Germany and their predominantly Caucasian middle-class parents, configurations of different family characteristics reported by parents were investigated. Latent profile analyses considering academic involvement, family interest, parents' self-concept, child's need for support, and parents' time and energy identified average, indifferent, motivated and engaged, motivated and disengaged, and involved families.

Fostering adolescents' value beliefs for mathematics with a relevance intervention in the classroom.

Interventions targeting students' perceived relevance of the learning content have been shown to effectively promote student motivation within science classes (e.g., Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2009).