Motivation, Persistence, and Past Success as Predictors of Students’ Achievement: Moderation by Learning Disability Status

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Students with learning disabilities (LDs) often have lower academic performance than would be expected relative to their intelligence level (Horowitz et al., 2017). More generally, past studies have determined that motivation and persistence are important for the academic success of children (Jozsa & Morgan, 2014; Liu & Hou, 2018). Students with LDs also tend have lower levels of motivation, persistence, and academic achievement (Grolnick & Ryan, 1990; Seyed et al., 2017). To our knowledge, no studies have examined if the importance of motivation and persistence differ between children with and without LDs. We hypothesize that motivation, persistence, and past success, may be particularly important in determining the academic success of children with LDs.

The current study utilized the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K:2010), a nationally representative sample of over 18,100 children. This study focused on the fourth-grade academic year. Individual Education Plan (IEP) status was used as a proxy variable for LD status. Children reported on their motivation and teachers reported on student persistence. Direct cognitive assessments were conducted to measure academic success in reading and math. Gender, parental education, income, and child race/ethnicity were included as covariates in all models.

Stepwise multi-level regression analyses were conducted to account for the nesting of children within classrooms. Four models were conducted and compared across reading (Table 1) and math (Table 2) outcomes and by IEP status for each outcome. Each step of model building added the following variables, respectively: covariates (Model 1), motivation (Model 2), persistence (Model 3), and past success (Model 4) as predictors.

As shown in Table 1 motivation, persistence, and third-grade math scores all uniquely contributed to fourth-grade reading scores for children without LDs. However, in children with LDs, motivation and persistence were predictive of reading scores until third-grade reading scores were added to the model. Once prior achievement was added to the model, it was the only significant predictor of fourth-grade reading scores. As shown in Table 2, motivation, persistence, and third-grade math scores all uniquely contributed to fourth-grade math scores for children without LDs. Similarly, motivation, persistence, and third-grade math scores were all predictive of fourth-grade math scores for children with LDs. However, past achievement was the most significant predictor in children with LDs.

Overall, we found motivation and persistence are predictive of the academic success of students with and without LDs. Moreover, even after controlling for prior achievement, motivation and persistence positively predicted reading and math scores for fourth-graders without LDs, suggesting that motivation and persistence may help them overcome poor achievement in prior years. For children with LDs, past academic success was the strongest predictor of current academic achievement. For math only, both motivation and persistence were also uniquely associated with current math achievement. This highlights the importance of prior academic experiences and the role of social-emotional skills for math success for children with LDs. These findings highlight the value of early academic and motivational interventions for student academic success, especially for children with LDs.

Authors

• Rachelle M Johnson, Florida State University
  Presenting Author

• Jenna Elizabeth Finch, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Non-Presenting Author