Poster #46 - Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in Bilingual Schoolchildren

• In Event: Poster Session 01

Abstract

Building from previous research showing a bilingual advantage in school (Portes & Schauffler, 1994; Tseng & Fuligni, 2000), we investigated the link between bilingualism and academic motivation. We asked whether bilingual students would exhibit higher levels of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation than their monolingual peers, and the extent to which those forms of motivation would be in tension with one another.

Both cognitive and cultural factors may underlie a motivational advantage, although previous research has not considered whether it would be intrinsic or extrinsic in nature. From a cognitive perspective, bilingual students may have enhanced executive functioning relative to their monolingual peers (Bialystok & Viswanathan, 2009). Such cognitive flexibility could help them to respond effectively to teacher demands (extrinsic motivation) and experience an enhanced sense of efficacy (intrinsic motivation). From a cultural perspective, children of immigrants who retain their parents’ country-of-origin language have higher educational aspirations than children of immigrants who only speak English (Portes & Hao, 1998). Being bilingual promotes communication of parental expectations and a sense of family obligation, which can manifest as working hard in school (Hardway & Fuligni, 2006). Based on both cognitive and cultural factors, then, we expected bilingual students to report higher levels of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation than their monolingual peers.

Intrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation are often portrayed as mutually exclusive, but this dichotomy may be culturally specific (Lepper et al., 2005). In more interdependent cultures different values could be attached to extrinsic motivation (i.e., essential for group harmony/belonging vs. threatening autonomy). Furthermore, for bilingual students who come from language minority families, leveraging extrinsic motivations may be essential for success. We therefore expected that the correlation between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation would be less negative among bilingual students than their monolingual peers.

Method
Bilingual status, intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation were measured at two time points in a diverse sample of 1047 3rd-grade through 8th-grade students (851 monolingual, 196 bilingual) from Portland, OR.

Results
As shown in Table 1, independent sample t-tests from the fall survey data revealed significantly higher levels of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations among bilingual students than monolingual students. For the spring survey administration, bilingual students had significantly higher levels of extrinsic motivation but not intrinsic motivation. These significant effects were small to medium in size.
As shown in Table 2, intrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation were significantly more negatively correlated for monolinguals than bilinguals, suggesting that the two motive types may be less antagonistic among students who speak a language other than English at home.

Conclusion
Bilingual students not only exhibited higher absolute levels of motivation but also endorsed intrinsic and extrinsic motivation simultaneously. For such students, there appears to be compatibility in learning for learning’s sake and engaging their schoolwork as a means to an end (e.g., fulfill family obligations, meet educational goals) – goals that have often been seen as contradictory in previous samples. Identifying distinct motivational patterns for bilingual versus monolingual students may help educators who wish to better support students' learning.

Authors

• Liantao Shan, Reed College
  Presenting Author

• Declan G Greenwald

• Tori A Boldt

• Brandon B Truong

• Giuido Gonzalez

• Carolyn H Chen

• Jennifer Henderlong Corpus