Bodkin-Andrews, G, Craven, RG, and Martin AJ - SELF Research ...

Student Motivation Scale: Research findings.
Testing of the SMES revealed that not only does the scale and its factor structure hold well against the rigours of
confirmatory factory analysis and its fit indices, but such results remain consistent across invariance testing for gender,
and three separate year groupings (junior, middle, and senior) within secondary school (Martin, 2004). More so, each
adaptive factor was significantly and positively correlated with academic achievement, class participation, school
enjoyment and future educational plans. For maladaptive factors, various relations were found with lower achievement
measures, lower class participation, lower future educational plans and lower ratings of enjoyment of school. Impeding
factors produced some negatively orientated correlations but mostly approached the near-zero correlation statistic. In a
separate large-scale study utilizing the SMES, Martin (2003) found that for students with English as a second language,
scores were significantly higher than students with English as a primary language for value of schooling, learning focus,
planning and study management, yet significantly lower for perceived control. Although Martin (2003) rightfully calls
for caution in interpreting these ambiguous results, they do suggest that the SMES is sensitive enough to identify
differing response patterns across varying minority groups, thus providing a potentially promising instrument for
assessing the motivational patterns of Indigenous Australian students.
Recently, a longitudinal analysis was conducted on responses to the SMES before and after a youth enrichment
program designed to enhance students’ abilities to focus on specific tasks, achieve a higher level of mastery, increase
the positive nature of self-attitudes, develop a stronger sense of teamwork, cooperation, community, and peers relations
(Martin, 2004b). In comparing the students that underwent this program with a separate, but comparable sample of
students, Martin’s analysis found that although the intervention participants initially scored significantly lower in
mastery orientation, planning and study management than the comparison group, eight weeks after the intervention,
these differences were not only erased, but the intervention grouped scored significantly higher in self-efficacy, value of
schooling, persistence, and significantly lower in uncertain control and self-sabotage when compared to the original
comparison group. The implications of these findings suggest that numerous facets of the SMES may be successfully
targeted by intervention strategies, and although no academic outcomes were measured in this study, adding the results
of this study with Martin’s previous findings (2004a), it does indirectly suggest that student motivation may be
enhanced to the extent that important educational outcomes may also be influenced in a positive manner. This could
prove especially beneficial in identifying and correcting potential motivational differences between Indigenous and non-
Indigenous students, hence lessoning the achievement gap between the two populations.
Student Motivation: Indigenous Experience
Although testing of the SMES is yet to be reported on responses by Indigenous participants, a smattering of other
studies and theoretical research suggests that various facets of the SMES could prove to be revealing in examining some
of the psychological mechanisms involved in the disadvantaged status of Indigenous Australian students (Boulton-
Lewis, Wills & Lewis, 2003; Howard, 2003; Martin, 2003b; McInerney, 2003; McInerney, Etten & Dowson, 1998;
Palmer, 2003; Parente, Craven & Munns, 2003) and other minority groups (Crocker & Major, 1989; Flowers, Milner &
Moore III, 2003; Hwang, Echols & Vrongistinos, 2002; Murdock, 1999; Murray, 2002; Osborne, 1997).
With regards to Indigenous Australian students, research directly examining the psychological mechanisms behind
motivational patterns is scarce. A qualitative study of 52 Northern Territory high school students by Howard (2002)
alluded to students having a lowered interest in the school system through the means of a problems with family support
(see also Craven & Marsh, 2004; Parente et al., 2003), discrimination from peers and teachers and a lack of confidence.
Burton-Lewis et al., (2003) conducted a small-scale, but detailed study qualitatively examining the study patterns of 15
Indigenous Australian university students and they found patterns of dissonance between conceptions of learning and
ways of learning. That is, although Indigenous students did not differ from mainstream perceptions of the value of
learning (e.g. mastery orientation), the majority of the Indigenous students interviewed used surface learning
approaches of simple rehearsal rather than understanding, leading Boulton-Lewis and colleagues to conclude that
Indigenous students need to be made aware of the value of “strategies that promote deeper engagement with
information and more meaningful congruent perceptions of learning” (p. 87).
One of the few authors to quantitatively examine the area of motivation within an Indigenous sample can be found
in the work of McInerney and colleagues (McInerney, 2003; McInerney et al. 1998). In an early study examining the
goal orientations of Indigenous Australian students, McInerney, et al., (1998) found that for a large sample of
Indigenous students (n=496), immigrant students (n=487), and Anglo Australian students (n=1173) drawn from both
rural and urban secondary schools, their motivational patterns were remarkably similar in that mastery orientations were
considered to be the most conductive to academic performance by all students, significantly more so than performance
and social motivation goals (although Indigenous students were significantly lower in mastery and performance scores
when compared to both non-Indigenous groups). Of considerable importance is the finding that mastery orientation was
the only indicator to significantly contribute to responses on value of school and further educational aspirations, even
though Indigenous students performed significantly worse than the non-Indigenous students. These results in part saw
McInerney et al. (1998, p. 626) conclude that despite similar adaptive motivational strategies, “Aboriginal students may
have fewer experiences linking mastery and performance to school success”. The similarity between this conclusion and
that reached by Boulton-Lewis et al. (2003) in their qualitative study should not be ignored.
That mastery orientation was the only significant motivational indicator on academic outcome variables is of
considerable concern, and as McInerney (2003) suggests, this may indicated a lack of utility of positive motivational