Middle School Students Academic Motivation: A Missing Element in General Education Quality Improvement Program in Ethiopia

Abstract

This research was conducted to show policy makers and quality improvement personnel how middle school students perceived the classroom goal structures; and how the classroom goal structures and students goal orientations related to  students’ academic effort and intrinsic motivation  employing the revised goal theory of motivation. 809 middle school students were taken from different schools by stratified and systematic sampling techniques.   The study came up with that mastery goal structure was high (Mean =2.49, S=.42) relative to performance approach goal structure (Mean =2.48, S=.42) and performance avoidance goal structure (Mean =2.28, S=.57); and also mastery orientation was high (Mean =2.89, S=.24) as compared to performance avoidance orientation (Mean =2.52, S=.49) and performance approach orientation (Mean =2.38, S=.57). A test of one way ANOVA revealed  a statistically significant mean difference on students’ mastery orientation between grade 6 and 7 students and between 6 and 8 students, F (2,647) = 6.085, p=.002. 7% of the variance in students’ intrinsic motivation in academic task was explained for by the linear combination of performance avoidance classroom goal structure, mastery goal orientation, performance approach orientation and mastery classroom goal structure. Similarly, 11 % of the variance in students’ effort in academic task was explained for by the linear combination of performance avoidance goal orientation, mastery goal orientation, performance avoidance classroom goal structure, and performance approach goal orientation. The study implies the General Education Quality Improvement Programs (GEQIP) in Ethiopia should be revisited in a way that addresses explicitly the motivation of middle school students at a classroom level