This article presents
an analysis of the evolution of adolescents’ motivation
within the school context. Comparisons are made according
to gender and schooltracks. The study was carried out with
332 pupils of grade 7 through 9 who were asked to posit themselves
on four dimensions of the Multidimensional scale of motivation
for the school context (EMMAS, Ntamakiliro, Monnard & Gurtner,
2000), namely learning intention, subjective competence,
school attractiveness and test anxiety. Our results show
that if motivation globally declines over the three years,
differences in these evolutions appear according to gender
and track. An interaction effect between these three variables
can even be seen regarding subjective competence. These results
confirm the importance of taking into account these three
parameters in order to understand pupils’ motivation
and to sustain it during the critical phase of adolescence.
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