Effect Of Family’s Social Class And Autonomous Motivation On The Relationship Between Teacher’s Autonomy Support And Junior Middle School Students’ Study

According to social class psychology, lower class members of contextualism were more likely to be affected by the environment compared to the higher class members of egotism. Will the differences between lower and higher class members affect their learning behavior? What kind of impact would be on the individual’s learning based on the consequences of social class differences? Will the students come from different social class have the same level of motivation and engagement? Solutions to these questions may provide reasonable countermeasures to class solidification on psychological level, as well as offering practical implications for teaching and learning. Based on the self-determination theory and social class psychology, the dissertation attempts to observe and testify the influence of contextual factors (i.e. teacher’s autonomy support) and individual factors (i.e. autonomous motivation) on different class students’ engagement and academic records through five empirical studies.From different methodological perspectives, the first two studies support the hypothesis that teachers’ autonomy support has the positive impact on students’autonomous motivation who are from different social class. In study1, by using an instruction priming procedure, the author examined119junior middle school students in Wuhan and Xiangyang city. In study2, the author delivered the survey to a representative sample of344participants and then selected192typical subjects who are on behalf of the higher and lower social class students. Across these two studies, it demonstrates that the lower-class subjects had more autonomous motivation to study when their teacher gave autonomy support than controlled support. No obvious links between teachers’ autonomy support and autonomous motivation emerged for members of higher class members.The next two studies support the hypothesis that the teachers’ autonomy support apparently to enhance the autonomous motivation of the members of the lower-class, this relationship was mediated by students’ family social class. In study3, by using an instruction priming procedure, the author examined271junior middle school students from Wuhan and Xiangyang city. In study4, by conducting a questionnaire, the author examined491typical subjects from a representative sample of1211participants. Across these two studies, all demonstrate that teachers’ autonomy support was positively associated with students’ academic engagement. Autonomous motivation could mediate the relationship between autonomy support and academic engagement. Family social class moderated the association between autonomous motivation which aroused by perceived autonomy support and engagement. No links among autonomy support, family social class, autonomous motivation and academic engagement emerged for members of higher class members. Based on the finding of former studies, the last study further examined the effect of teachers’ autonomy support and students’ family social class on students’ academic record. In study5, using a questionnaire survey method, the author examined1502junior middle school students from Wuhan and Xiangyang city, support the hypothesis that teachers’ autonomy support was positively associated with lower-class students’ autonomous motivation, and thus affect their academic engagement, and ultimately affect their academic record. No links among teachers’ autonomy support, autonomous motivation, academic engagement and academic record emerged for members of higher class members. Finally, the conclusion is further discussed under the theoretical framework of self-determination theory and social class psychology theory.