The Development Of Self-determined Motivation And The Relationship Between Self-determined Motivation And School Engagement Among 8th Grade Students:the Mediating Effect Of Achievement Goal

Self-determination motivation is motivation of independent performance, a positive psychological quality that the individual decide and choose according to his own will. The Organic Integration Theory, self-determined motivation can be further divided into autonomous motivation and controlled motivation in accordance with the degree of self-determination difference. Among them, autonomous motivation refers to motivation of individuals out of their own will and freedom of choice(such as interest, personal beliefs, etc.)engaged in conduct that a higher degree of self-determined motivation; controlled motivation refers to an individual for internal(guilt) or external(others on request) pressure and the motivation to engage in an act that determines a lower degree of self-motivation. In the context of education, self-determined motivation will affect students’ academic behaviors,especially autonomous motivation is good for learning adaptation. This study presents the following assumptions: junior high school students’ self-determined motivation had significant grade differences;The students’ self-determined motivation,achievement goals and academic engagements were related each other, and the self-determined motivation could affect academic engagements through their academic achievement goals; Students’ autonomous motivation had independent implicit experimental effects. The study included the following three studies:Study 1: Self- regulation- academic questionnaire were used in the sample of 745 middle school students to explore the development characteristics of self-determined motivation. The results showed: self-determined motivation had significant grade differences. Among them,the 7th grade students’ self-determined motivation level was the highest.Study 2: Self- regulation- academic questionnaire, achievement goal questionnaire and school engagement questionnaire were used in the sample of 745 middle school students.The results showed: Students’ self-determined motivation,achievement goals and academic engagements were related significant each other. Overall, students had higher level of autonomous motivation tending to master- approach goals and more academic engagements.the self-determined motivation could affect academic engagements through their academic achievement goals.The 8th9th10 th grade students’ autonomous motivation predicted their school engagenment more than controlled motivation; The 8th9th10 th grade students’ mastery-approach goal act as the most postive intermediary effect. The 7th grade students’ path was more complicated than the 8th 9th grade students’.The 7th grade students’ predicted their school engagenment through performance-apprach and performance-aviodance goals.Study 3: The studies using a single class of implicit association paradigm(SCI-IAT) to investigate 90 7th grade students’ implicit autonomous motivation and the development types.The results showed: 1, Students’ autonomous motivation had independent implicit experimental effects. 2, The 7th grade students’ self–determined motivation can be divided into four categories: high explicit high implicit group, high explicit low implicit groups, low explicit low implicit groups, low explicit low implicit groups. Among them, the low explicit high implicit group was the highest proportion, the high explicit high implicit group was higher.In this study, the following conclusions:(1) The development of self-determined motivation of junior high school students with grade changes fluctuated, the highest level of junior middle school students self-motivation;self-determination of the level of motivation and no significant gender differences.(2)The self-determined motivation could affect academic engagements through their academic achievement goals.(3)The 8th9th10 th grade students’ autonomous motivation predicted their school engagenment more than controlled motivation; The 8th9th10 th grade students’ mastery-approach goal act as the most postive intermediary effect..(4) The majority of the students were low-high implicit explicit, implicit high explicit high motivation groups, and they had higher level of implicit autonomous motivation.