Social Influences on Academic Motivation in Early Elementary School Students

The goal of this research is to identify correlations between academic intrinsic motivation and exposures to academic activities within the home acknowledged by young children (5 to 8 years old). This study hopes to clarify relationship between academic intrinsic motivation and exposure to positive role modeling of academic activities in young children. Much of the data was collected by interview-style surveys conducted with a sample of 18 boys and girls of ages between 5 and 8 years. The Child-Reported Home Reading and Math Exposure Questionnaire (HEQ) was developed by the author for this study to assess the extent to which a child recognizes instances where reading and mathematics are positively modeled in the home and the extent to which that positive modeling conveys to the child the sense that those activities are enjoyable and important. It can be concluded from the data that childrens exposure to positive reading role-models at home correlates significantly with academic intrinsic motivation for reading, math, and school in general. In contrast, childrens exposure at home to positive math role-models did not correlate significantly to any of the measured areas of motivation, including math motivation