Facilitating conditions for school motivation : construct validity and applicability

Elementary students (n = 277, in Grades 5-6) and high school students (n = 615, in Grades 7-12) responded to 26 items of McInerney’s Facilitating Conditions Questionnaire (FCQ). Confirmatory factor analyses of the FCQ found seven distinct factors underlying these items. These were perceived value of schooling (Value), affect toward schooling (Affect), peer positive academic climate (Peer Positive), parent positive academic climate (Parent Positive), teacher positive academic climate (Teacher), peer negative academic climate (Peer Negative), and parent negative academic climate (Parent Negative). The Peer and Parent Negative constructs were correlated positively with each other but negatively with all the positive constructs. Also, academic achievement was positively correlated with the five positive factors but negatively correlated with the two negative factors. In addition, the seven factors were invariant across the elementary and high school subsamples. These results provide support for the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and invariance of the FCQ scales. Keywords: motivation; achievement; invariance; latent mean