Adolescent Motivation to Learn Science and Math Across Different Socioeconomic and Cultural Contexts

Student motivation leads students to engage in school and predicts academic achievement above and beyond intelligence and family socioeconomic status. Given the importance of student motivation, this study examined the link between student motivation and social environments indicated by national-level socioeconomic measures (i.e., national wealth, inequality, and social spending) as well as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. By utilizing large-scale assessments from more than 60 countries through multilevel structural equation modeling, this study analyzed adolescent motivation to learn math and science at the age of 15. This study finds that students in less affluent and more unequal countries with lower social spending (i.e., developing countries) showed higher levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to learn math and science. This finding is interpreted in light of the Expectancy-Value theory, suggesting that expectancy for academic success and subjective task values associated with learning are thought to be higher among developing countries. Additionally, cultural dimensions, such as low uncertainty avoidance and short-term orientation, were found to be significantly related to higher levels of student motivation. This finding suggests that motivation is context-specific and culturally bound. As a closing note, this study serves as an example of utilizing large-scale assessments (LSAs) to unlock the potential of LSAs to examine critical questions in human development and education from a comparative perspective. Keywords: Student motivation; Hofstede national culture; Large-scale assessments; Self-determination theory; Value-expectancy theor