Cross cultural validation of the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM) : motivation orientations of Navajo and Anglo students

The Motivation Orientation scales of the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM) were validated across Navajo (n = 760) and Anglo (n = 1012) students in the U.S. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the 8-factor structure of motivation orientations for the total sample and the Navajo and Anglo subsamples, although Navajo students did not distinguish well between the Effort and Task constructs. However, of 39 survey items, only 30 items were invariant across groups in factor loadings on respective a priori constructs. The findings show that even though the ISM Motivation Orientation scales are applicable to students of different cultural backgrounds, meaningful cross-cultural comparisons should use the 30 items that mean the same to both cultural groups; whereas studies that do not involve cross-cultural comparisons may use the complete version of the scales.