Unifying the literature on students' academic motivation : a multidimensional and hierarchical representation of students' goals and academic self-concept

This study aims to unify two substantial literatures relating to student motivation by providing a more comprehensive model of students' motivation than has currently been developed to date. Specifically, students' goal orientations, as operationalised by the General Achievement Goal Orientation Scale (GAGOS), and students' academic self concept as operationalised by the Academic Self Description Questionnaire II (ASDQ II); are combined in one instrument in order to: (a) examine the psychometric properties of the combined instruments and (b) investigate the interrelated multidimensional and hierarchal structure of motivation and self-concept. Data collected over three years from 535 Australian High School students support the hypothesis that students' goals and academic self-concepts are interrelated components of an overall model of student motivation. Moreover, this model remains stable and invariant across sex and over time. The model provides a cohesive framework within which the interaction of students' goals and academic self-concept may be examined further.