Graduate Program

School Psychology

Degree Name

Specialist in School Psychology

Semester of Degree Completion

2002

Thesis Director

Linda Leal

Abstract

The focus of this study was to assess the relationship between perceived support of parents, teachers, and peers and academic motivation. The second focus was to assess which variable was more predictive of academic motivation. The Children's Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory by Gottfried, 1986, the Peer Social Support, Peer Academic Support, Teacher Social Support, and Teacher Academic Support subscales of the Classroom Life Measure by Johnson, Johnson, Buckman, and Richards, 1985, and the Family Cohesion subscale of the Family Environment Scale by Moos and Moos, 1994 were administered to the students. A total of 72 students from 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade served as research participants and completed all questionnaires. A Pearsons R was conducted to identify the relationship between academic motivation and perceived support of parents, teachers, and peers. In order to determine if perceived peer, teacher, and parent support variables were independent of one another, a bi-variate correlation was calculated. Results identified that perceived peer support was correlated with academic motivation when perceived parent support was controlled for. However, perceived parent support was found not to be correlated with academic motivation. When perceived peer support was controlled perceived parent support was not significantly correlated with academic motivation.

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