Motivation to Succeed - Subject Follow-up

This measure appears in the following time-points: Follow06, Follow12, Follow18, Follow24, Follow30, Follow36, Follow48, Follow60, Follow72, Follow84.

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Related Construct

Academic Achievement and Commitment

Description of Measure

The motivation to succeed items are taken from Eccles et al. (1998). Six items tap the subject's assessment of the opportunities available in his/her neighborhood regarding schooling and work. At each follow-up interview, this measure reflects the perceived opportunities for the neighborhood where the adolescent lived the longest during the recall period. An additional two items are included regarding the adolescent's perceptions of how far they would like to go in school and how far they think they will go in school. These are treated as individual items.

Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on the summary scale using these six items. A model with acceptable fit was found for the baseline data, using Maximum Likelihood Estimation with Correction for Non-normality, allowing terms #44 and #45 to correlate (CFI=0.971; RMSEA=0.049). This same model was fit to each of the follow-up data sets through 24 months, and an acceptable fit was obtained at each of these follow-up points as well.

An overall "motivation to succeed" score [S#MOTSUC] is computed from the six items (S#SCH_SCH40 through S#SCH_SCH45). This score represents the mean of the items, after items S#SCH_SCH42 through S#SCH_SCH45 are reverse coded. A higher score indicates more optimism regarding future success. Data must be contained in four of the six items in order to receive a computed mean.

The following individual items are also available:

In my neighborhood easy for young person to get good job [S#Sch_Sch40]
Most of my friends will graduate from high school [S#Sch_Sch41]
In my neighborhood hard to make money without doing something illegal [S#Sch_Sch42]
College too expensive for most people in my neighborhood [S#Sch_Sch43]
Not much opportunity to succeed as kids from other neighborhoods [S#Sch_Sch44]
Chances of getting ahead/being successful not very good [S#Sch_Sch45]
How far would you LIKE to go in school [S#Sch_Sch46]
How far do you THINK you will go in school [S#Sch_Sch47]

References

Eccles, J.S., Wigfield, A., & Schiefele, U., (1998). Motivation to succeed. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) and N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (5th ed., Vol. III, pp. 1017-1095). New York: Wiley.