Research On The Relevance Between Academic Grades And Motivation In Middle School

Motivation is an important factor to drive students to study. To activate and keep different kinds of motivations of students is a crucial responsibility for teachers. It is not only to guarantee that students can actively devote themselves to learning, but also the requirements out of China’s education policies.However, currently teachers regard the whole student body as the object of their motivation activating strategy, thus neglecting differences between individual students, especially the differences in motivations due to different academic grades. This poses a negative effect on the effective use of activating strategy. Therefore, through the investigation on the current condition of students’ motivations, this thesis discusses the relevance between academic grades and motivations, reveals the facts and causes of differences between students with different academic grades, thus explores a targeted and effective motivation activating strategy.Through the questionnaire survey on 99 students on preparatory grade from a middle school in Shanghai about motivations, class observations, and interviews, this thesis analyzes the relevance between academic grades and motivations, and discusses the differences in motivations between students with different academic grades and the causes. This thesis reaches the following conclusion:1) Except for External regulation motivation, academic grades have significant correlation with other motivation; 2) From the perspective of External regulation motivation, there is no significant differences among three levels of academic grades; 3) From the perspective of Introjected regulation motivation, differences in the needs for approval causes significant differences; 4) From the perspective of Identified regulation motivation, different subjective values cause significant differences; 5) From the perspective of Intrinsic regulation, differences in autonomy, ability, and ownership experience cause significant differences.Based on the above conclusions, this thesis provides following suggestions on teachers’ role during the procedure of motivation activating:1) Correctly using controlled motivations; 2) Through the emphasis on the approval of learning and the development of interests towards learning, mainly activating autonomous motivations; 3) Letting the students know autonomy, experience ability, and feel ownership to foster the transfer from external to intrinsic.