Applying Structural Equation Modelling on a Motivation Survey

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Abstract

In this research, Structural Equation Modelling was applied to analyze the relationships between latent variables measured by a Motivation Survey. Special attention was paid to the ordinal nature of the data. The model was split into several parts, containing Teacher Cues Monitoring and Scaffolding, Satisfaction and Frustration of the three needs Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness, and Autonomous and Controlled Motivation. The aim of this research was to find a suitable model and to discover how all of the latent variables mentioned above influence academic performance.
It turns out that Academic Performance was influenced most by Autonomous Motivation, which in turn was influenced most by Autonomy Satisfaction. When leaving out Autonomy Satisfaction, Relatedness and Competence Satisfaction also appear to have a positive influence on Autonomous Motivation, which in turn are positively influenced by Monitoring and especially Scaffolding. The results have implications for education purposes, in the sense that it gives some insight with respect to teachers’ involvement in students’ academic performance.